Hammersmith is a district of
West London, England, southwest of
Charing Cross. It is the administrative centre of the
London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and identified in the
London Plan as one of 35 major centres in
Greater London.
It is bordered by
Shepherd's Bush to the north,
Kensington to the east,
Chiswick to the west, and
Fulham to the south, with which it forms part of the north bank of the
River Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...
. The area is one of west London's main commercial and employment centres, and has for some decades been a major centre of London's
Polish community. It is a major transport hub for west London, with two
London Underground
The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England.
The ...
stations and a bus station at
Hammersmith Broadway.
Toponymy
Hammersmith may mean "(Place with) a hammer smithy or forge",
although, in 1839,
Thomas Faulkner proposed that the name derived from two 'Saxon' words: the initial ''Ham'' from
ham and the remainder from
hythe
Hythe, from Anglo-Saxon ''hȳð'', may refer to a landing-place, port or haven, either as an element in a toponym, such as Rotherhithe in London, or to:
Places Australia
* Hythe, Tasmania
Canada
*Hythe, Alberta, a village in Canada
England
* ...
, alluding to Hammersmith's riverside location. In 1922, Gover proposed that the prefix was a personal name, Heahmaer or Hæmar, and stating that the suffix must be Anglo-Saxon from -myðe, meaning the junction of two rivers, as
Hammersmith Creek
Hammersmith Creek was an outflow river of the Stamford Brook, and used to run through what is now King Street, into the Thames at the present-day site of Furnivall Gardens in Hammersmith.
Until the early 19th century the creek was navigable ov ...
merged with the Thames here.
The earliest spelling is Hamersmyth in 1294, with alternative spellings of Hameresmithe in 1312, Hamyrsmyth in 1535, and Hammersmith 1675.
History
The district was a chapelry of the ancient parish of
Fulham, but became a fully independent parish in 1631. In the early 1660s, Hammersmith's first parish church, which later became
St Paul's, was built by
Sir Nicholas Crispe who ran the brickworks in Hammersmith.
It contained a monument to Crispe as well as a bronze bust of
King Charles I by
Hubert Le Sueur. In 1696
Sir Samuel Morland was buried there. The church was completely rebuilt in 1883, but the monument and bust were transferred to the new church.
In 1745, two Scots,
James Lee and Lewis Kennedy, established the
Vineyard Nursery, over six acres devoted to landscaping plants. During the next hundred and fifty years the nursery introduced many new plants to England, including
fuchsia
''Fuchsia'' () is a genus of flowering plants that consists mostly of shrubs or small trees. The first to be scientifically described, '' Fuchsia triphylla'', was discovered on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic ...
and the standard
rose tree.
1804 saw the trial of Francis Smith for the murder of Thomas Millwood in Beaver Lane, Hammersmith. Called the
Hammersmith Ghost murder case, it set a unique standard in English legal history.
In 1868, Hammersmith was the name of a parish, and of a suburban district, within the hundred of Ossulstone, in the county of Middlesex. Major industrial sites included the
Osram lamp factory at
Brook Green, the
J. Lyons
J. Lyons & Co. was a British restaurant chain, food manufacturing, and hotel conglomerate founded in 1884 by Joseph Lyons and his brothers in law, Isidore and Montague Gluckstein. Lyons’ first teashop opened in Piccadilly, London in 1894, an ...
factory (which at one time employed 30,000 people). During both
World Wars,
Waring & Gillow's furniture factory, in Cambridge Grove, became the site of aircraft manufacture.
Hammersmith Borough Council had provided the borough with electricity since the early twentieth century from
Hammersmith power station. Upon
nationalisation of the electricity industry in 1948 ownership passed to the
British Electricity Authority and later to the
Central Electricity Generating Board
The Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) was responsible for electricity generation, transmission and bulk sales in England and Wales from 1958 until privatisation of the electricity industry in the 1990s.
It was established on 1 Janu ...
. Electricity connections to the
national grid rendered the 20
megawatt
The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James ...
(MW) coal-fired power station redundant. It closed in 1965; in its final year of operation it delivered 5,462
MWh
A kilowatt-hour (unit symbol: kW⋅h or kW h; commonly written as kWh) is a unit of energy: one kilowatt of power for one hour. In terms of SI derived units with special names, it equals 3.6 megajoules (MJ). Kilowatt-hours are a common bill ...
of electricity to the borough.
Economy
Hammersmith is located at the confluence of one of the arterial routes out of central London (the
A4) with several local feeder roads and a bridge over the Thames. The focal point of the district is the commercial centre (the Broadway Centre) located at this confluence, which houses a shopping centre, bus station, an
Underground station
A metro station or subway station is a station for a rapid transit system, which as a whole is usually called a "metro" or "subway". A station provides a means for passengers to purchase tickets, board trains, and evacuate the system in th ...
and an office complex.
Stretching about westwards from this centre is
King Street, Hammersmith's main shopping street. Named after
John King, Bishop of London, it contains a second shopping centre (
Livat Hammersmith
Livat Hammersmith is a retail, residential and office complex located off King Street in Hammersmith in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. Along with the other Livat Centres, it is operated by the Ingka Centres division of INGKA H ...
