Posts Tagged ‘Fulham Rd’

More Around the King’s Road 1988

Friday, September 3rd, 2021

London House, Fulham Rd, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5c-45-positive_2400
London House, Fulham Rd, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5c-45

My walk around the streets to the north of the King’s Road took me as far as the Fulham Road where I found London House at No 266 and joined to it a Servite Catholic Church. Our Lady of Dolours was started by two Servite priests, missionaries from Florence who arrived in London in 1864. Building the church here, designed by Joseph Hansom began in 1874 and it was opened the following year by Cardinal Manning. The church is Grade II listed. London House is currently being refurbished and extended, returning the exterior to something more similar to its Victorian original.

Kings Rd, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5c-44-positive_2400
Kings Rd, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5c-44

V K Patel is still listed as having a dental surgery on the King’s Road, and, allowing for the various London number changes has retained the same phone number, but is now in a very different building to this rather run-down looking and overgrown house, which I think has probably been demolished.

Kings Rd, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5c-42-positive_2400
Langton St,, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5c-42

Flavio looks like an Italian restaurant and although my contact sheet suggests it was on the King’s Road, was actually a few yards from it in Langton St. I think it is now an Irish restaurant with a different shopfront.

Kings Rd area, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5c-54-positive_2400
Kings Rd area, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5c-54

I’m unable to remember where I took these two decorative bowls on window ledges, but think it might have been on Lamont Road or one of the adjoining roads.

Kings Rd area, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5c-56-positive_2400
Hobury St, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5c-56

31 Gertrude St is on the corner with Hobury St and the door is actually in the latter street. It retains the simple elegance that attracted me to photograph it back in 1988. Poet and novelist George Meredith (1828-1909) has a blue plaque on the next house down Hobury St. It was his poem ‘The Lark Ascending’ that inspired the well-known composition by Ralph Vaughan Williams and elsewhere Meredith was the first to publish the word ‘tweets’ as a verb, though his twittering was avian.

Kings Rd, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5c-52-positive_2400
Kings Rd, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5c-52

Chamberlin, Powell & Bon designed 355 Kings R for Kensington and Chelsea council and this 15 storey 152 ft high tower was built in 1968-71. The council sold it off in the 1980s when the brickwork was begining to need repair and it was reclad and converted to private flats. At the right is an office of Roy Brooks, the estate agent who became a legend in the 1960s (he died in 1971) and made a fortune through his adverts in the Sunday Times and Observer desribed the houses he was selling in vivid terms as hardly fit for human habitation, exagerating any defects and making them up where none existed.

Lamont Road Passage, Park Walk, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988  88-5c-53-positive_2400
Lamont Road Passage, Park Walk, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5c-53

A handy passage for those living in Lamont Road to get to the shops in Park Walk and the King’s Road. The picture is of its corner with Park Walk and at left you can see Roy Brooks Estate Agents, a tree in the Milman’s Street Moravian Burial Ground and the house on the corner of Milmans St and the King’s Road. There is of course another tree in the shop window.

Clicking on any of the pictures will take you to a larger version in my album 1988 London Photos from where you can browse the other images in the album.


All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.


Around Chelsea

Wednesday, August 18th, 2021
Michelin Building,  Fulham Rd, Brompton, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4r-46-positive_2400
Michelin Building, Lucan Place, Fulham Rd, Brompton, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4r-46

It was too hard to resist the Michelin Building any time I walked past, though I felt it had already been photographed to death – and most of my pictures were in colour, including closer views of its decorative panels.

Opened in 1911 as the first UK headquarters and tyre depot for the Michelin Tyre Company Ltd, and designed by Michelin employee and engineer François Espinasse it was more an architectural advertising hoarding featuring the Michelin Man ‘Bibendum’, his name derived from “Nunc Est Bibendum“, “Now is the time to drink”. A precursor of art-deco, it is grade II listed. It was also a fairly early use of ferro-concrete, using the Hennebique system, which gave its interior wide spaces for a tyre bay and made it relatively fire-proof. This picture was made three years after Michelin moved out, when the building was redeveloped by publisher Paul Hamlyn and restaurateur/retailer Sir Terence Conran as offices, shop and restaurant. (mainly from Wikipedia.)

Fulham Road, South Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4r-54-positive_2400
Trees, Fulham Road, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4r-54

This house is on the west corner of Pelham Crescent, and the three trees that attracted my attention are still there, remarkably little changed 33 years later, though of course each spring they get covered with leaves.

Selwood Terrace, South Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4r-61-positive_2400
Selwood Terrace, South Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4r-61

The east side of this street is Neville Terrace and the west side is Selwood Terrace. This front garden with a wall covered with ivy is close to the Fulham Road and I think both wall and ivy have disappeared, possibly as a part of a basement extension to the property.

South Parade, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4r-62-positive_2400
South Parade, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4r-62

I think this tall building probably dates from around 1892 and is part of long terrace including a former fire station with that date on the north side of Chelsea Square. It was the Nurses Home for the Royal Brompton Hospital and is still a part of the hospital. Chelsea square was named Trafalgar Square when it was laid out in 1810 but that was later used for a rather larger square in Westminster. The square later became a tennis club before much of the area was rebuilt in neo-Georgian style in the 1930s.

