Barons Court

Baron's Court is the 49th station on the District Line that I have visited. Tracks were laid here in 1874 when the District railway ( now the District Line) opened an extension from Earl's Court to Hammersmith. At that time there was no need for a station here as it was just open fields and market gardens. An increase in house building in the early 20th cent created the need for a new station, which opened here in 1905. The station has four platforms and serves both the District and the Piccadilly Lines.

Unique to the station are these pew like wooden benches with the station's name along the back on enamelled panels.

One of the original ticket booths at the top of the stairs now displays information about the station.

Other than the ticket barriers, the ticket hall seems to have retained its Edwardian character.

The station is a Grade II listed building and you can still see many of its original features, including the  terracotta facing and art nouveau lettering. It was designed by Harry Ford, the District railway's architect from 1900-1911. His stations were characterised by his use of brown terracotta facades. The front of the station still features the name 'District Railway'. Ford is also  credited with the use of the underground sign with a capital U and a capital D. 

Outside the station I turned right onto Palliser Road, walking past these shops with seemed popular. One of them had a long queue forming  but that is probably more due to social distancing than anything else.

At the end of the road is the entrance to the Queen's Club. Established in 1886, it is a private sports club with 28 outdoor grass tennis courts and eight indoor. It is also the national headquarters of real tennis having two courts. The club hosts the annual Queen's Club Championships for men on its grass courts and is used by the top players as a warm up for the Wimbledon Championships. I have watched many exciting games of tennis here and prefer it to Wimbledon as you are much closer to the action.

Almost opposite Baron's Court station is Baron's Court Road which takes you back to West Kensington station. There is a mixture of  houses on the road. These were built in the 1930s with blocks of flats replacing those bombed during WW2

Just a little further down the road is an archway leading to the charming Comeragh Mews. Built as stabling and carriage houses in the Victorian times they are now much sort after in this desirable area so close to a tube station.

I walked along the mews and out onto Comeragh Street where there is the Curtains Up pub.

The name refers to the theatre in the basement of the pub.

The theatre only has 57 seats. It was opened in 1991 and features a programme of short run plays.

I returned via the mews to Baron's Court Road and found a blue plaque  at No32 for  the aircraft designer Sir Geoffrey De Havilland but couldn't see one for Mahatma Gandhi who lived at No 20 in the 1890s whilst he was in London studying law.

I went back towards the station to walk down Margravine Road.  On the left hand side is the Magravine cemetery which opened in 1869 in response to the lack of burial space in local churchyards, made all the worse for the outbreak of cholera. The land was formerly used as market gardens and orchards.

Over 80,000 burials have taken place here but the only burials now allowed are in privately owned graves.

In 1940 bombs damaged many of the gravestones.  In 1951 the cemetery became a garden of rest and the process of burying many of the headstones began and the area laid to grass. In 1953 the Anglican chapel was demolished. The cemetery has over 300 trees as well as numerous wild flowers. 

It was a joy to wander around listening to all the birdsong knowing that just a few hundred metres away is the A4 with its continuous flow of heavy traffic, screaming sirens and roaring motor bikes blocking out all other sounds. 

After leaving the cemetery I continued along Margravine Road on to St Dunstan's Road. This is a very familiar road for me as it was here that I started my first teaching job in 1972. It was a very small mixed secondary school for pupils aged 11-18. The school occupied the top two floors of a Victorian school building whilst the ground floor was used by a primary school. It had very few facilities. All sports activities had to take place elsewhere and as I was responsible for Girl's PE I spent a lot of my time on school coaches going backwards and forwards to the sports playing fields on the other side of the Thames. I knew the school had closed many years ago and I assumed the land had been redeveloped but I was wrong.

I was so surprised to see the school building is still here, just as I remembered it. Now it is a 6th form college. Both the previous secondary and primary schools were merged with other local schools.

The old school keeper's house on the right was used for Home Economics. The newer building up ahead was the sports hall that was built the year before I left.

The view from the back of the school. There used to be a small shelter on the right where I parked my motor bike. It was a 100cc Yamaha so you could only just call it a motor bike but anything else would have been too heavy for me in those days. The bike served me well as I had a long journey to work from Teddington, which would have taken me ages by public transport. It was a happy school and I met many life long friends here.  Nearly all of them have now passed away so the visit today was tinged with sadness but it was also a reminder of the many laughs we all shared.

