Hammersmith

“HAMMERSMITH, a parish and suburban district in the Kensington division of the hundred of Ossulstone, county Middlesex, 6 miles S.W. of St. Paul's. It is a station on the Kew section of the North London railway. The parish is situated on the river Thames, and comprises Brook Green, Pallenwick, and Shepherd's Bush. It was formerly part of Fulham, but is now a distinct parish.

A creek which extends from the Thames to the village is navigable for barges. The Great Western railway passes through the northern part of the parish. The village, which by a continuity of buildings is almost united with Kensington, forms one of the most populous appendages to the western part of the metropolis, and is situated on the northern bank of the river Thames. The principal street extends along the line of the Great Western road, and a wide street called the Broadway diverges from it towards the river. In one of the houses in the Upper Mall, Catherine, dowager of Charles II., resided for many years; and in another, Brandenburgh House, once the seat of Bubb Doddington, the unfortunate Queen Caroline, wife of George IV., died. This noble mansion was subsequently taken down. In another house, called the Dove Coffee-house, the poet Thompson wrote the greater part of his "Winter;" and in this parish resided Loutherbourg, the painter, and Elphinstone, the friend of Johnson. The streets are well paved and lighted with gas, and the inhabitants are supplied with water by the West Middlesex water-works, established by Act of Parliament in 1806, and which have reservoirs, occupying about 3 acres of land, at the back of Theresa-terrace. A suspension bridge was erected across the Thames in 1827. It has a roadway 822 feet long by 20 wide, with 5 more feet of footway path. Hammersmith is a polling-place for the county elections, and petty sessions for the Kensington division are held here. In the neighbourhood are several nursery-gardens and brick-fields. There are an extensive iron-foundry and forge for the manufacture of machinery, steam boilers, &c., two large breweries, and grounds for bleaching wax. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of London, value £546, in the patronage of the bishop. The church, dedicated to St. Paul, is a spacious structure, built in 1629, and contains tombs of Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave, Sir S. Morland, inventor of the speaking trumpet, bishops Lloyd and Sheridan, Sir Elijah Impey, Woolidge, the painter, &c. In an urn is the heart of Sir N. Crisp, the royalist, who invented the present way of making bricks. In addition to the parish church, are the following district churches:-St. Peter's church, a perpetual curacy, value £500, situated at the W. end of the parish; St. John the Evangelist's, a perpetual curacy, erected in 1869 by subscription; St. Stephen's, situated at Shepherd's Bush, also a perpetual curacy,* value £420. They are all in the patronage of the bishop, except St. John's, vested in the vicar.