The Crown, pub, Dovehouse St, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4r-63-positive_2400
The Crown, Dovehouse St, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4r-63

The Crown pub is on the corner of Dovehouse St and Dudmaston Mews, just a few yards south of the Fulham Rd and more or less surrounded by hospitals. No longer a Whitbread pub it has lost the crown sign, replaced by a dreary sign with a neon crown, and other largely flowery embellishments have ruined the simplicity of the frontage. The Princess Of Wales at the left of the row of buildings closed as a pub around 2000 and is now a French restaurant, with considerably more expensive food than The Crown.

Kings Road, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5a-11-positive_2400
Kings Road, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5a-11

I took fewer pictures of the Kings Road than I should have done. This shop window display seemed more erotic than most.

Kings Road, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5a-16-positive_2400
Kings Road, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5a-16

These rather disparate buildings are still there on the Kings Road, on the south side just east of Radnor Walk, though now occupied by different shops and rather less trendy.

Jubilee Place, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5a-15-positive_2400
Jubilee Place, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5a-15

And immediately opposite the previous picture is Jubilee place, leading north with this house and wrought ironwork at No 9 over double gates leading down to a basement garage.

Click on any of the images to go to larger versions in my album 1988 London Photos were you can browse through these and other pictures.


All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.


South Kensington & Chelsea, 1988

Wednesday, August 11th, 2021
Roland Gardens,  South Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4p-65-positive_2400
Roland Gardens, South Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4p-65

More pictures from my wandering walks around South Kensington.

Another of the houses in Roland Gardens, No 46, was built in 1883-5 for Peter Le Page Renouf, a former professor of ancient history and Oriental languages, an Inspector of schools who in 1886 became the Keeper of Oriental Antiquities in the British Museum, and was occupied after his death in 1897 by his wife and daughter. Since the late 1930s the house together with No40, 42 and 44, is now St Teresa’s Home, a care home run by Sisters Hospitallers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. According to the Survey of London, the architect of this Tudor Gothic house, which is “reminiscent of a Victorian country vicarage, and has a prominent corner tower capped by a small spire” was most probably T Chatfeild Clarke who designed the rather similar Parmiter’s School in Bethnal Green.

Poster, Queensgate, SOuth Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4q-03-positive_2400
Poster, Queensgate, South Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4q-03

The Iranian Embassy in London is in Princes Gate overlooking Hyde Park and there is also a Consular section in Kensington Court in South Kensington, as well as a vacant site on the corner of Harrington Rd and Queens Gate, so it was perhaps not surprising to find this poster calling on Ayatollah Khomeini, Supreme Leader of Iran, to stop killing children and end his terrorism and mad war, though it was a called destined to fall on deaf ears.

Shop, Fulham Rd, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4q-12a-positive_2400
Shop, Fulham Rd, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4q-12

I think my bus to South Kensington went along the Fulham Road, and I decided to alight here and take a few pictures. I’m not sure who would want to buy any of the things on display here or what they would do with them, other than the fireplaces which are around the edges, but I am sure they would all be very expensive.

Fulham Rd, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4q-22-positive_2400
Fulham Rd, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4q-22

I suspect it will have been this shopfront which made me get off the bus, and take a few pictures on the corner of Sydney St on my way home from South Kensington. The shop window has the name of New Zealand born interior designer Anouska Hempel (Lady Weinberg) whose “vision of a utopian world encompasses luxury design from landscapes, gardens, hotels and residential to retail, yachts and couture” according to her website.

This location is now occupied by a Thai restaurant which a rather plain frontage, and the pub opposite, the Cranley, which can be glimpsed in a reflection in the window in one of the pictures closed bin 1990.

Onslow Square, South Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4q-33-positive_2400
Onslow Square, South Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4q-33

Onslow Square is between Fulham Road and South Kensington station and is on land purchased by the trustees of the Henry Smith Charity in the 1620s from the Earl of Onslow. Henry Smith had made his fortune as a moneylender in the City. When the chrity trustees leased land to Charles Freake to build the square they insisted they were built to the specifications of their architect George Basevi. The first houses were completed in 1847 two years after Basevi’s death and the square was only completed in 1865, with later houses diverging from his designs with exposed stock bricks. The Smith Charity estate was sold to the Wellcome Trust in the late 1970’s.

French school, Queensberry Way, South Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4q-41-positive_2400
French school, Queensberry Way, South Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4q-41

The Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle has a distinctly French look to its building along Harrington Road and Queensbury Way, known as Victor Hugo, which was built in the 1980s. The concrete structures at the entrance from Queensbury Way, (this was one of a pair) have been replaced.

Small Ads, Harrington Rd, South Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4q-42-positive_2400
Small Ads, Harrington Rd, South Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4q-42

I was amused by the range of small adds, offering dance lessons, corrective training, Caribbean Beauty, health therapy, French massage, electrical repairs, a Morris Oxford, a flat for students and more.

