Hammersmith is a district of West London, England, southwest of

Charing Cross Charing Cross ( ) is a junction in Westminster, London, England, where six routes meet. Since the early 19th century, Charing Cross has been the notional "centre of London" and became the point from which distances from London are measured. ...

. It is the administrative centre of the

London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham The London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham () is a London boroughs, London borough in West London and which also forms part of Inner London. The borough was formed in 1965 as the London Borough of Hammersmith from the merger of the former Metr ...

, and identified in the

London Plan The London Plan is the statutory spatial development strategy for the Greater London area in the United Kingdom that is written by the Mayor of London and published by the Greater London Authority. It is updated from time to time. The regio ...

as one of 35 major centres in

Greater London Greater London is an administrative area in England, coterminous with the London region, containing most of the continuous urban area of London. It contains 33 local government districts: the 32 London boroughs, which form a Ceremonial count ...

. It is bordered by

Shepherd's Bush Shepherd's Bush is a suburb of West London, England, within the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham west of Charing Cross, and identified as a major metropolitan centre in the London Plan. Although primarily residential in character, its ...

to the north,

Kensington Kensington is an area of London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, around west of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up by Kensingt ...

to the east,

Chiswick Chiswick ( ) is a district in West London, split between the London Borough of Hounslow, London Boroughs of Hounslow and London Borough of Ealing, Ealing. It contains Hogarth's House, the former residence of the 18th-century English artist Wi ...

to the west, and

Fulham Fulham () is an area of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It lies in a loop on the north bank of the River Thames, bordering Hammersmith, Kensington and Chelsea, London, Chelsea ...

to the south, all on the north bank of the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, s ...

. The area is one of west London's main commercial and employment centres, and has for some decades been a major centre of London's Polish community. It is a major transport hub for west London, with two

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or as the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent home counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England. The Undergro ...

stations and a bus and coach station at Hammersmith Broadway. Hammersmith Town Hall in daylight - geograph

Toponymy

Hammersmith may mean "(Place with) a hammer smithy or forge", although, in 1839, Thomas Faulkner proposed that the name derived from two 'Saxon' words: the initial ''Ham'' from

ham Ham is pork from a leg cut that has been preserved by wet or dry curing, with or without smoking."Bacon: Bacon and Ham Curing" in '' Chambers's Encyclopædia''. London: George Newnes, 1961, Vol. 2, p. 39. As a processed meat, the term '' ...

and the remainder from hythe, alluding to Hammersmith's riverside location. In 1922, Gover proposed that the prefix was a personal name, Heahmaer or Hæmar, and stating that the suffix must be Anglo-Saxon from -myðe, meaning the junction of two rivers, as Hammersmith Creek merged with the Thames here. The earliest spelling is Hamersmyth in 1294, with alternative spellings of Hameresmithe in 1312, Hamyrsmyth in 1535, and Hammersmith 1675.

History

The district was a chapelry of the ancient parish of

, but became a fully independent parish in 1631. In the early 1660s, Hammersmith's first parish church, which later became St Paul's, was built by Sir Nicholas Crispe who ran the brickworks in Hammersmith. It contained a monument to Crispe as well as a bronze bust of King Charles I by

Hubert Le Sueur Hubert Le Sueur (; – 1658) was a French people, French sculpture, sculptor with the contemporaneous reputation of having trained in Giambologna's Florence, Florentine workshop. He assisted Giambologna's foreman, Pietro Tacca, in Paris, in finis ...

. In 1696 Sir Samuel Morland was buried there. The church was completely rebuilt in 1883, but the monument and bust were transferred to the new church. In 1745, two Scots, James Lee and Lewis Kennedy, established the Vineyard Nursery, over six acres devoted to landscaping plants. During the next hundred and fifty years the nursery introduced many new plants to England, including

fuchsia ''Fuchsia'' ( ) is a genus of flowering plants that consists mostly of shrubs or small trees. Almost 110 species of ''Fuchsia'' are recognized; the vast majority are native to South America, but a few occur north through Central America to Mex ...

and the standard rose tree. 1804 saw the trial of Francis Smith for the murder of Thomas Millwood in Beaver Lane, Hammersmith. Called the Hammersmith Ghost murder case, it set a unique standard in English legal history. In 1868, Hammersmith was the name of a parish, and of a suburban district, within the hundred of Ossulstone, in the county of

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, former county in South East England, now mainly within Greater London. Its boundaries largely followed three rivers: the River Thames, Thames in the south, the River Lea, Le ...

