After many years of denigration, Hammersmith has become a fashionable place to be. Standing by the roar that is Hammersmith Broadway, this might be hard to believe, but once Fulham became rehabilitated the time for this area was surely at hand.
Hammersmith Bridge, an 1887 rebuild of the 1827 original, is one of the most beautiful edifices thrown across the river, an elegant Egyptianate suspension bridge built when the principles of suspension were in their infancy and the world was ignorant of the traffic to come. Consequently, this narrow bridge has been dogged by superstructural problems throughout its history and has often required remedial work.
HousingWest of here, heading for the more sedate territory of Chiswick, are Upper and Lower Malls, the sites of some wonderful Georgian houses, rarely on the market but many of them big and all of them expensive. One modern note is King Henry's Reach, a 1996 block of 70 flats.
Trapped between the river and the Great West Road, the area is largely open and is eternally popular for walking and playing. Houseboats throng the banks and sculling schools are interspersed with some particularly splendid riverside pubs, one of which saw Gustav Holst compose his "Hammersmith Suite" whilst waiting for his chicken & chips.
North of the A4, and south of King Street - Hammersmith's high street, the A315 - are popular 1820s properties, most famously St. Peter's Square, full of 5-6 bed stucco-fronted houses. A few inter-war mansion blocks complete the scene.
W6 north of King Street and south of Goldhawk Road can be split into two sectors, Ravenscourt Park to the west and Brackenbury to the east. Ravenscourt Park is a remnant of the Manor House of Paddenswick, destroyed in the war and now an immensely popular and large park with all manner of sporting facilities and even a nursery.
Two great hospital sites to the west of the park have been completely built over with new housing. The Royal Masonic now has 2 bed/2 bath flats and the Queen Charlotte is disappearing under Housing Association flats. The area is renowned for some lovely villas, the luckier ones with gardens backing on to the park.
Brackenbury has become one of the modern success stories of W6, a quiet enclave away from the hassle of the three major roads that border it. Beginning its popularity in the Eighties, its grand late Victorian pubs and small parades of shops were followed by the surest sign of all, restaurants. Families that outgrew Kensington and Notting Hill made tracks in this direction, lured by Brackenbury's fine Victorian terraced houses and cottages. Some of the larger houses on the east side, in the shadow of Shepherds Bush Road, have been split into multi-occupancy.
Over that busy thoroughfare is Brook Green, another pleasing oasis of greenery shaped like a bent arrowhead that seems in no way overawed by its proximity to Shepherds Bush Road. There is a great variety of houses overlooking the Green - residency in one allows you access to the Green's tennis courts - and a few modern blocks of flats have been allowed to raise their heads here.
The roads south of the Green and heading to Hammersmith Road feature some big houses that are lucky enough to be traffic controlled and not suffer the rat runs becoming more common as transport problems grow in London.
Fulham Palace Road takes you south-east from Hammersmith. To the east of it is Barons Court, another Eighties success story consisting of smaller terraced houses and some 1 bed flats. One of London's principal hospitals, the Charing Cross, left the centre of town to locate itself here in 1973 on the site of the old Fulham Hospital. Behind it is a large piece of open ground in the form of Hammersmith Cemetery, next to the Queen's Club.
West of Fulham Palace Road is a sizeable river frontage where the dereliction of old riverside wharves are making way for some exclusive properties. The 1988 Thames Reach of three 5-storey blocks, famous for their floor-to-ceiling windows, was designed by Richard Rogers.
Biggest of all was Chancellor's Wharf, a £10m development of eight 5-storey town houses and 32 flats, finished in 1990 - complete with portholes. Needless to say the River Café is in these parts. This area will completely change in the next decade, and the sole survivor will be the Crabtree Estate, a fitting remnant as it was built on the site of the last farm in the area in 1911. It consists of 2-storey terraces.
FacilitiesHammersmith Broadway is the hub of things, a 110,000 sq ft centre opened in 1993 with an open space called Bradmore Square and containing a bus station, a car park, a tube station and shops. Everything whirls and revolves around and within the Broadway, with only the adjacent St. Paul's Church and the flyover offering any architectural opposition. Seven major roads run off it. The Novotel Hotel is also here as a witness to Hammersmith's success, a monster of a place with 640 bedrooms, completed in 1973.
But perhaps the biggest symbol of how popular a place Hammersmith is is the presence of such world players as Seagram, United International Pictures, Coca-Cola, EMI, Disney and Harper Collins, who all have their European headquarters here, and most have built the requisite personalised offices to make sure the world knows it. The most startling example of this must be the Ark, built in 1992 and a fantasy of an office building hosting many major companies and designed as a self-contained block.
Culture too is highly represented here. The Lyric Theatre is highly thought of for its groundbreaking productions, and the Apollo can host mammoth shows. Immortalised in song by the Clash the Hammersmith Palais has been hosting dancing for the masses since 1919, and was the first British venue to hear jazz (1921) and have its dancing televised (1938).
The Riverside Studios have branched out from TV work into conferences, rehearsals and even office space. Another theatre is on King Street, though you'll never hear much about it. It is within the Polish Social & Cultural Centre, the site of a university, a chamber of commerce, a place for thousands of students and expats and the largest Polish library in the world outside of the motherland.
To call Hammersmith busy and cosmopolitan is to only get halfway to how the place truly feels. If you really like city life, there is no more intense competitor than here, befitting the origin of its name - 'the hammer in the forge'.
TransportThe roads are vast and frequently blocked. The flyover takes the A4 over Hammersmith, and is known as the Great West Road on the way to Chiswick and Talgarth Road on the way to Earls Court. Paralleling it to the north is the A315, known as King Street to the west and Hammersmith Road to the east. King Street in particular is filled with shops. Shepherds Bush Road links the twin transport hubs of Hammersmith Broadway and Shepherds Bush Green, Fulham Palace Road will take you south-east and the Hammersmith Bridge Road will transport you to the quieter delights of Barnes.
Steve Roberts
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