Before Brackenbury Village…Cacklegoose Green
This image of our Village dates from before the railways and after the first Hammersmith Bridge was opened. We believe, therefore, the map dates from the early 1800s as there are few houses on the map and no houses on Hammersmith Grove, which was one of the first streets to be developed in the 1840s.
The area was renamed Brackenbury Village in the post war years. The Brackenbury Residents Association was formed in 1999, well after the name was firmly established – otherwise we may have been called the Cacklegoose Green Residents Association!
We hope we share the same community spirit as the longer-term residents, but also bring to the neighbourhood the energy and enthusiasm of the newcomer. All of us wish only the best for our home in Hammersmith.
A short history of Brackenbury
Initially there was marshland and pasture gently rising from the banks of a wide Thames. Then the medieval pattern of strip farming matured into the Bradmore estate containing orchards and market gardens growing produce for London’s burgeoning population.
A farmhouse stood on the site of Brackenburys, the Stamford brook wound down to the river, and the Roman Gold Hawk road set straight for Bath as it had done for hundreds of years. A stinking ditch ran beside Aldensley Road and night soil fertilised the vegetables and fruit trees.
We hope we share the same community spirit as the longer-term residents, but also bring to the neighbourhood the energy and enthusiasm of the newcomer. All of us wish only the best for our home in Hammersmith.
Introduction of the railways
Opened on 10 January 1863, the Metropolitan Railway was the first underground railway running from Paddington to Smithfield, the heart of London’s financial centre. Not long after, in 1864 the Hammersmith and City Railway connected Hammersmith to Paddington. The quick march of commuters led to the even quicker spread of housing, schools and churches.
Hammersmith moves from a parish to a metropolitan borough
Hammersmith was part of the parish of Fulham in the 17th century, a “hamlet” with its own chapel according to the records in the National Archives. With the introduction of the railways, families such as the Clarks and the Birds bought plots of land, the factory in Cambridge Grove supplying them with bricks. In 1898 George Wimpey built Hammersmith Grove and relaid tramlines in Goldhawk Road; the company was headquartered in Hammersmith Grove. This was a time of great industry with breweries and wharves all along the banks of the Thames which teemed with shipping. William Morris was engaged on his last project – the Kelmscott Press.
In 1900 the Metropolitan Borough of Hammersmith replaced the church vestry as the second tier of government. It included Hammersmith, Wormwood Scrubs, Shepherd’s Bush and the Old Oak Common. In the early part of the 20th century, Godolphin and Latymer School for girls moved to the Iffley Road school vacated by the boys. Later on, in the 1920s, the sculptor Henry Moore lived and worked in Grove Studios in Adie Road.
Sadly, in the inter-war years and later, Hammersmith declined somewhat and became a grimy, impoverished place, so much so that, one resident claimed, “. . .even the Kray twins wouldn’t come here”.
Post war years: from a bomb site to a conservation area, Brackenbury Village is born
When the Grove Neighbourhood Centre was established on a former World War II bomb site, what is now known as Brackenbury was as yet untroubled by too much wealth.
The name ‘Brackenbury Village’ was coined by estate agents in order to gentrify the area. It seems to have worked since most of Brackenbury is now part of the Bradmore Conservation Area, with property prices being some of the highest in London.