. Major industrial sites included the

Osram OSRAM Licht AG is a German company that makes electric lights, headquartered in Munich and Premstätten (Austria). OSRAM positions itself as a high-tech photonics company that is increasingly focusing on sensor technology, visualization and trea ...

lamp factory at Brook Green, the J. Lyons factory (which at one time employed 30,000 people). During both

World War A world war is an international War, conflict that involves most or all of the world's major powers. Conventionally, the term is reserved for two major international conflicts that occurred during the first half of the 20th century, World War I ...

s, Waring & Gillow's furniture factory, in Cambridge Grove, became the site of aircraft manufacture. Hammersmith Borough Council had provided the borough with electricity since the early twentieth century from Hammersmith power station. Upon

nationalisation Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization contrasts with priv ...

of the electricity industry in 1948 ownership passed to the

British Electricity Authority The British Electricity Authority (BEA) was established as the central British electricity authority in 1948 under the nationalisation of Great Britain's electricity supply industry enacted by the Electricity Act 1947. The BEA was responsible for ...

and later to the

Central Electricity Generating Board The Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) was responsible for electricity generation, transmission and bulk sales in England and Wales from 1958 until privatisation of the electricity industry in the 1990s. It was established on 1 Januar ...

. Electricity connections to the national grid rendered the 20 megawatt (MW)

coal-fired power station A coal-fired power station or coal power plant is a thermal power station which burns coal to generate electricity. Worldwide there are about 2,500 coal-fired power stations, on average capable of generating a gigawatt each. They generate ...

redundant. It closed in 1965; in its final year of operation it delivered 5,462 MWh of electricity to the borough.

Economy

Hammersmith is located at the confluence of one of the arterial routes out of central London (the A4) with several local feeder roads and a bridge over the Thames. The focal point of the district is the commercial centre (the Broadway Centre) located at this confluence, which houses a shopping centre, bus station, an Underground station and an office complex. Stretching about westwards from this centre is King Street, Hammersmith's main shopping street. Named after John King, Bishop of London, it contains a second shopping centre ( Livat Hammersmith), many small shops, the

town hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or municipal hall (in the Philippines) is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses the city o ...

, the Lyric Theatre, a cinema, the Polish community centre and two hotels. King Street is supplemented by other shops along Shepherds Bush Road to the north, Fulham Palace Road to the south and Hammersmith Road to the east. Hammersmith's office activity takes place mainly to the eastern side of its centre, along Hammersmith Road and in the Ark, an office complex to the south of the flyover which traverses the area. Charing Cross Hospital on Fulham Palace Road is a large multi-disciplinary

NHS The National Health Service (NHS) is the term for the publicly funded health care, publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom: the National Health Service (England), NHS Scotland, NHS Wales, and Health and Social Care (Northern ...

hospital with accident & emergency and teaching departments run by the

Imperial College School of Medicine Imperial College School of Medicine (ICSM) is the undergraduate medical school of Imperial College London in England and one of the United Hospitals. It is part of the college's Imperial College Faculty of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and was ...

Architecture

"The Ark" office building, designed by British architect Ralph Erskine and completed in 1992, has some resemblance to the hull of a sailing ship. Hammersmith Bridge Road Surgery was designed by Guy Greenfield. 22 St Peter's Square, the former Royal Chiswick Laundry and

Island Records Island Records is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded in Jamaica by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall, and Leslie Kong in 1959, and was eventually sold to PolyGram in 1989. Island and A&M Records, another ...

HQ, has been converted to architects' studios and offices by Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands. It has
Hammersmith SocietyConservation award
plaque (2009) and has been included in tours in Architecture Week. Several of Hammersmith's pubs are

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

s, including the '' Black Lion'', '' The Dove'', '' The George'', '' The Hop Poles'', the '' Hope and Anchor'', the '' Salutation Inn'' and '' The Swan'', as are Hammersmith's two

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the Church (building), church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in com ...

es, St Paul's (the town's original church, rebuilt in the 1890s) and St Peter's, built in the 1820s.