Vacani, School of Dance, Harrington Rd, South Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988  88-4q-43-positive_2400
Vacani School of Dance, Harrington Rd, South Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4q-43

The Vacani School of Dance was founded in 1915 by Marguerite Vacani and later taken over by her niece Betty Vacani, and the pair of them later gave private lessons to the young Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose. Lady Diana Spencer later spent three months as an apprentice teacher at the school. Founded in Knightsbridge it moved to South Kensington under Elfrida Eden and Mary Stassinopoulos in the early 1980s. There are now Vacani schools in Clapham and Woking.

The doorway is still there on Harrington Rd, but now longer a school of dancing, but at the side of the South Kensington Club at 38-42.


All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.


Around the Fulham Rd: 1988

Saturday, July 24th, 2021

Redcliffe Square, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4n-16-positive_2400
Redcliffe Square, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4n-16

Redcliffe Square, part of the Gunter estate in unusual in that the garden in its centre is open to the public. It was given free to the local authority, now the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, in 1949 with the proviso that the character of this tree-lined space was not changed. It’s a pleasant place to sit in the shade on a hot summer day. The street along its west side, called Redcliffe Gardens was an old north-south track through the area, previously called Walnut Tree Walk.

Robert Gunter employed George and Henry Gunter as surveyors and architects for the estate development, and Redcliffe Square was built to their designs in 1869–76. My picture show the front steps of No 6, as the east corner and houses in the eastern extension of the street towards The Little Boltons. None of the houses in the square are listed – its only listed building is a telephone kiosk. The Gunters came from Bristol and brought the name Redcliffe from there.

The Octagon, St Mark's College, Fulham Rd, West Brompton, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4n-21-positive_2400
The Octagon, St Mark’s College, Fulham Rd, West Brompton, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4n-21

The Octagon at 459b Fulham Road was a part of one of the first teacher training colleges in the country. It was founded 1841 with Derwent Coleridge its first principal and Edward Blore its architect, probably responsible for this building in 1843 in what he described as a Byzantine style, but seems to be more Romanesque. It was built as “practising school” for the students with a classroom full of desk, and was originally only a single storey, with the rest being added 5 years later.

The building was converted into a library in 1953. The college merged with various others over the years and moved away in 1973 after its land which extends south to Kings Road was compulsorily purchased for a road building scheme which appears no to have materialised. It was bought by Chelsea College in 1980, and in 1989 after their 1985 merger with King’s College was put on sale. It is now a dwelling.

The Chapel, St Mark's College, Fulham Rd, West Brompton, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4n-22-positive_2400
The Chapel, St Mark’s College, Fulham Rd, West Brompton, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4n-22

The neighbouring chapel at 459a Fulham Road was again by Edward Blore, this time in a Lombardy Romanesque style, and was built to serve both the college and the local community. Permission was granted in 2013 for it to be converted into two private residencies.

Marine Stores, Fulham Rd, West Brompton, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4n-23-positive_2400
Marine Stores, Fulham Rd, West Brompton, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4n-23

Unsurprisingly there is no longer a scrap metal dealer occupying this shop on the corner of St Mark’s Grove, but an estate agents. 340 Fulham Rd had been Marine Stores at least since1940, probably rather earlier, but I’ve no idea why it got that name.

The houses were build at St Mark’s Terrace shortly after the land was bought in 1844 with front gardens, which were later converted to these shops. The land was sold by the Equitable Gas Light Company, who had been planning a gas works in the area on the Kensington Canal but changed their mind and built it in Westminster. (British History Online.)

Hollywood Arms, Hollywood Rd,  West Brompton, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4n-26a-positive_2400
Hollywood Arms, Hollywood Rd, West Brompton, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4n-26

The developers of the Redcliffe estate planned from the start to include shops and adjoining public houses, and the Hollywood Arms first opened in 1866. The pub is Grade II listed. It predates the settlement in California that became synonomous with commercial film. That was apparently named after an earlier estate in Illinois, which was apparently named after a small village in County Wicklow, Ireland and perhaps this street and pub got their name from that same place.

Chapel, Brompton Cemetery, West Brompton, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4n-33-positive_2400
Chapel, Brompton Cemetery, West Brompton, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4n-33

Finally for today, three pictures from Brompton Cemetery.

Brompton Cemetery, West Brompton, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4n-36-positive_2400
Brompton Cemetery, West Brompton, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4n-36

Photographers tend to spend a lot of time in cemeteries, though I suspect I went there as a quiet place to rest and eat my sandwich lunch.

Brompton Cemetery, West Brompton, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4n-42-positive_2400
Brompton Cemetery, West Brompton, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4n-42

Robert Coombes (1808-1860), though a rather small and light man, was the fastest oarsman of his era and was later trained both Oxford and Cambridge crews for their annual Boat Race. He died in poverty in a lunatic asylum, but friends and admirers paid for a magnificent Grae II listed tomb, on top of which is an upturned boat and the Doggetts Coat and Badge arms. All four oarsmen at the corners have lost their heads.