Newsletter June 2020 Editors: Fiona Fowler & Maya Donelan No. 106

CHAIRMAN’S LETTER

I looked at the Society’s February Newsletter, sent out less than 4 months ago, and it was all about climate change. That was then our main concern. There was no mention of coronaviruses or covid-19. So much has changed in a very short time.

Like so many others, we had to cancel all our planned outings and I very much doubt we will be holding a Summer Party this year. We have been learning new skills as we hold our meetings via Zoom or Microsoft Teams or some other virtual means. Useful as they are, I personally hope that come the autumn, life will be getting back to normal and we can meet in person and that we will be able to reschedule a few of the events.

We have interesting articles on why there are so many military men buried in Fulham Cemetery, on a fascinating woman, Fanny Eaton and on the /Fulham boundary (always most confusing!). We update you on other matters and I am only sad there are no events or outings to include.

I hope you are all well, keeping safe and managing to enjoy the little extra freedoms that we are gradually acquiring.

Fiona Fowler

FULHAM CEMETERY AND THE FORMER FULHAM HOSPITAL

The daily walk has meant many of us have explored parts of Fulham that were less familiar. Maya spent time exploring Fulham Cemetery, which lies between the Fulham Palace Road and Munster Road, just south of the Lillie Road Recreation Ground.

Fulham Cemetery was established by the Fulham Burial Board in 1865. It was originally designed by architect John Hall with an entrance lodge and two chapels (only one of which survives). It is bounded by stone walls, piers and railings with lime trees along the boundary with Fulham Palace Road. The main avenue from the entrance on Fulham Palace Road to Munster Road was laid out when the cemetery was extended in 1874 and it was extended again in 1880. By 1908 it was becoming full and Cemetery was opened to cater for the parish needs. And the old cemetery was subsequently referred to as Fulham Old Cemetery. It is now more likely to be known as the Fulham Palace Road Cemetery and is, once again, open for burials.

Among those buried in Fulham Cemetery are numerous local dignitaries and a large number of soldiers from the two main wars. It contains the graves of 238 Commonwealth service personnel, 179 from World II, and 57 from World War I. A section was put aside for war burials, near the Cross of Sacrifice that commemorates the dead of both world wars. Those whose graves have no headstones are listed by name on a screen wall memorial in this main war graves plot. But what is interesting is the large number of the military head stones scattered throughout the cemetery and not gathered together in the main war graves plot.

The reason for this becomes apparent when one walks up towards Hammersmith, past the . This modern hospital is on the site of the former Fulham Workhouse which opened in 1849 with accommodation for 450 inmates. In 1884, the Fulham Union Infirmary was erected in St Dunstan’s Road just north of the Workhouse to provide minimal medical care to the workhouse sick, with two doctors and 31 nurses to look after 486 patients, a large proportion (34%) of whom were chronically ill or senile. In 1889, a chapel was added, designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield who, as a son of Bishop Blomfield, Bishop of , had been born at Fulham Palace in 1829. In 1905 a Nurses’ Home, Brandenburg House, was built opposite the Infirmary on the west side of Fulham Palace Road (later a subway would link the Nurses' Home to the Infirmary).

At the beginning of WW1 wounded soldiers from the Ypres battleground were brought to Fulham. In 1915 the War Office took over the workhouse and Infirmary - as it did with several other Poor Law institutions - and they became the Fulham Military Hospital. The Hospital had almost 1,000 beds. The large workhouse dining hall was utilized for meals by convalescent soldiers, and weekly entertainments were also held there. In December 1915, there was a Royal Visit to the Hospital by HM Queen Mary.

During the war the Army improved and upgraded conditions at the Hospital. By 1917 there were 1130 beds, including 318 for German prisoners. In 1918 Fulham Palace was vacated by the and became a convalescent home for 100 soldiers with shell shock. The war ended just as the Spanish flu epidemic began to affect staff and patients and a great number of them died in November 1918. Many soldiers died at the hospital and were buried in Fulham Cemetery.

