Thames Tributary Beverley - Barnes

Thames Tributary Beverley
The Beverley flows eastwards to the Thames


Leafy upmarket suburban area with an extensive open area comprising playing fields and an important nature reserve in an old water works site. Mainly 19th housing development with some older properties, and some modern housing by big name architects.

Post to the west Barnes Bridge and Chiswick Dukes Meadow more sport
Post to the east Barn Elms and Fulham Bishops Park
Post to the north Castelnau
Post to the south Barnes Common

Barn Elms
Barn Elms Park. Through which the last few yards of the Beverley Brook flows below intersecting roads in the grassy Barnes Common.
Plane Tree – very old and massive. Near the tennis courts.
LCC playing area with changing accommodation, etc, in the L.C.C. style of the 1950s. The Playing Fields are on site of the polo ground.
Water works. West Middlesex Waterworks Co added this site of 110 acres in 1838, initially with two settlement reservoirs by their engineer William Tierney Clark. It took water from Hampton and filtered it. In 1895-1897 they added filter beds and reservoirs holding 350 Mgal. There was a pilot plant in clarifying stored Thames water in which the water flows slowly upwards and floc settles. The Barnes works also were the first for experiments on super chlorination and because water goes to Hammersmith and gives it time for the taste to be monitored. These were drained and covered c1970
Wetlands Centre. This is the West Middlesex Water works company site converted. The Nature Reserve was created by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust. Opened in 2000, it covers 100 acres, and includes a main lake, a reed bed, a grazing marsh, a wader scrape and a sheltered lagoon. The four reservoirs were separated from the Thames by small stretch of land.
Barn Elms athletic track

Castlenau
Called Upper Bridge Road until 1846 but it had been a new road built in 1827 as an approach to Hammersmith Bridge developed after its opening in 1827.
2 Red Lion. Dates from at least 1718 but rebuilt in 1835 after a fire. It was at one time called The Strugglers.
17-41 East End House. On this corner was Hollybush House with a connection to Mrs. Fitzherbert. Now flats

Cedars Road
Built on the site of the grounds of The Cedars in 1894
Lion Houses – built on the grounds of Hillersden House and The Laurels.

Church Road,
Priory Lodge
Merton Lodge
St.Osmunds RC Primary School. This is in a building which was previously the Convent of the Sacred Heart School for Girls run by nuns and closed 1969.
101 Strawberry House next to the Rectory. Early 18th house which was the Rectory until 1939. Rebuilt 1717/27 with an added second floor and parapet.
117 Homestead House. c. 1700. Weather boarded in yellow and red brick. In front of the house an iron gate and a row of pollard lime trees.
117 Olympic Studios - where the Rolling Stones first recorded. Was public hall originally called Byfield Hall and built on the site of Byfield House. It was built in 1906. It was originally used for a range of events but by 1910 was the Cinematograph Cinema and continued in cinema use under various names. In 1925 however it became a live theatre with a number of distinguished plays and actors. It became a theatre again in the early 1930s but by the 1950s had become a studio for the production of TV advertisements. In 196 it was converted to a sound studio and refurbished by Virgin and later EMI.
St.Mary's Church. The first church here was a small flint chapel on a gravel mound and there are records of appointments of priests in the 12th. In 1215 it was changed and the tower was added in 1485 - now only the medieval south aisle wall survives. The church was destroyed by a fire in 1978 but the tower survived – it is in brick, of the Thames valley type with a turret on the side. A blocked Norman doorway was discovered in the nave wall after the fire. . Destroyed were small brasses to the young girls of the Wyld family 1787, a monument to Sir Richard Hoare, and a seated mourning woman and child by J. Hickey. In 1980 it was decided to put in place a new building by Edward Cullinan, with a wing projecting from the old church as the worship area and it is a rewriting of the church's architecture. Designs were evolved with the local community to continue the tradition established on the site and the resulting aesthetic is entirely English and ecclesiastic. It was building rededicated in 1984.
Churchyard. Most of the gravestones date from 18th and 19th but on the south wall there a 17th, plaque to Edward Rose, who died in 1653 and left £5 a year to the parish for roses to be planted on his grave? The earliest burial ground was however to the west of the original 12th chapel.
47 The Grange built 1700-1720 in Brown brick.19th railings with lamp arch on the gate.

Commonside
Old Barnes cemetery. Opened in 1854 and contains the grave of Francis Palgrave. Closed in 1854 and now a nature reserve. Chapels demolished,

Cumberland Road
The name reflects the area of Lonsdale family estates.
6 has an informal country garden. Plus a ‘secret’ garden surrounded by scented shrubs.
16 exuberant garden on 2 levels

Ellerton Road
Named after a Victorian previous rector and hymn writer, John Ellerton

Elm Grove Road
Elm Grove house stood at the corner with Rocks Lane. Demolished 1897. Home of a Portuguese diplomat.

Glebe Road
Built on the glebe land belonging to the rector;
Large Georgian house on the far side of the junction of Kitson Road site of rector’s home

Hillersden Avenue
Site of Hillersden House, which was for some time a school and demolished in 1895.

King Edward Mews
Flats and offices on the site of polo pony stables

Kitson Road
Laid out in 1907, named after Canon Kitson, sometime rector

Laurel Road
Site of The Laurels built 1705 and owned by a City banker, John Nightingale. Subsequently home of banker, Henry Hoare. It included a granary hot houses and a melon pit. Sold in 1885 and became the Beverley Boys School. Demolished in the 1930s.

Lower Richmond Road
Putney Cemetery. A walled enclosure on the edge of Putney Common on which it is an encroachment. Ragstone Chapels and lodge by Bamett & Birch, 1855. Opened in 1854 when the old churchyard in the village was full. It is three acres and outside the LCC boundary.

Mill Hill
Site of a windmill. In the 19th, after the windmill’s demise, cottages built there. It was overturned in a gale in 1780 and rebuilt, but demolished in 1836,

Mill Hill road
Mill Hill Road. Named from ‘Mflhyll’ 1443. The former windmill here is also referred to in the field name ‘Windmilifeild’ 1664 houses Include some weatherboarding.
1 The Cedars. Three storey house with an added roughcast Doric porch. Built on an enclosure from the common in 1780.
Ring main connection on the side of the road

Tributary to the Beverley from the east
Shown on some older maps this appears to rise in Rocks Lane and flow parallel and south of the Beverley to join it somewhere near The Cedars.

Westmoreland Road
The name reflects the site of estates of Lord Lonsdale
12 pretty garden with a circular lawn with pool and fountain,


Sources
Clunn. The Face of London
Culbertson and Randall. Permanent Londoners.
English Heritage. Blue Plaque Guide
Field. London Place Names
Greater London Council. Thames Guidelines
London Encyclopaedia

London Wetland Centre. Web site
Metropolitan Water Board. London's Water Supply.
Penguin. Surrey
Pevsner and Cherry. Surrey
Pevsner and Cherry. South London

St.Mary's Church. Web site
St.Osmund's School. Web site
Symonds. Behind the Blue Plaques of London
Wheatley and Meulenkamp. Follies

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