I Never Knew That About London

by Christopher Winn

PORTOBELLO ROAD was named in honour of Admiral Vernon’s capture of Puerto Bello in Central America from the Spanish in 1739. One of the officers under Vernon’s command was Lawrence Washington, half-brother of America’s first president, George Washington. When Lawrence later built a house for himself in Virginia, he named it Mount Vernon in honour of his commanding officer. George Washington inherited the house in 1761 and lived there for 45 years.

  Portobello Road antiques market is now London’s most popular antiques market. The first antique store on the road was opened by JUNE AYLWARD in 1950, at No. 115.

  Notting Hill’s LADBROKE SQUARE GARDENS is THE LARGEST PRIVATE GARDEN SQUARE IN LONDON. In 1837 a racecourse called the Hippodrome was laid out around the hill on Ladbroke Grove. Racegoers stood on the summit of the hill to watch, while the horses raced around below them. Unfortunately the course too readily became waterlogged and had to close in 1841, but the curved roads which wrap around the hill top, Blenheim Crescent, Elgin Crescent, Stanley Crescent, Cornwall Crescent and Lansdowne Crescent, all follow the course of the racetrack.

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  Notting Hill on Screen

  Portobello Road came to worldwide attention in 1999 as the setting for the film Notting Hill starring Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant.

  Nicholl’s Antique Arcade at No. 142 Portobello Road played the part of the bookshop run by Hugh Grant’s character William Thacker, where he first meets Anna Scott, played by Julia Roberts. The garden where Grant attempts to climb over the railings is a residents-only garden in Rosmead Road, running between Elgin Crescent and Lansdowne Road. The blue door where Grant’s Welsh flatmate appears at the door in front of the paparazzi in his underpants, used to be at No. 280 Westbourne Park Road, a little further north towards the elevated Westway. This was script-writer Richard Curtis’s own home. He sold the house after the film came out, and the lady who bought it became so fed up with film buffs banging on the door that she decided to auction the door off. The move hasn’t really worked, because most people just assume the door has been painted over and still keep knocking.

  * * *

  Notting Hill

  Then

  IN THE EARLY 1950s Notting Hill became infamous as the home of one of the most appalling mass murderers in London’s history. Between 1943 and 1953 John Christie butchered at least eight women, including his wife, and then buried them in various places around the house at NO. 10 RILLINGTON PLACE. The house was demolished during the building of the Westway, and the actual site is now in Bartle Road.

  In the 1950s and 60s an evil landlord called PETER RACHMAN bought up great swathes of cheap property in Notting Hill and built himself an empire that consisted of more than 100 blocks of flats and several night-clubs. Once he had purchased a property he would use violence to evict the sitting tenants, who had statutory protection against high rent increases, using gangs of thugs to threaten and intimidate anyone who resisted. Then he would pack dozens of poor immigrants from the West Indies, who did not have the same protection under the law, into tiny, rundown rooms and extort out-rageously high rents from them, again backed by the threat of kneecappings or worse. If they didn’t come up with the money he would have them thrown on to the streets. His first property was Nos. 1–16 Powis Terrace, off Westbourne Park Road, where he squeezed more than 1,000 tenants into an apartment block with room for 200 and collected rent with the help of a team of heavies with Alsatian dogs.

  Rachman’s methods became known as ‘Rachmanism’, an expression which passed into the language as a synonym for any harsh or unscrupulous landlord. After he died in 1962, it emerged that Mandy Rice-Davies, one of the prostitutes at the heart of the Profumo affair, was his lover and that he owned the infamous mews house in Marylebone where she and Christine Keeler had plied their trade.

  Well, I never knew this

  ABOUT

  KENSINGTON

  The BROMPTON ORATORY in Brompton Road, consecrated in 1884, was the first large Catholic church to be built in London after the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829. At 200 ft (61 m) tall, it is THE SECOND LARGEST ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN LONDON, after Westminster Cathedral. This was a favourite ‘dead letter’ drop for KGB agents in the Cold War.

  The original earls of Earl’s Court were the EARLS OF OXFORD.

  When it was opened in 1937, the EARL’S COURT EXHIBITION HALL was THE LARGEST REINFORCED CONCRETE BUILDING IN EUROPE.

  The FIRST STEPPED ESCALATOR IN BRITAIN was installed at EARL’S COURT underground station in 1911, for the District Line. ‘Bumper’ Harris, who had a wooden leg, was employed to travel up and down on the ‘moving staircase’ all day, to demonstrate how safe and easy it was to use.