St Dunstan's Road brings you out onto Fulham Palace Road and on the left is the large Charing Cross Hospital. Charing Cross was originally a voluntary hospital called the West London infirmary, founded in 1818 near the Strand in Charing Cross. That building is now occupied by Charing Cross police station. In 1827 it changed its name to Charing Cross Hospital and later set up a medical school. It retained its name when it moved here to its present site on Fulham Palace Road in 1973. 

The hospital was just a few minutes walk from the school and the staff were delighted as we now had easy access to the shops and bank within the hospital.

I carried on towards Hammersmith and then took a right turn onto Talgarth Road back towards Barons Court Station. There are some very interesting properties on this stretch of the road. This is the home of LAMDA ( London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art). When I took this photo I didn't realise the large, modern building next door was the main part of the Academy so missed it off! It moved here in 2003. The institutions that form LAMDA include the Academy of Music that dates back to 1861. From 1947 the building was home to the Royal Ballet Company. The Lower school moved to The White Lodge in Richmond park in 1955 and in 2003 the Upper school moved to Floral Street in Covent Garden.

Next to LAMDA is Colet House. This was originally part of a terrace of 9 houses known as St Paul's Studios. It was built in 1885 and the other individual studios were built a couple of years later. Colet house was built with two ground floor studios and a large studio on the first floor. The house was occupied by a number of different artists until the 1930s when dance classes were held in the studios. Nicolai Legat, the Russian ballet master held classes there with Dame Margot Fonteyn. 

Other Russians used the house and in 1938 P D Ouspensky, the philosopher and writer chose it as the headquarters of his work. It was here that he founded the Society for the Study of Normal Psychology, known today as the Study Society. During the war it was used by the Admiralty. Shortly afterwards it was leased by the Royal Ballet Company which had the main school next door. When the ballet company no longer needed Colet House the Study Society once again took up residence.

The remainder of the houses on this terrace stand out because of their double length studio windows. If you have ever travelled along this road the chances are you will have spotted them especially as you are likely to be stuck in a traffic jam here.

The houses were built in 1891 and were specifically built for 'bachelor artists'. With a housekeeper's apartment in the basement and the artist's residence on the ground floor, the rest of the space was for the studio with the large north facing window allowing in the maximum light. To the right of the large window you can see a long narrow window. This was to allow large canvasses to be removed from the studio. 

 

There are two types of house design. One has a doorway facing out and the other has a doorway to the side. Inside the alcove was a seat for clients or models awaiting the attention of the artist.

Looking up you can see the round glazed top of the window.

Across the road from the studios is Hammersmith and West London College. I decided to cross over and have a look down the road alongside the college.

On the opposite corner is Barons Keep, a 1930s built large apartment block.

It looks like each of the flats has a balcony which would have overlooked the school fields but now would just look out over the college. 

Down the road I spotted this small church with an unusual steeple. This church which has seating for 300 people was consecrated in 1961 but the first, much larger,  St Mary's was built here in 1813. Sadly the original church, which had a capacity for 1150 people was destroyed by a flying bomb in WW2.  

I walked round the corner from the church and found this small park. I just love finding these small irregular shaped parks squeezed in between and around existing buildings.

On one side of the park was this impressive building which is a restaurant and hotel. I discovered there was more to this building than the restaurant. This house with attached lodge was built for the  High Master of St Paul's when the school - founded next to St Paul's Cathedral with 153 pupils in 1509- moved here in 1884. The main school buildings just around the corner were demolished after the school moved again in 1968 to Barnes. St Paul's was the largest school in England at its foundation. The scholars were not required to make any payment but were required to be literate and they had to pay for their own wax candles, an expensive commodity at that time.

Soon after WW2 started the school was evacuated to Berkshire. The school became the headquarters of the 21st Army group under the command of General Montgomery, an old pupil of the school. It is said Montgomery took great pleasure in occupying the office of the High Master. It was in the school boardroom that the Allied invasion on D Day was planned led by General Dwight Eisenhower and Montgomery. King George VI and Winston Churchill both visited them here to approve the plans. In September 1945 the school buildings were returned to St Paul's.  Maps used by Eisenhower and Montgomery were still displayed on the walls. These are now displayed in the Montgomery Room at the school's present Location in Barnes.

 

This is all that remains of the school now, the High Master's House which has become St Paul's Hotel. Walking back to the tube station I reflected on today's walk, which was of great interest to me, having worked in this area. Some places were recognisable but not many. As always, familiar places do bring back memories and for me they were very happy ones.

West Kensington

Very early on a bright but cold Saturday morning I decided to venture out and use public transport for the first time in four months. Dressed as though I was setting out to rob a bank with a plentiful supply of hand gel, I was ready to travel on the Underground. I would still adhere to my own safety measures of walking between stations as far as possible and never to be on the tube for more than 15 minutes. So here I am at the 48th station on the District Line, West Kensington. 

