Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney

by G. E. Mitton; John Cunningham Geikie

On May 3, 1820, Queen Caroline, wife of George IV., came to live at Brandenburg House, and on the fifteenth of that month was presented with a congratulatory address by the inhabitants of Hammersmith. On the abandonment of the Bill of "Pains and Penalties" by the House of Lords she received a second address. She had been petitioned by people of all classes and conditions during the progress of the Bill, the demonstration of the watermen and lightermen of the Thames on October 8 having been especially noticeable. The Queen had stood on the balcony of her residence and bowed her acknowledgments to the enthusiastic crowd. The Queen died in 1821, and the King caused the house to be destroyed shortly afterwards, it is said, in jealousy of her popularity.

In a villa near Brandenburg House lived Mrs. Billington, the famous singer, who died at Venice in 1818. At her death Sir John Sibbald, a Civil Servant of the East India Company, and at one time Ambassador to the Court of Hyder Ali Khan, bought the house. It was tenanted later by the novelist Captain Marryat, R.N. Southward there is a large extent of ground devoted to market-gardens, for which Fulham has long been famous. This is broken only by a few houses about Crabtree Alley and Crabtree Lane. Close to the latter is St. Clement's Church, of yellow brick, consecrated in 1886. The reredos painting is in the early Florentine style, and represents the Resurrection. There are several stained-glass windows and a handsome wrought-iron chancel-screen. The font and its cover were originally at St. Matthew's, Friday Street. Opposite to the church is a public recreation-ground, and south of it the Fulham cemetery, not so large, but more thickly planted with shrubs than that of Hammersmith, already noted.

St. James's Diocesan Home for Penitents is on the river side of the Fulham Palace Road. It was originally established in 1856, though it was not then in Hammersmith. Funds failed, and the institution would have come to an untimely end but for the intervention of the then Bishop of London, who made the Home diocesan; the present building was erected in 1871. The total number of inmates at present is 76. These are employed at laundry and needle work, etc. The penitents are divided into three classes, and are employed according to their position. Very nearly opposite to the Home are the Fulham Waste Land and Lygon Almshouses. The buildings form two sides of a square, the sides being respectively for married and single pensioners. The latter may be of either sex. The married couples have two rooms and a small scullery, and receive 8s. a week. The single persons have one room, with 5s. per week. The houses are neatly built of brick with slate roofs and high chimneys. In the centre there is a room used as a chapel. There are altogether fourteen inmates. On a stone let into the wall nearest the road is the inscription: "The Fulham Waste Land and Lygon Almshouses, founded 1833 and rebuilt 1886. This stone was laid by Frederick, Lord Bishop of London, April 21, 1886."

The origin of the double name was in this wise: The vestry of the parish of Fulham and Hammersmith in 1810 had a fund of money derived from the enclosure of certain waste lands belonging to the parish. By 1833 this fund had so much increased that it was resolved to build almshousess, which were accordingly erected on a piece of land in the Dawes Road. In the beginning of the eighties Lady Lygon bought a piece of land in the Fulham Palace Road for the purpose of founding almshouses on it. This project was never carried out, and the ground was eventually given to the Waste Land Trustees, who built the present almshouses on it in 1886.

The part of Fulham to the east of the Fulham Palace Road is very dreary; long, dull streets, lined by small houses and varied by small chapels and big Board schools, constitute an area at the best highly respectable, and at the worst squalid. It is useless to enumerate all the churches and chapels that have sprung up here, particularly as there are none of any architectural or historical interest. They have been built from time to time to meet the rapid increase of population in a growing district that will doubtless soon spread over the market-gardens that now reach the river. The principal churches are St. Augustine's, in Lillie Road, of red brick with freestone dressings; and St. Peter's, in Reporton Road, which contains a pulpit that might make more ancient churches proud, for it is of carved oak, and is supposed to be the work of Grinling Gibbons. It came from St. Matthew's, Friday Street. The Church of St. Thomas of Canterbury in Rylston Road is Roman Catholic, and was designed by Pugin, who also designed the altars and reredos of the minor chapels in it.