  Held annually over the August bank holiday weekend since 1965, the NOTTING HILL CARNIVAL is THE LARGEST STREET CARNIVAL IN EUROPE.

  In the early hours of Friday, 18 September 1970, the legendary guitarist JIMI HENDRIX died in the Samarkand Hotel at No. 22 Lansdowne Crescent, Notting Hill, from choking on his own vomit. The hotel is now a private house.

  Oz, the irreverent underground magazine that was at the centre of Britain’s lengthiest obscenity trial in 1971, was launched in Britain and run from No. 52 Princedale Road, Notting Hill.

  Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Empire began with Virgin Records, whose first premises were in Vernon Yard, No. 117 PORTOBELLO ROAD.

  THE DEEPEST POINT ON THE CENTRAL LINE is between Notting Hill Gate and Holland Park stations. The Central Line pioneered the use of speeds humps, where the track rises slightly at the entrance to each station, helping the train to slow down, and then falls at the exit, enabling it to pick up speed quickly.

  ST MARY ABBOT’S CHURCH, at the junction of Kensington High Street and Kensington Church Street, has THE HIGHEST SPIRE IN LONDON, 278 ft (85 m) tall.

  HAMMERSMITH & FULHAM

  FULHAM – HAMMERSMITH – BROOK GREEN – WHITE CITY – SHEPHERD’S BUSH

  Fulham Palace – country home to the Bishops of London for 900 years

  Hurlingham

  Pigeons and Polo

  HURLINGHAM HOUSE WAS originally a country cottage built on his estate by Dr William Cadogan in 1760. It was enlarged by a subsequent owner into a neo-classical mansion and can just be glimpsed through trees from the river. In 1869 the HURLINGHAM CLUB was founded to hold pigeon shooting competitions in the grounds, and this explains the pigeon on the club’s crest. In 1874 the club managed to acquire the freehold of the estate and now had enough space to indulge in the new sport of polo, which was introduced at Hurlingham in that year. The Hurlingham Club then became the HEADQUARTERS OF POLO for the whole British Empire until the 1940s. Polo ceased to be played at Hurlingham at the end of the Second World War, when the polo ground was compulsorily purchased by the London County Council for housing, but the HURLINGHAM POLO ASSOCIATION has remained the governing body of the sport in the UK, Ireland and many other countries.

  The CROQUET ASSOCIATION also had its headquarters at Hurlingham from 1959 until 2002, when it moved to Cheltenham.

  Scenes from the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire were filmed at the Hurlingham Club Stadium.

  Fulham Pottery

  Cradle of English Pottery

  ON THE CORNER of Burlington Road and New King’s Road the remains of a kiln stand on the site of the pioneering FULHAM POTTERY, established here in 1671 by JOHN DWIGHT and regarded as THE CRADLE OF ENGLISH POTTERY. Dwight is credited with having discovered ‘the mistery of transparent earthenware comonly knowne by the name of porcelaine or China and Persian ware, and alsoe the misterie of the Stone ware vulgarly called Cologne ware’, i.e. porcelain and stoneware. His pottery employed a variety of techniques that are unique, and his work is highly sought after. In the early 19th century John Doulton worked as an apprentice at Fulham Pottery before going on to open his own pottery works in Lambeth. When they were excavating the area for new building works at the end of the 19th century, workmen came across a locked cellar filled with early examples of Fulham pottery, which are now in the British Muse
um.

  Fulham Palace

  Bishop’s Retreat

  EMBOWERED IN THE 27 acres (11 ha) of Bishop’s Park is one of the least known and most beautiful historic buildings in London, FULHAM PALACE. The Bishops of London have held land here since the days of Bishop Erkenwald in 691, and this has been their country home since the 11th century. The loveliest of the present range of buildings is the mellow, red-brick Tudor quadrangle largely the work of Bishop Fitzjames, with its fountain, great porch and bell tower, and 17th-century windows. This glorious courtyard is one of the most enchanting and unspoilt spaces in London. To the left of the porch is the Great Hall, begun in 1480. There is also a second, rather plain, Georgian quadrangle, and a Victorian chapel. The Bishops of London vacated Fulham Palace in 1973 and it is now run by Hammersmith and Fulham Council as a museum, with a café and offices.