The station was opened by the Metropolitan District railway in 1874 as Fulham - North End. When the North End station opened two builders, Gibbs and Flew, began to build the West Kensington estate on land that had been owned by the confectioner James Gunter. They built tall Victorian terraced housing with basements for the servants. They persuaded the railway company to change the name of the station to West Kensington and built 1,200 homes here.

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Always good to see any kind of greenery on a station platform.

The entrance to the station was rebuilt in 1927 and was designed by Charles Holden. There are three other stations within walking distance that I have already visited and written about: Olympia, West Brompton and Fulham Broadway. Consequently today's walk will be about filling in the gaps.

I exited the station onto North End Road and turned left. On the corner of Talgarth Road and North End Road is the imposing Edwardian building of the Famous Three Kings pub. In the early 70s the pub became a music venue, known as The Nashville Rooms. It became one of the high spots for punk with many well known groups performing here including the Sex Pistols and The Stranglers. Live music stopped in 1980 when the pub was sold. It is now a sports pub with multiple big screens showing live sport.

This dual carriageway which I needed to cross, known here as Talgarth Road is part of the A4 which leads you westwards out of London towards Heathrow airport.

What seems like a million miles away from the dual carriageway but is only a hundred metres or so is Gwendwr Gardens. Before WW2 this site had been the Cedars Lawn tennis club. Mr R. G Gunter contributed to the cost of laying out the land as a commemoration of the extensive damage that the area suffered during the war. The park was opened in July 1949.

 In 1948 the freeholders of the land, the Gunter Estate offered the site to Fulham Borough Council on the understanding that it was to be laid out as a 'memorial pleasure ground' for the benefit of local residents.

It is only a small park but it felt very tranquil.

Back on North End Road again, I walked past Nell's Jazz and Blues club. This well known jazz and blues club is a small venue that attracts big acts.

This interesting looking building is the local library as well as a Citizen's Advice Centre.

Continuing northwards I noticed there were a number of middle Eastern shops and restaurants.

 

From the early 20th century, West Kensington became a desirable place to live. Developers began to increase the housing stock by building mansion blocks instead of individual houses.

 

This former courthouse built in 1908 of red brick and Portland stone was converted into flats in 2012. It is a Grade II listed building and the frontage has remained as it was during its courthouse days.

St Mary's Mission hall. A former mission church, it opened in 1895 but now converted to offices. The upper level was the church with classrooms on the lower floor. It was used by St Mary's as the parish church from the WW2 bombings until the new church was opened in 1961.

I past a couple of pleasant looking pubs which I would have been tempted to check out their menu but of course I am going to have to wait a few more weeks before they will be open again.

Close to the pub I noticed this archway which opened out into a small park.

The park is named after Marcus Garvey (1887-1940) a black civil rights champion and statesman. He lived locally on Talgarth Road from 1933-1940. The park was built in 1987 to mark the centenary of Marcus Garvey's birth.

The park also has this large mural by Jacob Joyce which focuses on women who fought for justice and freedom in Britain and its colonies.

I walked through the park and came out on to Avonmore Road. West Kensington is mainly residential but the streets are pleasant enough to walk along, with a variety of housing stock.

It must have its own micro climate here because there were numerous types of palms growing in the gardens.

I walked southwards down and around North End Road. If I continued down here I would arrive at Fulham Broadway station.

There is an amazing variety of food outlets from British, Chinese, Indian, Korean, North African, Lebanese, Iranian and of course Italian.

I walked down as far as this converted church, the Arthill Gallery. The gallery exhibits work from established and emerging artists from Asia and Europe. Its aim is to encourage and create an artistic dialogue between different countries and cultures. 

Walking back to the station I noticed this art deco building. I later discovered that it was a pub built in 1938 with an art deco facade. It closed in 2010 and is now a student hostel.

I walked down Castletown Road, past this decommissioned Congregational church. It is said that Mahatma Gandhi visited the church when he was a law student in London and lived just a short distance away.

The church buildings were bought in 1978 by the Bhavan, an institute for Indian art and culture outside India. 

As I mentioned at the beginning, West Kensington is so close to three other underground stations that it was difficult to find new places of interest. It felt good to be back visiting the streets and places previously unknown to me and after months of being confined to base, so to speak, I am pleased to feel my enthusiasm for exploring new places returning.  I look forward to visiting many more stations soon.