Building Barons Court

London is being transformed by new blocks of flats and offices. Supply will outstrip demand, especially if we have a Brexit led recession. I have looked at some old Ordnance Survey maps to see how it changed towards the end of the 19th century.

Here is what Hammersmith and Fulham looked like in 1871.

At the bottom left is the Thames. There is a distillery on the river, that  is now the site of one of many new blocks of flats along the river. In the top left is Hammersmith. Over in the top right is North End. In the middle are market gardens and open space. The District Railway had not been built – it opened in 1874. The cemetery had opened in 1868 and is marked by two rows of trees but not named. The red triangle is where I live. There are no roads and only trees where Margravine Gardens is now; rus in urbe.

Now look at the 1894 map. In just twenty-three years the whole area between the Fulham Palace Road and the North End Road has been developed for housing. The Earls Court Exhibition Grounds are marked, Hammersmith Cemetery (now Margravine Cemetery) has expanded to its present size and has two Mortuary Chapels, one C of E and one Nonconformist. Barons Court station did not open until 1905 but St Paul’s Studios have been built and to the north of them there are the playing fields for St Paul’s School. Margravine Gardens has been developed but ends in a cul de sac at the west end. The red triangle marks where my house will be built in a year or two.

Queen’s Club is on the map. The present day Charing Cross Hospital is the Fulham Union Workhouse and the distillery has been joined by the Manbré Saccharine Works, Hammersmith Iron Works, a gasometer and many wharves. Manbré was not a popular neighbour. The company was fined four times in 1899 alone for smoke nuisance. The William Morris Sixth Form Academy was already a school.

Fast forward nineteen years to 1913 and their are not many changes. A few more houses, including mine, but the basic layout of the area was determined in the 1870s and 1880s. It must have been a remarkable transformation and rather bewildering for older residents.