Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney | Page 8

moulded entrance doorway, built in
1851.
Immediately opposite, across the road, is St. Mary's Training College
for elementary school masters. These young men must have passed the
King's Scholarship examination and be over the age of eighteen before
they enter on the two years' course of study. The large building near on
the north side is the practising-school, where the students learn the art
of teaching practically. There is a pretty little chapel in the college, and
the walls enclose three acres of land, including site.
St. Joseph's School for pauper children is adjacent to the
practising-school, on the north side. This building is certified for 180
children, who are received from the workhouse, etc. They enter at the
age of three years, and leave at sixteen for situations. It was founded
and is managed by the Daughters of the Cross, and was established in
its present quarters September 19, 1892. Faulkner says of Brook Green,
"Here is a Roman Catholic Chapel and School called the Arke," so that
this part of Hammersmith has long been connected with the Catholics.
In the Blythe Road, No. 79, is a fine old house with an imposing

portico, which now overlooks a dingy yard. This is Blythe House,
"reported to have been haunted, and many strange stories were reported
of ghosts and apparitions having been seen here; but it turned out at last
that a gang of smugglers had taken up their residence in it." It was once
used as a school, and later on as a reformatory. It is now in the
possession of the Swan Laundry Company.
In Blythe Road there is a small mission church called Christ Church. In
Shepherd's Bush Road, at the corner of Netherwood Road, is West
Kensington Park Chapel of the Wesleyan Methodists. Shepherd's Bush
and many of the adjoining roads are thickly lined with bushy young
plane-trees. St. Simon's Church, in Minford Gardens, is an ugly
red-brick building with ornamental facings of red brick, and a high
steeple of the same materials. It was built in 1879. St. Matthew's, in
Sinclair Road, is very similar, but has a bell-gable instead of a steeple.
The foundation-stone was laid 1870. In Ceylon Road there is a Board
school. Facing Addison Road Station is the well-known place of
entertainment called Olympia, with walls of red brick and stone and a
semicircular glass roof. It contains the largest covered arena in London.
Returning once more to the Broadway, we traverse King Street, which
is the High Street of Hammersmith. It is very narrow, and, further,
blocked by costers' barrows, so that on Saturday nights it is hard work
to get through it at all. The pressure is increased by the electric trams,
which run on a single set of rails to the Broadway. In King Street is the
Hammersmith Theatre of Varieties, the West End Lecture-Hall, and the
West End Chapel, held by the Baptists. It stands on the site of an older
chapel, which was first used for services of the Church of England, and
was acquired by the Baptists in 1793. The old tombstones standing
round the present building are memorials of the former burial-ground.
At the west end of King Street is an entrance to Ravenscourt Park,
acquired by the L.C.C. in 1888-90. The grounds cover between thirty
and forty acres, and are well laid out in flower-beds, etc., at the
southern end. The Ravenscourt Park Railway-station is on the east side,
and the arched railway-bridge crosses the southern end of the park. A
beautiful avenue of fine old elms leads to the Public Library, which is
at the north end in what was once the old manor-house.

All this part of Hammersmith was formerly included in the Manor of
Pallenswick or Paddingswick. Faulkner says this manor is situated "at
Pallengswick or Turnham Green, and extends to the western road." The
first record of it is at the end of Edward III.'s reign, when it was granted
to Alice Perrers or Pierce, who was one of the King's favourites. She
afterwards married Lord Windsor, a Baron, and Lieutenant of Ireland.
Report has also declared that King Edward used the manor-house as a
hunting-seat, and his arms, richly carved in wood, stood in a large
upper room until a few years before 1813. But the house itself cannot
have been very ancient then, for Lysons says it had only recently been
rebuilt at the date he wrote--namely, 1795. The influence of Alice
Perrers over the King was resented by his courtiers, who procured her
banishment when he died in 1378. After her marriage, however, King
Richard II. granted the manor to her husband.
There is a gap in the records of the manor subsequently until John
Payne died, leaving it to his son William in 1572. This was the