  The palace was originally surrounded by THE LONGEST MOAT IN ENGLAND, thought to have been dug by the Danes in the 10th century, or even maybe the Romans. The gardens themselves were once noted for their unusual trees. Bishop Grindal, Bishop of London 1559–70, is believed to have planted THE FIRST TAMARISK TREE IN EUROPE here in 1560. Bishop Compton, in office 1675–1713, was a noted botanist who INTRODUCED THE ACACIA, THE MAGNOLIA AND THE MAPLE INTO ENGLAND, growing the first examples here at Fulham. The CEDAR OF LEBANON planted by Bishop Compton was thought to be THE LARGEST EVER SEEN IN LONDON.

  ALL SAINT’S CHURCH next door, with a splendid tower that dates from 1440, is the mother church of Fulham and the burial place of ten Bishops of London. There is an amusing inscription to a Mr and Mrs Murr on one of the headstones in the churchyard, quite near to the church porch. It consists of high praise for Isabella Murr, the wife of a local schoolmaster, and then, tacked on to the end, the simple statement ‘He’s gone too’. All Saints was used for a particularly gruesome scene in the 1976 film The Omen, where a priest is speared by a flagpole falling from the top of the church tower.

  Craven Cottage

  The Cottagers

  AT THE NORTH end of Bishop’s Park is CRAVEN COTTAGE, home of LONDON’S OLDEST PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL CLUB, founded in 1879, FULHAM FC. The riverside location is the most picturesque of all London’s football grounds and takes its name from an 18th-century cottage built for Lord Craven that stood here until it burned down in 1888. The name lives on in the ‘cottage’ style pavilion located at the south-east corner of the stadium, designed in 1905 by Archibald Leach, which has been preserved despite major renovations of the ground in 2004. Famous names who came to prominence playing for Fulham down the years include Johnny Haynes, Bobby Robson, Alan Mullery and Rodney Marsh. Famous chairmen include the comedian Tommy Trinder and the present incumbent, Mohamed Al Fayed, owner of Harrods.

  Chelsea Football Club

  The Blues

  FOUNDED IN 1905, and one of the youngest football teams in the Football League, Chelsea Football Club, confusingly, is in Fulham. When the Mears Brothers bought the ground at Stamford Bridge in Fulham to develop as a sports stadium, they asked Fulham FC if they would like to move there but Fulham declined, and so the Mears decided to form their own team. The name Fulham was already taken, but Chelsea seemed close enough. There was no time to put a team together before registering for the newly extended league, so Chelsea became the ONLY CLUB EVER TO JOIN THE FOOTBALL LEAGUE BEFORE THEIR TEAM HAD KICKED A BALL. Nearly 100 years later their Stamford Bridge ground underwent a £100 million redevelopment, completed in 2001, and now incorporates Chelsea Village, with restaurants, hotels, offices and shops. In 2003 the club was acquired by Russian billionaire ROMAN ABRAMOVICH, who went on a spending spree which helped secure Chelsea several Premiership titles.

  * * *

  Lord of the Cottage

  The novelist LORD LYTTON (1803–73) lived in the original Craven Cottage during the 1840s. A popular writer of his time, he gave a number of expressions to the English language such as ‘the great unwashed’, ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’, ‘in pursuit of the mighty dollar’ and the classic first line for a novel, ‘It was a dark and stormy night …’, as plagiarised by Snoopy, the Peanuts cartoon character.

  * * *

  Riverside Studios

  First Colour

  THE RIVERSIDE STUDIOS, just east of Hammersmith Bridge, began life as a factory in the 19th century and at one time belonged to William Foster & Co., the company who developed the first military tank, used to such effect in the First World War. In 1933 the factory was bought by the Triumph Film Company and converted into film studios. These were bought in 1939 by JACK BUCHANAN, the leading musical stage and film actor of his day, also responsible for building the Leicester Square Theatre where the Odeon cinema stands today. Perhaps the most successful film ever made at the Riverside Studios was The Seventh Veil (1946), starring Ann Todd, Herbert Lom and James Mason.

  In 1954 the BBC bought the studios and made them into THE BIGGEST AND FINEST TELEVISION STUDIOS IN EUROPE. THE FIRST COLOUR TELEVISION was broadcast from here, and among the much-loved BBC programmes broadcast live from the Riverside Studios were Hancock’s Half Hour, Dixon of Dock Green, Doctor Who and Z Cars. The Tardis used in the pilot episode of Doctor Who originally appeared in Dixon of Dock Green. Top of the Pops and The Old Grey Whistle Test were also broadcast from the Riverside Studios. The BBC moved out to their new Wood Lane studios in the early 1970s. Today the Riverside Studios are a multi-purpose arts centre, home to film and television studios, dance and theatre.