Lillie Road is so named after Sir John Lillie, who was a director of the East India Company and lived at Fulham. To Normand House in Normand Road there is some interest attached. The name is supposed to be a corruption of "No-man." Bowack alludes to it thus: "There is also a handsome ancient seat in Fulham Field called No-Man's-Land House, now belonging to —— Wild, Esq. The piece of ground which it stands on was known as No-Man's-Land." The date 1664 is worked into the iron scroll-work of a gateway. The house has been considerably added to from time to time, but the wide, low passage with its pretty archways and panelling, which is seen on entrance, is distinctly one of the oldest parts. Two staircases, one of which is carved with the Tudor roses, are very picturesque. Many of the rooms are panelled. Crofton Croker gives the date incorrectly as 1661. He adds: "It is said to have been used as a hospital for persons recovering from the Great Plague in 1665." Sir E. Bulwer Lytton resided here at one time. Later on it was used as a lunatic asylum, and was so when Thorne wrote his "Environs" in 1876. It is now the Community of the Sisters of St. Katherine for the work of assisting and rescuing young women convicted of a first offence or discharged for dishonesty without conviction, but otherwise of good moral character. The girls are employed in house and laundry work, which is taken in from outside, and the proceeds go to the funds. After two years' training they are placed in service. This institution has a branch at Hammersmith, and a small one at Walham. It belongs to the Church of England. In Lillie Road, to the east of North End Road, is the Mount Carmel Hermitage. This convent is a red-brick building with a small chapel attached, erected in 1880 by some French Sisters who had come to London in 1865, and settled at Fulham in 1867 in a house near the site of the present convent. There are eleven nuns, of whom three are lay Sisters. They are devoted to the contemplative life. Just opposite is a large brewery, established 1867. At the east end of Eustace Road is a small brick Wesleyan chapel, hidden away in a corner, which deserves a word of mention, as it is a German chapel and the services are in that language.

The Fulham Congregational Church in Dawes Road is a large building of red brick with stone facings, opened on April 5, 1887. There is a lecture-room beneath, besides library, class-rooms, and infant Sunday-school.

We have now arrived at Walham Green, once a small village standing in the fields. It has been variously spelt. In a map of 1686 by Lea it is "Wollam," and in 1706 "Wallam"; in a 1720 map (Seale) it is "Wallom," and in Rocque of 1754 "Wallam" again. Before 1686 it was Wandon and Wansdon, according to Crofton Croker, and Lysons derives it from Wendon, either because the traveller had to wend his way through it to Fulham, or because the drainage from higher grounds "wandered" through it to the river. The Church of St. John is situated at Walham Green. It has a high square tower with corner pinnacles, and is partly covered with ivy. It is built of stone, and the total cost was about £9,680. It was consecrated on August 14, 1828, and restored in 1892-93. The schools in connection with it, built in 1894, stand in the Dawes Road opposite. Passing eastward on the Fulham Road, we come to the Walham Green Station of the District Railway. Just opposite is the Town Hall, a square building of brick with stone frontage, ornamentally decorated with carving. It was built in 1891. Further on, on the opposite side, is the Wesleyan Chapel at Walham Green, opened in April, 1892. The buildings are of brick, with stone dressings. In the Moore Park Road, which branches off the Fulham Road near the boundary, stands St. James's Church, an ugly brick building with no spire or tower, which was consecrated on June 28, 1867, and the apse was built out at the east end about a dozen years later. There is a row of stained-glass windows low down across the west end. Going back to Walham Green proper, we find a double row of almshouses, shut off from the Vanston Place Road by iron gates. These are the almshouses of the Butchers' Charitable Institution, which was founded on October 16, 1828. The almshouses themselves were begun at Walham Green in 1840. The object is described in the report as "for affording relief to decayed or distressed master butchers, master pork-butchers, cattle and meat commission salesmen, their widows and orphans."

In Fulham Road, westward, John Rocque lived. His maps of London and environs are still used by all topographers, and are full of accurate detail. In the map published in 1741-45 his name is printed across the road at this spot. On the south side of the road formerly stood Ravensworth House, pulled down in 1877. The site of it is now occupied by the Swan Brewery. The grounds of Ravensworth House stretched out as far as the present railway, where there was a large pond. When Thorne wrote his "Environs" in 1876, the house was still standing, and he describes it as of "but moderate proportions, but more capacious than it looks." The Queen and Prince Consort were entertained here by Lord Ravensworth in 1840. Faulkner refers to Ravensworth House as "Mr. Ord's house and garden," and mentions the Glastonbury thorn which flowered on Christmas Day, and the moss-rose which, being "laid" year after year, at length covered a space in diameter 47 feet. The Swan Brewery, owned by Messrs. Stansfeld, was founded on the same site in 1765. It passed through several hands, and eventually, in 1880, Messrs. Stansfeld acquired possession and proceeded to erect new premises. Bolingbroke House was a little further on. Tradition says it was the residence of Lord Bolingbroke, who was visited here by Pope. It was eventually divided into two houses—Dungannon House and Albany Lodge—and these were demolished only in 1893. Dungannon House was also known as Acacia Cottage, and in it lived the first publisher of Cowper's works—a Mr. Joseph Johnson—until 1809.

We are now at Purser's Cross, and after a digression southward shall presently return. East End House, pulled down in 1885, stood at the corner where Delvino Road now joins the Green. It was the residence for some time of Mrs. Fitzherbert, morganatic wife of George, Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV. It was built by Sir Francis Child, Lord Mayor of London in 1699, and was a plain white house. Admiral Sir Charles Wager and Dr. Ekins, Dean of Carlisle, lived here at different times. The gardens stretched over much of the land now built upon at the back, and contained a magnificent cedar-tree, which had to be blown up by dynamite when the house was pulled down. Sir Thomas Bodley, founder of the Bodleian Library at Oxford, lived at Parson's Green from 1605 to 1609 (Lysons).