Current Hammersmith Bridge, Henry Taunt, 1890
© Oxfordshire County Council Photographic Archive; HT00339

History

Riverview Gardens comprises of Edwardian mansion blocks and was constructed in phases in the early 1900's.

In 2006 the purchase of the freehold of Riverview Gardens was successfully completed with 126 freeholders.

If you have information regarding the history of Riverview Gardens or photos from years gone by, please contact the committee so the information can be added to the website.

Riverview Gardens as Part of Conservation Area 25.

Riverview Gardens forms part of conservation area 25. You can read about the history in a  document provided by Richmond Council.

A Brief History of The Castelnau Estate and Environs until the year 2000 by the Castelnau Residents Association

In medieval times most of the land on both side of the present Hammersmith Bridge was owned by the Church.  Hammersmith itself was part of the Manor of Fulham which originally belonged to the Bishops of London.  The name, derived from two Angle-Saxon words meaning ‘hammer’ and ‘smithy’ first appears ion 1294 and the settlement owed it’s early prosperity to it’s location on the convergence of the two main roads out of London  - the Great West Road from Kensington to Brentford, and the road which ran from Bayswater through Nottinghill and Shepherds Bush to Uxbridge.  The Broadway became a sizeable coaching station with a smithy and a number of coaching inns for travellers on their way in and out of London. 

The area to the south of the river was, by contrast, sparsely populated. The manor of Mortlake (which included Putney and Wimbledon) was owned by the Archbishopric of Canterbury, while the Manor of Barnes belonged to the Dean and Chapter of St Pauls.  Until the 19th century, Barnes was considered to be a remote village, concentrated around a single road running from Mortlake along The Terrace and the present Church Road to the Manor House at Barn Elms.  The present Barnes Common was marshland until the second half of the 19th century.

In 1504 the Canons of St Pauls leased the Manor House at Barn Elms to Sir Henry Wyatt, but it was later forfeited to the Crown on the attainder and execution of his grandson Sir Thomas Wyatt who led a rebellion against Mary Tudor.  In 1578 the estate was leased to Sir Francis Walsingham who entertained Queen Elizabeth 1 there on several occasions.  By 1694 it had passed to the Cartwright family who rebuilt the Manor together with a second house leased to Ponson the publisher who was secretary of the Wig Kitkat Club which met there during the period 1700 – 1720.  In the 1730’s the4 house was bought by Sir Richard Hoare, later Lord Mayor of London.  He landscaped the grounds, and the gardens became a fashionable resort for London society, mentioned by Pepys and Congreve.  The Hoare family sold the estate to the Hammersmith Bridge Company in 1820.  Between 1828 – 1830 the Manor House was rented by William Cobbett and was the starting point of one of his Rural Rides in 1829.  From 1884 – 1939 it was the home of the Ranelagh Club but subsequently fell into neglect and was demolished in 1954.

In 1824 Parliament gave permission to the Hammersmith Bridge Company to build a toll bridge across the river which would greatly shorten the journey from London to Richmond.  The first bridge, completed in 1827 was designed and built by William Tierney Clark (who also built the Chain Bridge of similar construction across the Danube in Budapest).  This first bridge was replaced by the present structure in 1883 – 7, designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette, and using the original piers and abutments.

The opening of the bridge and the construction of the Bridge  Road (now Castlenau) permitted the rapid residential and industrial development of the area south of the river.

The residential development was undertaken principally by two families.  One was the Lowther family (the Earls of Lonsdale) whose main estates are near Penrith in Cumbria and who owned a house in St Anns in Barnes.  The other was the Boileau family - descendants of French protestant refugees who came originally from Castelnau de la Garde near Nimes and fled to England to escape religious persecution in 1685.

Shortly after the opening of Hammersmith Bridge, Major Charles Lenstock Boileau of Mortlake built himself a house on the parkland of the river bend and called it Castelnau House (on the site of the present public library.) He went on to build Castelnau Villas (advertised in 1842) designed by Henry Laxton, together with some rows of cottages, Castelnau Row, Castelnau Place, Gothic Cottages, (on the site that until recently was occupied by Boon and Porter’s garage) and the ‘Boileau Arms’ at the southern end of the bridge. Major Boileau, was sometimes considered ‘the founder of the colony’ and on his death in 1889 Upper Bridge Road was renamed Castelnau. Lower Bridge Road was renamed Lonsdale Road after the Lowther family.

Others meanwhile were considering the commercial potential of the area.  Shortly after the bridge was built the West Middlesex Water Works Company dug a large reservoir (north of Lonsdale Road) and piped water across the Thames to Hammersmith.

In 1857 the firm of Cowan and Sons built a soap works, a sugar refinery and a charcoal factory to the east of the bridge.  These works were destroyed by fire in 1888 and the building demolished in 1892.  The site was later redeveloped by Harrods.

The area between the Harrods Repository and the bridge – the present site of Riverview Gardens – was known as Cowan’s Bank or Cowan’s Field where an annual (and somewhat notorious) Boat Race Fair took place.

The Castelnau Gardens Estate dated from 1898.  Between that year and 1909 a series of planning approvals permitted the building of successive blocks of flats in Castlenau Gardens, Castelnau and Riverview Gardens (possibly to provide accommodation for civil servants).  These were designed by Delissa Joseph (1859 – 1927) who was well known for designing synagogues and superstructures over booking halls in London tube stations.  He also designed a number of blocks of mansion flats in North End Road, West Kensington, in Rutland Gardens and Chelsea Embankment.

The Castelnau Residents Association was formed in 1971 and the estate passed through a series of ownerships.  In 1971 London and Country Freehold (Key Flats) sold the estate to the First National Finance Corporation in a joint company with Freshwater Group. Many 99 year leases were issued by their subsidiaries Capulet Securities and Swallow Securities. In 1972 The Residents Association, concerned about the general state of repair, attempted to purchase the estate but it was sold instead to Victor Berger.  On his death in 1977 the First National Finance Corporation again became the landlord.  They began a major programme of refurbishment but due to financial problems were obliged again to put the estates on the market in 1983.  Another attempt by the Residents Association to purchase the estates failed and in 1984 it was bought by Leathbond.   At considerable expense to both leaseholders and landlord the estate was returned to a reasonable state of repair.

Acknowledgements: The London Encyclopaedia ‘Hammersmith Bridge’ by Charles Hailstone and articles by Leslie Paton.

Research: Felicity Burgess and Ronnie Williams