Culture and entertainment

Riverside Studios Riverside Studios is an arts centre on the north bank of the River Thames in Hammersmith, London, England. The venue plays host to contemporary performance, film, visual art exhibitions and television production. Having opened in May 1976, th ...

is a cinema, performance space, bar and cafe. Originally film studios, Riverside Studios were used by the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

from 1954 to 1975 for television productions. The Lyric Hammersmith Theatre is just off King Street.

Hammersmith Apollo The Hammersmith Apollo, currently called the Eventim Apollo for sponsorship reasons, and formerly and still commonly known as the Hammersmith Odeon, is a live entertainment performance venue, originally built as a cinema called the Gaumont Pa ...

concert hall and theatre (formerly the Carling Hammersmith Apollo, the Hammersmith Odeon, and before that the Gaumont Cinema) is just south of the gyratory. The former Hammersmith Palais nightclub has been demolished and the site reused as student accommodation. The

Polish Social and Cultural Association The Polish Social and Cultural Centre (; POSK) is a Polish cultural centre in west London, England. It was founded in 1967 and funded by public subscription, on the initiative of Polish engineer Roman Wajda, at 238–246 King Street, Hammersmi ...

is on King Street. It contains a theatre, an art gallery and several restaurants. Its library has one of the largest collections of Polish-language books outside Poland. '' The Dove'' is a riverside pub with what the ''

Guinness Book of Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a British reference book published annually, listi ...

'' listed as the smallest bar room in the world, in 2016 surviving as a small space on the right of the bar. The pub was frequented by

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway ( ; July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized fo ...

and

Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a re ...

; James Thomson lodged and likely wrote '' Rule Britannia'' here. The narrow alley in which it stands is the only remnant of the riverside village of Hammersmith, the bulk of which was demolished in the 1930s. Furnivall Gardens, which lies to the east, covers the site of Hammersmith Creek and the High Bridge. Leisure activity also takes place along Hammersmith's pedestrianised riverside, home to the pubs of Lower Mall, rowing clubs and the riverside park of Furnival Gardens. Hammersmith has a municipal park, Ravenscourt Park, to the west of the centre. Its facilities include tennis courts, a basketball court, a bowling lawn, a paddling pool, and playgrounds. Hammersmith is the historical home of the West London Penguin Swimming and Water Polo Club, formerly known as the ''Hammersmith Penguin Swimming Club''. Hammersmith Chess Club has been active in the borough since it was formed in 1962. It was initially based in Westcott Lodge, later moving to St Paul's Church, then to Blythe House and now Lytton Hall, near West Kensington tube station.

Transport

The area is on the main A4

trunk road A trunk road is a major highway with a specific legal classification in some jurisdictions, notably the United Kingdom, Sweden and formerly Ireland. Trunk roads are planned and managed at the national-level, distinguishing them from non-trunk ro ...

heading west from central London towards the

M4 motorway The M4, originally the London-South Wales Motorway, is the third longest motorway in the United Kingdom, running from west London to southwest Wales. The English section to the Severn Bridge was constructed between 1961 and 1971; the Welsh ele ...

and

Heathrow Airport Heathrow Airport , also colloquially known as London Heathrow Airport and named ''London Airport'' until 1966, is the primary and largest international airport serving London, the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdo ...

. The A4, a busy commuter route, passes over the area's main road junction, Hammersmith Gyratory System, on a long viaduct, the Hammersmith Flyover.

Hammersmith Bridge Hammersmith Bridge is a suspension bridge that crosses the River Thames in west London. It links the southern part of Hammersmith in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, on the north side of the river, with Barnes in the London Boroug ...

closed in August 2020 to pedestrians, cyclists and road traffic, severing the link with Barnes in the southwest. Its cast iron pedestals that hold the suspension system in place had become unsafe. The centre of Hammersmith is served by two

stations named Hammersmith:

one 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...

is served by the Hammersmith & City and

Circle A circle is a shape consisting of all point (geometry), points in a plane (mathematics), plane that are at a given distance from a given point, the Centre (geometry), centre. The distance between any point of the circle and the centre is cal ...

lines and the other is served by the

Piccadilly Piccadilly () is a road in the City of Westminster, London, England, to the south of Mayfair, between Hyde Park Corner in the west and Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is part of the A4 road (England), A4 road that connects central London to ...