), many small shops, the
town hall, the
Lyric Theatre, a cinema, the
Polish community centre and two hotels. King Street is supplemented by other shops along Shepherds Bush Road to the north, Fulham Palace Road to the south and
Hammersmith Road to the east. Hammersmith's office activity takes place mainly to the eastern side of its centre, along Hammersmith Road and in the
Ark
Ark or ARK may refer to:
Biblical narratives and religion Hebrew word ''teva''
* Noah's Ark, a massive vessel said to have been built to save the world's animals from a flood
* Ark of bulrushes, the boat of the infant Moses
Hebrew ''aron''
* ...
, an office complex to the south of the
flyover which traverses the area.
Charing Cross Hospital on Fulham Palace Road is a large multi-disciplinary
NHS hospital with accident & emergency and teaching departments run by the
Imperial College School of Medicine.
Architecture
"The Ark" office building, designed by British architect Ralph Erskine and completed in 1992, has some resemblance to the hull of a sailing ship. Hammersmith Bridge Road Surgery was designed by Guy Greenfield.
22 St Peter's Square, the former Royal Chiswick Laundry and
Island Records
Island Records is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded in 1959 by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall, and Leslie Kong in Jamaica, and was eventually sold to PolyGram in 1989. Island and A&M Records, anothe ...
HQ, has been converted to architects' studios and offices by
Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands. It has
Hammersmith SocietyConservation award
plaque (2009) and has been included in tours in Architecture Week.
Several of Hammersmith's pubs are listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...
s, including the ''Black Lion Black Lion, Black Lions, or Blacklions may refer to:
Businesses and organisations
* Black Lion, Hammersmith, a London pub
* Black Lion, Kilburn, a London pub
* Black Lion Records, a British jazz record company
* Black Lions Films, associated w ...
'', '' The Dove'', '' The George'', '' The Hop Poles'', the '' Hope and Anchor'', the '' Salutation Inn'' and '' The Swan'', as are Hammersmith's two parish church
A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activities, ...
es, St Paul's (the town's original church, rebuilt in the 1890s) and St Peter's, built in the 1820s.
Culture and entertainment
Riverside Studios
Riverside Studios is an arts centre on the banks of the River Thames in Hammersmith, London, England. The venue plays host to contemporary performance, film, visual art exhibitions and television production.
Having closed for redevelopment ...
is a cinema, performance space, bar and cafe. Originally film studios, Riverside Studios were used by the
BBC from 1954 to 1975 for television productions. The
Lyric Hammersmith Theatre is just off King Street.
Hammersmith Apollo concert hall and theatre (formerly the Carling Hammersmith Apollo, the Hammersmith Odeon, and before that the Gaumont Cinema) is just south of the gyratory.
The former
Hammersmith Palais
The Hammersmith Palais de Danse, in its last years simply named Hammersmith Palais, was a dance hall and entertainment venue in Hammersmith, London, England that operated from 1919 until 2007. It was the first ''palais de danse'' to be ...
nightclub has been demolished and the site reused as student accommodation.
The
Polish Social and Cultural Association
The Polish Social and Cultural Association ( pl, Polski Ośrodek Społeczno-Kulturalny; POSK) is a Polish cultural centre in west London, England. It was funded by public subscription and founded in 1967, on the initiative of Polish engineer R ...
is on King Street. It contains a theatre, an art gallery and several restaurants. Its library has one of the largest collections of Polish-language books outside Poland.
''
The Dove'' is a riverside pub with what the ''
Guinness Book of Records'' listed as the smallest bar room in the world, in 2016 surviving as a small space on the right of the bar. the pub was frequented by
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century f ...
and
Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading English novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquir ...
;
James Thomson lodged and likely wrote ''
Rule Britannia'' here. The narrow alley in which it stands is the only remnant of the riverside village of Hammersmith, the bulk of which was demolished in the 1930s.
Furnivall Gardens
Furnival Gardens (also spelt Furnivall Gardens) is a park in Hammersmith alongside the river Thames.
It was once the location of the mouth of Hammersmith Creek, which had an active fishing trade until about 200 years ago. The creek was filled i ...
, which lies to the east, covers the site of
Hammersmith Creek
Hammersmith Creek was an outflow river of the Stamford Brook, and used to run through what is now King Street, into the Thames at the present-day site of Furnivall Gardens in Hammersmith.
Until the early 19th century the creek was navigable ov ...
and the High Bridge.
Leisure activity also takes place along Hammersmith's pedestrianised riverside, home to the pubs of Lower Mall, rowing clubs and the riverside park of Furnival Gardens. Hammersmith has a municipal park,
Ravenscourt Park
Ravenscourt Park or RCP is an public park and garden located in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, England. It is one of the Borough's flagship parks, having won a Green Flag Award. Stamford Brook and Ravenscourt Park tube stations ar ...