  Hammersmith Bridge

  Bombs Away

  THE ELEGANT AND distinctive cast-iron HAMMERSMITH BRIDGE, with a central span of 422 ft (129 m), was designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette and opened in 1887. It replaced LONDON’S FIRST SUSPENSION BRIDGE, which William Tierney Clarke built across the Thames here in 1827. The green-and-gold paintwork reflects the colours of Harrods, whose depository is nearby in Barnes, on the south bank. At high tide, the bridge has a clearance of just 12 ft (3.6 m), making it THE LOWEST BRIDGE ACROSS THE THAMES IN LONDON.

  In 1939 ladies’ hairdresser Maurice Childs was walking across the bridge when he spotted a suitcase with smoke coming out of it lying on the walkway. With admirable aplomb he tossed it over the side where it exploded, spraying him with water. He was appointed an MBE for his quick thinking. In 1996 THE LARGEST SEMTEX BOMB EVER FOUND IN MAINLAND BRITAIN, some 32 lbs (15 kg), was planted on the bridge but failed to explode. After this attack the bridge was closed for four years and then reopened with width restrictions and a weight limit of 7.5 tons. These bombs were the work of the IRA, who were thought to have been tempted by the perceived frailty of the bridge, highlighted in 1982 when a lorry passing across caused several of the supporting struts to break. A small third bomb went off in 2000, causing the bridge to be temporarily closed again, amid scandalous mutterings that it had been planted by residents of Barnes who had enjoyed the peace and quiet of being inaccessible to traffic from Hammersmith during the bridge’s closure.

  Lower Mall

  Unhappy Queen

  STANDING IN AN enviable location immediately beside Hammersmith Bridge is Digby Mansions, with glorious views of the river and frequently used as a film and television location. Leading westwards from here, towards Furnival Gardens, is LOWER MALL, a short stretch of riverside pavement lined with popular pubs whose clientele mass outside on the waterfront in the summer months. The composer Gustav Holst wrote much of his Hammersmith Suite at the Blue Anchor, which appeared in the end credits of the TV series Minder and also in the film Sliding Doors.

  Lower Mall was the site of Brandenburgh House, built in the 17th century by Sir Nicholas Crisp (see St Paul’s Church). It became the home of Caroline of Brunswick, the ill-treated wife of the Prince Regent who was said to be so shaken, on seeing her for the first time, that he called for brandy. Caroline was turned away from the doors of Westminster Abbey at the coronation of her husband as George IV in 1821, a slight that was met with much public disapproval. When the Government tried to strip Caroline of her rega
l title hundreds of boats packed the Thames outside Brandenburgh House, filled with people proclaiming their support for the Queen, while she stood on the balcony and bowed in acknowledgement. She died at Brandenburgh House three weeks later, and not long afterwards, on the orders of the King, the house was razed to the ground.

  Upper Mall

  Rule, Britannia

  FURTHER WEST IS Upper Mall, with some of London’s most enticing Thameside residences, on the site of Rivercourt, home to Charles II’s widow Queen Catherine. A later resident of Rivercourt was William III’s physician DR JOHN RADCLIFFE (1650–1714), benefactor of Oxford’s Radcliffe Camera and Radcliffe Infirmary, where the first penicillin was administered to a patient in 1941. SIR THOMAS BODLEY, founder of the Bodleian Library in Oxford, part of which is now housed in the Radcliffe Camera, lived at Parson’s Green from 1605 to 1609.

  Portrait painter SIR GODFREY KNELLER (1646–1723), landscape artist J.M.W. TURNER (1775–1851) and CAPTAIN MARRYAT (1792–1848), author of The Children of the New Forest, all lived on Upper Mall.

  At No. 18 Upper Mall is THE DOVE, an 18th-century pub that boasts a delightful riverside terrace and THE SMALLEST BAR IN ENGLAND. In 1740 the poet JAMES THOMSON (1700–48) wrote the words to ‘Rule, Britannia!’ in an upstairs room here. He used to walk to the Dove from his home in Richmond, and on returning home by boat some years later he caught a chill and died.

  At No. 26 Upper Mall is the gorgeous Georgian KELMSCOTT HOUSE, where the founder of the Arts and Crafts movement William Morris lived from 1879 until he died there in 1896. Morris named the house after his home in Oxfordshire, Kelmscott Manor, and would sometimes travel between the two properties by boat. The Hammersmith Socialists met here to hear lectures by Ramsay MacDonald and sing under the baton of Gustav Holst. In 1891 Morris set up the Kelmscott Press nearby, at No. 16. The William Morris Society today occupy the basement of Kelmscott House.