Brandenburgh House

Brandenburgh House is on the west side of Fulham Palace Road, opposite Charing Cross Hospital.

A period piece of architecture, a useful line when I don’t know what period – perhaps between the wars. It consists of small studio flats with a communal reception room and garden, aimed at students or short lets. They cost between £300 and £350 a week. 300 x 52 = greater than £20,000 a year; a bit of a stretch for a student. But as usual I digress. I wondered why it is called Brandenburgh House and the answer is it refers to another Brandenburgh House nearby that no longer exists.

Italianate, I guess? An earlier house, “The Great House”, was completely altered and modernised by Lord Melcombe in 1748. After his death in 1762 the house passed to a Mr Wyndham who sold it in 1798 to the Margrave of Brandenburgh-Anspach and Beyreuth. There is not much to say about him and too much to say about his wife, the Margravine, but she must wait.

The last resident was Queen Caroline of Brunswick, wife of George IV. She only lived there for a little over a year dying there in 1821. You may remember her funeral cortège in pouring rain sparked serious rioting in which two men were killed. George IV contrived to have the house demolished soon after her death and then it was redeveloped during the Industrial Revolution becoming docks, factories and a sugar refinery. Today it has been reinvented again as expensive flats dubbed Fulham Reach on the north bank of the river immediately downstream of Hammersmith Bridge.

Had Brandenburgh House survived it wouldn’t have eclipsed Chiswick House but it would have been a jewel in the borough’s crown, even if it had been converted into a hotel. I doubt it could have become student accommodation but with a Labour council you never know.