, to the west of the centre. Its facilities include tennis courts, a basketball court, a bowling lawn, a paddling pool, and playgrounds.
Hammersmith is the historical home of the
West London Penguin Swimming and Water Polo Club, formerly known as the ''Hammersmith Penguin Swimming Club''.
Hammersmith Chess Club has been active in the borough since it was formed in 1962. It was initially based in
Westcott Lodge, later moving to St Paul's Church, then to
Blythe House and now Lytton Hall, near West Kensington tube station.
Transport
The area is on the main A4
trunk road heading west from central London towards the
M4 motorway and
Heathrow Airport. The A4, a busy commuter route, passes over the area's main road junction, Hammersmith Gyratory System, on a long viaduct, the
Hammersmith Flyover.
Hammersmith Bridge closed in August 2020 to pedestrians, cyclists and road traffic, severing the link with
Barnes in the southwest. Its cast iron pedestals that hold the suspension system in place had become unsafe.
The centre of Hammersmith is served by two
London Underground
The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England.
The ...
stations named Hammersmith:
one
1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. I ...
is served by the
Hammersmith & City and
Circle
A circle is a shape consisting of all points in a plane that are at a given distance from a given point, the centre. Equivalently, it is the curve traced out by a point that moves in a plane so that its distance from a given point is cons ...
lines and
the other
In Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology, the terms the Other and the Constitutive Other identify the other human being, in their differences from the Self, as being a cumulative, constituting factor in the self-image of a person; as acknow ...
is served by the
Piccadilly and
District
A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivision ...
lines. The latter station is part of a larger office, retail and transport development, locally known as "The Broadway Centre".
Hammersmith Broadway stretches from the junction of Queen Caroline Street and King Street in the west to the junction of Hammersmith Road and Butterwick in the east. It forms the north side of the gyratory system also known as Hammersmith Roundabout. The Broadway Shopping Centre includes a major bus station. The length of King Street places the westernmost shops and offices closest to
Ravenscourt Park Underground station on the
District line, one stop west of Hammersmith itself.
Hammersmith Bridge
The first Hammersmith Bridge was designed by
William Tierney Clark
William Tierney Clark FRS FRAS (23 August 1783 – 22 September 1852) was an English civil engineer particularly associated with the design and construction of bridges. He was among the earliest designers of suspension bridges.
Born in B ...
and opened in 1827 and was the first
suspension bridge crossing the
River Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...
. It was redesigned by
Joseph Bazalgette, and reopened in 1887.
In August 2020, it closed to pedestrians, cyclists and road traffic as the cast iron pedestals that hold the suspension system in place became unsafe. Work began to improve the structural integrity of the bridge in 2022.
In literature and music
Hammersmith features in
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian er ...
' ''
Great Expectations'' as the home of the Pocket family. Pip resides with the Pockets in their house by the river and goes boating on the river.
William Morris
William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He w ...
's utopian novel ''
News from Nowhere
''News from Nowhere'' (1890) is a classic work combining utopian socialism and soft science fiction written by the artist, designer and socialist pioneer William Morris. It was first published in serial form in the ''Commonweal'' journal begin ...
'' (1890) describes a journey up the river from Hammersmith towards
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
.
In 1930,
Gustav Holst composed ''Hammersmith'', a work for military band (later rewritten for orchestra), reflecting his impressions of the area, having lived across the river in
Barnes for nearly forty years. It begins with a haunting musical depiction of the River Thames flowing underneath Hammersmith Bridge. Holst taught music at
St Paul's Girls' School and composed many of his most famous works there, including his ''
The Planets'' suite. A music room in the school is named after him.
[ Holst dedicates ''Hammersmith'': ''To the Author of " The Water Gypsies."''
]
Notable people
17th century
* John Milton (1608–1674), poetLewalski, Barbara K.
Barbara Josephine Lewalski (; February 22, 1931 – March 2, 2018)Roberts, Sam (March 29, 2018).. '' The New York Times''. nytimes.com. Retrieved 2018-03-30.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lewalski, Barbara Kiefer
1931 births
2018 deaths
American academics ...
''The Life of John Milton''. Oxford: Blackwells, 2003.
* William Sheridan (c. 1635 – 3 October 1711), Bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh
18th century
19th century
1900–1945
1946–2000
See also
* List of districts in Hammersmith and Fulham
This is a list of districts in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham
The London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham () is a London borough in West London and which also forms part of Inner London. The borough was formed in 1965 from the me ...
References
External links
London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham
Hammersmith's local community web site
Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney
by Geraldine Edith Mitton and John Cunningham Geikie
John Cunningham Geikie ( Edinburgh, 26 October 1824 – 1 April 1906) was a Scottish-born minister and author, primarily active first in Toronto, Canada, and then in England.
Biography
Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Geikie was the second so ...
, 1903, from Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks."
It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital libr ...
HammersmithLondon Business Improvement District (BID)
{{Authority control
Business improvement districts in London
Districts of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham
Districts of London on the River Thames
History of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham
Major centres of London
Places formerly in Middlesex
Polish-British culture