Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney | Page 9

amounted to ￡3 yearly, which was to be distributed among twelve poor men and women the first year, and to be used for apprenticing a poor boy the second year, alternately. Sir Richard Gurney, Lord Mayor of London, bought the manor in 1631. It was several times sold and resold, and in Faulkner's time belonged to one George Scott. It had only then recently begun to be known as Ravenscourt. The house was granted to the commissioners of the public library by the London County Council at a nominal rent, and the library was opened by Sir John Lubbock, March 19, 1890. In a case at the head of the stairs are a series of the Kelmscott Press books, presented by Sir William Morris. Round the walls of the rooms hang many interesting old prints, illustrative of ancient houses in Hammersmith and Fulham. There is also a valuable collection of cuttings, prints, and bills relating to the local history of the parish. In the entrance hall are hung prints of Rocque's and other maps of Hammersmith, and the original document signed by the enrolled band of volunteers in 1803. Among the treasures of the library may be mentioned the minute-book of the volunteers, a copy of Bowack's "Middlesex," and an original edition of Rocque's maps of London and environs.
Just outside the park, on the east side, is the Church of Holy Innocents, opposite St. Peter's Schools. It is a high brick building, opened September 25, 1890. There is a Primitive Methodist chapel with school attached in Dalling Road near by. In Glenthorne Road is the Church of St. John the Evangelist, founded in 1858, and designed by Mr. Butterfield. A magnificent organ was built in it by one of the parishioners in memory of her late husband.
Behind the church are the Godolphin Schools, founded in the sixteenth century by the will of W. Godolphin, and rebuilt in 1861. In Southerton Road there is a small Welsh chapel. The Goldhawk Road is an old Roman road, a fact which was conclusively proved by the discovery of the old Roman causeway accidentally dug up by workmen in 1834.
Shepherd's Bush Green is a triangular piece of grass an acre or two in extent. There seems to be no recognised derivation of the curious name. At Shepherd's Bush, in 1657, one Miles Syndercomb hired a house for the purpose of assassinating Oliver Cromwell as he passed along the highroad to the town. The plot failed, and Syndercomb was hanged, drawn, and quartered in consequence. The precise spot on which the attempt took place is impossible to identify. It was somewhere near "the corner of Golders Lane," says Faulkner, but the lane has long since been obliterated.
St. Stephen's Church, in the Uxbridge Road, was the earliest church in this part of Hammersmith. It was built and endowed by Bishop Blomfield in 1850. Its tower and spire, rising to the height of 150 feet, can be seen for some distance.
St. Thomas's, in the Godolphin Road, is rather a pretty church of brick with red-tiled roof, and some ornamental stonework on the south face. It was built in 1882, designed by Sir A. Blomfield, and the foundation-stone was laid by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts. The chancel was added in 1887.
In Leysfield Road stands St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, of which the foundation-stone was laid by the present Duke of Argyll, March 30, 1870.
In the extreme west of the Goldhawk Road is St. Mary's Church, in bright red brick, erected 1886. The Duchess of Teck laid the foundation-stone. This has brought us to the end of the houses. Behind St. Mary's lie waste land and market-gardens. Just outside the parish boundary are two old houses of brick in the style of the seventeenth century; they used to be known as Stamford Brook Manor House, but they have no authentic history. Starch Green Road branches off from the Goldhawk Road opposite Ravenscourt Park; this road, running up into the Askew Road, was formerly known by the still more extraordinary name of Gaggle Goose Green.
In Cobbold Road, to the north of the waste land is St. Saviour's. An iron church was first erected here in 1884, and the present red-brick building was consecrated March 4, 1889. The chancel was only added in 1894.
In Becklow Road are a neat row of almshouses with gabled roofs. These are the Waste Land Almshouses. In the words of the charity report, ordered to be printed by the Vestry of Hammersmith in 1890, "This foundation owes its origin to a resolution which was entered into by the copyholders of the Manor on Fulham on the 23rd April, 1810, that no grants of waste land belonging to the manor should in future be applied to the purpose of raising a fund and endowing almshouses."
Part of the money received