Posts Tagged ‘fountains’

Kew, Brentford, Syon & Isleworth Walk

Wednesday, September 28th, 2022

Part 1 – Kew Bridge and Brentford

My walk a few days ago in September 2022 began at Kew Bridge Station. I’d come half an hour before I was due to meet my two companions to take a short walk around one of the newer parts of the area before meeting them for a longer walk to Isleworth.

Lionel Road runs north of the railway up to meet the Great West Road. It used to be a rather run down area with railway sidings on one side and a few old commercial buildings and works to the north. The last time I’d walked down here on my way to Gunnersbury Park in 2018 the whole area had been a building site, but now is home to Brentford FC, currently doing pretty well in the Premier League.

Brentford was my local team when I was a kid, and several members of the award-winning under-11 team I played for at left back on went on to play for them at their old ground (and at Chelsea.) One of the other patrol leaders from my scout group stayed there until he retired, though I never met him after I hung up my woggle, but read his obit in the local rag.

Past there I came to the Great West Road, a 1930s dual carriageway with cycle tracks I sometimes used further west on my way home from school. In the 1980s or 90s I photographed most of the remaining Art Deco factories along it, though the bulldozers got to some first. Now it reminds me of J G Ballard’s novels, particularly ‘Crash’, set around the area we both lived in, with the elevated M4 above the older modern road.

A new Brentford of tall blocks has sprouted here, though more land remains to be built on. A little-used rail line goes through it, the Kew Curve, with Brentford’s stadium replacing the sidings and cattle pens to its west, with new building on the east in what was Brentford Market. It moved to this site in 1893 after the Brentford Local Board had bought the 2 acre site from the Rothschild estate because market trading in the area around the Express Tavern immediately south of the station which had developed informally away from Brentford’s traditional market in Market Place had become a public nuisance. The site was extended in 1905 and then covered land now part of the Chiswick Roundabout. The market moved to the edge of Southall in 1974 as the new Western International Market and the Fountains Leisure Centre was built on part of the site, with the rest staying derelict for years.

My maternal grandfather, then a market gardener in Feltham, would drive his cart with produce to Brentford Market in the early years of the last century, past the house in Hounslow where my father, then a young boy, used to see him driving past. Around twenty years later when he became engaged to my mother he found out who he was.

I met my two colleagues and we walked together down by the west side of Kew Bridge to the Thames. To our right was where the Kew Bridge Ecovillage had squatted from June 2009 until May 2010, now occupied by 164 flats, a business centre, gym and pub.

The Hollows runs west between riverside moorings and recent blocks of luxury flats, eventually returning us to Brentford High St, and a park beside the river now called Watermans Park. This was the site of Brentford Gas Works which straddled the High Street here and was a great attraction when we took the bus through it in my childhood, usually on our way to Kew Gardens. Entrance then was only an old penny, and it was a cheap outing for families in the area. My father would have his scissors in his pocket and perhaps take the odd small cutting to grow in our garden. Rather cheaper than garden centres.

But if you were lucky as the bus drove slowly down the usually congested street, one of its Intermittent Vertical Retort would open sending a wall of red hot coke to the ground, quite an amazing site as we peered from the top deck. It almost made up for the smell.

A gas works had been set up here and began production in 1821, first supplying has for lighting the turnpike to Kensington, but later serving large areas around. Later other gas works were set up in Southall and then elsewhere as demand continued to rise. in 1926 the Brentford gas company became a part of the Gas Light and Coke Co which later became British Gas plc. Brentford Gas Woks closed in 1963 and the riverside buildings were demolished in 1965 though the large gasholder remained until 1988.

All than now remains of the gas works are some of the substantial posts of the gas works jetty, where colliers once brought in coal. There has been a long battle over the rights to moorings here between boat owners and Hounslow Council with boat owners claiming that the foreshore here belongs neither to the council nor to the PLA but to the Bishop of London, and refusing to abide by various eviction notices. Most have now moved but some derelict boats remain.

Brentford Ait runs along the centre of the river here. It was bought in the late 19th century by the Crown who planted trees on it to hide the gas works from visitors to Kew Gardens on the opposite bank. A few yard upstream is Lot’s Ait, where the Thames Steam Tug and Lighterage Company Ltd set up a boatyard in 1920 – most of the Thames lighters were built there. The boatyard closed in the 1970s, but was reopened in 2012 when a new footbridge was constructed to it.

As well as the park, the Watermans Arts Centre was also built on the gasworks site. We walked between it and the river, and continued on the riverside path, past the bridge to Lots Ait and recent blocks of flats. There are new moorings around here too.

A small spit of land leads from the bottom of Ferry Lane (more new flats) to an artwork by the riverside. I’m not quite sure what to make either of Liquidity or another similarly decorated column not far away, but it could provide a useful windbreak in bad weather. This was where once a ferry ran across to Kew Gardens.

We followed the Thames Path around a small dock, on what was the site of the Thames Soap Works and then continued along the side of the River Brent which flows into the Thames here, continuing along this beside the winding river past another boatyard to Brentford High Street.

A few yards along we turned left down Dock Road to Thames Lock, past a huge mural and the other end of the boatyard, to Thames Lock, the southern end of the Grand Union Canal. Here we took the path beside the north side of the canal, leading across a bridge over the Brent to Johnson’s Island and Catherine Wheel Road.

The mural, on the side of a multi-story car park had included a giant kingfisher, and I’d joked saying this was the only kingfisher we’d see in Brentford. But as we walked across the bridge over the River Brent and stopped to take pictures, perched on the top of a post there was one, still only for a second before flying out of sight. By the time I’d raised my camera to my eye it was gone, though since I had and extreme wideangle lens it would hardly have been visible, just a few more colourful pixels.