and

District A district is a type of administrative division that in some countries is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or county, counties, several municipality, municip ...

lines. The latter station is part of a larger office, retail and transport development, locally known as "The Broadway Centre". Hammersmith Broadway stretches from the junction of Queen Caroline Street and King Street in the west to the junction of Hammersmith Road and Butterwick in the east. It forms the north side of the gyratory system also known as Hammersmith Roundabout. The Broadway Shopping Centre includes a major bus station. The length of King Street places the westernmost shops and offices closest to Ravenscourt Park Underground station on the

District line The District line is a London Underground line running from in the east and Edgware Road tube station (Circle, District and Hammersmith & City lines), Edgware Road in the west to in west London, where it splits into multiple branches. One br ...

, one stop west of Hammersmith itself.

Hammersmith Bridge

The first Hammersmith Bridge was designed by William Tierney Clark and opened in 1827 and was the first

suspension bridge A suspension bridge is a type of bridge in which the deck (bridge), deck is hung below suspension wire rope, cables on vertical suspenders. The first modern examples of this type of bridge were built in the early 1800s. Simple suspension bridg ...

crossing the

. It was redesigned by

Joseph Bazalgette Sir Joseph William Bazalgette (; 28 March 1819 – 15 March 1891) was an English civil engineering, civil engineer. As Chief Engineer of London's Metropolitan Board of Works, his major achievement was the creation of the London Main Drainage, t ...

, and reopened in 1887. In August 2020, it closed to pedestrians, cyclists and road traffic as the cast iron pedestals that hold the suspension system in place became unsafe. Work began to improve the structural integrity of the bridge in 2022.

In literature and music

Hammersmith features in

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and Social criticism, social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by ...

' ''

Great Expectations ''Great Expectations'' is the thirteenth novel by English author Charles Dickens and his penultimate completed novel. The novel is a bildungsroman and depicts the education of an orphan nicknamed Pip. It is Dickens' second novel, after ''Dav ...

'' as the home of the Pocket family. Pip resides with the Pockets in their house by the river and goes boating on the river.

William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was an English textile designer, poet, artist, writer, and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts movement. He was a major contributor to the revival of traditiona ...

's utopian novel ''

News from Nowhere ''News from Nowhere'' is an 1890 classic work combining utopian socialism and soft science fiction written by the artist, designer and socialist pioneer William Morris. It was first published in serial form in the ''Commonweal (UK), Commonwea ...

'' (1890) describes a journey up the river from Hammersmith towards

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

. In 1930,

Gustav Holst Gustav Theodore Holst (born Gustavus Theodore von Holst; 21 September 1874 – 25 May 1934) was an English composer, arranger and teacher. Best known for his orchestral suite ''The Planets'', he composed many other works across a range ...

composed ''

Hammersmith Hammersmith is a district of West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It is the administrative centre of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. It ...

'', a work for military band (later rewritten for orchestra), reflecting his impressions of the area, having lived across the river in Barnes for nearly forty years. It begins with a haunting musical depiction of the River Thames flowing underneath Hammersmith Bridge. Holst taught music at St Paul's Girls' School and composed many of his most famous works there, including his ''

The Planets ''The Planets'', Op. 32, is a seven- movement orchestral suite by the English composer Gustav Holst, written between 1914 and 1917. In the last movement the orchestra is joined by a wordless female chorus. Each movement of the suite is name ...

'' suite. A music room in the school is named after him. Holst dedicated ''Hammersmith'': "To the Author of " ''The Water Gypsies''".

Notable people

17th century

John Milton John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet, polemicist, and civil servant. His 1667 epic poem ''Paradise Lost'' was written in blank verse and included 12 books, written in a time of immense religious flux and politic ...

(1608–1674), poet Lewalski, Barbara K. ''The Life of John Milton''. Oxford: Blackwells, 2003. * William Sheridan ( – 3 October 1711), Bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh

18th century

19th century

1900–1945

1946–2000

References

External links

London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham

Hammersmith's local community web site

Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney
by Geraldine Edith Mitton and John Cunningham Geikie, 1903, from

Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital li ...

{{Authority control Business improvement districts in London Districts of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham Districts of London on the River Thames History of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham Major centres of London Places formerly in Middlesex Polish-British culture