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A Bridge over Hammersmith

Currently closed for 3 years, Hammersmith Bridge is one of London’s most attractive crossings. There’s been a bridge connecting Hammersmith and Barnes for nearly 200 years, and ever since the first one was opened in 1827 there have been complaints about its strength. With Hammersmith becoming an important agricultural and industrial part of west London there had been an increasing need to add more river crossings. With this in mind the authorities turned to local engineer William Tierney Clark, who’s best known for the Széchenyi Chain Bridge that spans the Danube in Budapest. Even at the start of the work, when the Duke of Sussex blessed the bridge,...

No Dove Lost

Emery Walker House   During the First World War, if you’d been walking across Hammersmith Bridge at night you might have spotted a shifty looking gentleman surreptitiously throwing bits of metal off the bridge and into the river thames. This mysterious dumper was a disgruntled bookbinder by the name of Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson, who died 100 years ago this year. As for the metal, they were his collection of Doves Type, a beautifully designed font created with his partner Emery Walker.   In the last years of the 19th century Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson (1840-1922) decided to abandon his life as a barrister and become a bookbinder.  With his wif...

Bath time, Londinium style

Under an undistinguished office block in Lower thames Street, opposite the Custom House and below St Dunstan-in-the-East lies a hidden gem of Roman London: a Roman house and bathhouse. It lies some way back from the river but in its heyday this building complex would have overlooked the river thames from its hillside location. It may have been a ‘mansio’, which offered comfortable accommodation to officials - a bit like the nearby Premier Inn! When you venture down there’s a surprising amount to see. What survives are the north and east wings of the L-shaped house but there’s no trace of the west wing. The east side was kept warm with u...

Power Bridge

  Tower Bridge is one of the most famous bridges in the world, and behind its iconic structure lies an amazing story. In the late 19th century London had grown to a city of 6 million, with a third of them living in the East End. To cross the river was a real problem - it still is - with the building of a foot tunnel by the Tower of London wholly inadequate. To solve the problem a competition was launched to design a bridge that had a clearance of 9 metres, so masted ships could pass beneath it and reach the Pool of London . The winners were Sir Horace Jones (who happened to be on the selection committee) and Sir John Wolfe Barry, son of Sir Charle...

river Rubbish

When the Romans arrived in Britain in AD43 they looked for a place to found a settlement along the thames. A patch of high ground to the north, between two rivers, was the ideal spot - and so the city of Londinium was founded. Those rivers were the Fleet and Walbrook, two sources of drinking water. Today you can still follow the courses of those lost rivers: the Fleet flows into the thames at Blackfriars, while the Walbrook begins around Finsbury Circus and ends up going down Dowgate, by Cannon Street.The Walbrook may originally have acted as a sort of boundary. Whatever its purpose was, this waterlogged valley has preserved some remarkable finds un...

Hammersmith Schools for Boys

Renowned actors, sportsmen and musicians have been educated in Hammersmith. Earlier this month a group of 30 followed me along the river thames to learn about some former pupils of Latymer School and St Paul’s School. Latymer Upper School is nearly 400 years old, having been founded in 1624 by Edward Latymer (1557-1627). A prosperous lawyer, he eft part of wealth for the clothing and education of “eight poor boys” from Hammersmith. The clothing, which included a doublet, a pair of breeches, a shirt incorporated a red cross on the left sleeve, a pair of woollen stockings and shoes, was to be distributed twice a year on Ascension Day and All Sa...