I’d planned to walk along Brent Way and rejoin the canal towpath, but the whole of this area is now a huge building site, and instead we walk along the High Street to the canal bridge. I couldn’t bring myself to walk down to the Gauging Lock preserved there, though I’ve done so several times before, but the changes to the area, now with a marina, flats and hotel made me feel too sad; we simply stood on the bridge and looked for a while before moving on.

Part 2 will continue the walk from here to its end in Isleworth. You can see more pictures from the walk in a Facebook album.


Mainly Marylebone

Sunday, August 23rd, 2020
The Evangelical Library, Chiltern St, Marylebone, Westminster, 1987 87-5e-16-positive_2400

The Evangelical Library on Chiltern St in Marylebone was built as a school for the Portman Chapel in 1859 by Christopher Eales with minor alterations in 1880 and was Grade II listed in 1994 as “an early surviving example of a church school in a city centre an early surviving example of a church school in a city centre”.

The Library began as the Beddington Free Grace Library, housed at first in sheds and later a brick building in Beddington, before moving to South Kensinton in 1945 and then here in 1948. It grew to contain around 80,000 books and periodicals relating to Protestant and Reformed Evangelical Christianity including many rare and valuable Puritan texts. Over the years the Grade II listed building deteriorated and the the costs of renovation to prevent damage to the volumes led to the library moving out in 2010 to cheaper premises in Bounds Green.

Meacher, Higgins & Thomas, Chemists, Crawford St, Marylebone, Westminster, 1987 87-5e-43-positive_2400

You can still see this shopfront of Meacher, Higgins & Thomas, established in 1814 as chemists in Crawford St, Marylebone, and it has changed little from when I took this picture, though it has a larger illuminated sign at right and those large glass containers of coloured water which marked out every dispensing chemist in my youth disappeared from the upper windows a few years ago.

Marble Arch, Westminster, 1987 87-5f-25-positive_2400

It was a warm day in May and the closely cropped grass by the fountains at Marble Arch seemed a good place to have a rest. I think I probably sat on a bench or wall to eat my sandwiches and afterwards probably made my way down the steps to the public toilets and then under the subway into Hyde Park. Both now gone.

Hertford House, Manchester Square, Marylebone, 1987 87-5f-53-positive_2400

Hertford House, Manchester Square, Marylebone. Hertford House was originally called Manchester House, as it was built in 1776-88 for the 4th Duke of Manchester who apparently wanted to live here for the duck shooting. Presumably he had exterminated them all by 1791 when it briefly became the Spanish Embassy, and then in 1797 it became the home of the 2nd Marquess of Hertford who held many grand parties there, including a Ball celebrating the defeat of Napoleon. Despite this in 1836 it was let to the French as their embassy until 1851.


Hertford House, Manchester Square, Marylebone, 1987 87-5f-55-positive_2400

The 4th Marquess of Hertford preferred to live in Paris, but used the house to store his art treasures, and when the Commune took over Paris briefly in 1871, his illegitimate son Richard Wallace moved back into the house and renamed it Hertford House. He had the house extended in all directions to fit in all the stuff he brought back with him, and what we see now, including the portico, is largely the result of these modifications by architect Thomas Ambler. After his death in 1890 the house was converted into a public museum, The Wallace Collection.

I visited it many years ago and found it a rather depressing experience, but the interior has recently undergone a considerable refurbishment and the experience may well be less oppressive.

Hinde House, Hinde St, Marylebone, Westminster, 1987 87-5f-65-positive_2400

Hinde St runs west out of Manchester Square and the impressive church at the right of this picture is Hinde Street Methodist Church. The first church was built here in 1807-10 but this was largely or wholly demolished and a new Wesleyan church, designed by James Weir, opened in 1887. It remains one of London’s leading Methodist Churches.

Hinde House is a block of expensive leasehold flats, where a two bed flat might cost you a million or two.

Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral, Duke St, Mayfair, Westminster, 1987 87-5g-11-positive_2400

Another place where I’ve often eaten my sandwich lunch in Central London is Brown Hart Gardens on Duke St in Mayfair. The extravagant building opposite this raised stone garden is the former Kings Weigh House Chapel by Alfred Waterhouse, built 1888-91 as a Congregational Church. It is a far cry from the more restrained and often classical church buildings I associate with this non-Conformist denomination. Congregational Churches in the past were staunchly independent, their life ruled by the decisions of the members, reached always by consensus, and I think most that I’ve been familiar with would be far too proud of their Puritan origins to have considered such a design. It seems to me very much more suited to its current use as London’s Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral.

Brown Hart Gardens, Mayfair, Westminster, 1987 87-5g-24-positive_2400

Brown Hart Gardens started life as a real garden between large blocks of working-class dwellings built by The Improved Industrial Dwellings Company in 1886-7, Balderton Buildings and Chesham Building. These were taken over by the Peabody Trust in the 1970s. On Chesham Building is a plaque to the first Duke of Westminster Hugh Lupus, recording that through these and other buildings he provided accommodation for “nearly 4000 persons of the working class’ and naming him “The Friend and Benefactor of His Poorer Brethren”.

The land was a part of the Grosvenor Estate, and the buildings were part of an extensive slum clearance programme in the area. The Duke of Westminster insisted on a garden being created between the two streets of flats, then called Brown St and Hart St, and this was created in 1991.

It didn’t last long. In 1902 the site became an electricity sub-station, and this was built with domed pavillions at each end and completed in 1905. The Duke of Westminster insisted that a paved ‘Italian Garden’ be provided for local residents to compensate for the loss of the former garden, and this remained open to the public until shortly after I took these pictures in May 1987. The London Electricity Board then closed the area. It was refurbished from 2007 on and reopened to the public in 2013, with a cafe around the pavilion at the west end.

You can see more pictures on Page 4 of 1987 London Photos