Later in the early 1920s when the Imperial War Graves Commission was founded and formal headstones were provided for the military dead, it was decided to put headstones on the original graves rather than dig up the bodies and move them to the formal “military cemetery site”. The present site in the cemetery contains only World War II graves.

At the beginning of WW2 the Hospital received wounded soldiers from Dunkirk but during this time the hospital was heavily bombed. In 1946 talk of rebuilding the hospital began in earnest and in 1948 it joined the NHS. The workhouse building was demolished in 1957. Plans for rebuilding the hospital had stalled but in 1959 came the unexpected news that Charing Cross Hospital would be coming to Fulham. Despite local protest, Fulham Hospital became part of the Charing Cross Group. Building works for the new hospital began at the centre of the site, where the former workhouse and Board of Guardians offices had been. The Fulham Hospital was demolished piece by piece and finally closed in 1973. The new Charing Cross Hospital (Fulham) was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in the same year.

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FANNY EATON (1835-1924) Fanny Eaton was born on 23 June 1835 in Jamaica. Her mother was Matilda Foster, a woman of African descent, who may have been born into slavery. The young Fanny was recorded as 'mulatto', a pejorative and outdated term once used to describe someone of mixed race. The Atlantic Slave Trade had been abolished in 1807, but it was only in 1834 that slavery was abolished entirely in Britain's colonies. Despite new legislation, many enslaved individuals remained bound to their former masters as 'apprentices' for another six years, until further laws were passed in 1838 to abolish the apprenticeship clause. Eaton and her mother made their way to sometime in the 1840s. By 1851 she is recorded as living with her mother in London and working as a domestic servant. In 1857 she married James Eaton, a horse-cab proprietor and driver. Together they had 10 children and when James died in his forties in 1881, his wife was left to raise and provide for all of their surviving children. It was during this period of Fanny Eaton's life as mother and new wife that she began modelling for the Pre-Raphaelites. We know that Eaton was employed regularly by the Royal Academy around this time. Records show she was paid 15 shillings for three sittings in July 1860. It is likely that she met many renowned artists there. Eaton's distinctive features – strong elegant jawline, pronounced high cheekbones and almond- shaped eyes – were clearly mesmerising to the artist. The earliest known studies done of her are pencil sketches in 1859 & 1860 by Simeon Solomon, (pictured here), who was affiliated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. She sat for other artists who were Solomon's friends, including William Blake Richmond and Albert Joseph Moore. In 1865, she was used by Dante Gabriel Rossetti for the figure of one of the bridesmaids in his painting The Beloved. After 1867, Fanny seems to have virtually disappeared in Pre-Raphaelite paintings. Although her modelling career for the Pre-Raphaelites seems to have been short, her impact was undeniably intense. This is evident from the large body of work in which she features. In a letter to Ford Madox Brown, Rossetti praises Mrs. Eaton for her incomparable beauty and "very fine head", a not insignificant feat considering that the era is infamous for its rigid beauty standards and intense racial prejudices. Born in the British colonies and daughter of a former slave, Fanny Eaton's visual presence in artwork represented a social group outside the traditional Victorian parameters. Her appearance in paintings and Pre-Raphaelite art focused attention onto the "Other" in Victorian society, challenging societal expectations of black women. Victorian art typically portrayed people of colour as decorative figures and they were rarely seen as models of idealized beauty.

In October 2019 to January 2020, she was one of 12 women included in the Pre-Raphaelite Sisters exhibition at London's National Portrait Gallery. By 1881 Eaton had been widowed and was working as a seamstress. In the final years of her life, Eaton worked as a domestic cook on the Isle of Wight for a Hammersmith-based wine merchant and his wife, John and Fanny Hall. By 1911, now in her 70s, she was back in Hammersmith and residing with Julia, one of her daughters.

She died in Acton on 4 March 1924 at the age of 89 and is buried in an unmarked grave in Margravine Cemetery in Fulham. There are plans for a stone to mark her grave.

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PLANNING

Edith Summerskill House and Watermeadow Court These two major housing redevelopments, originally planned in 2013, have been beset by more delays and rising costs. H&F Council and Stanhope Plc had planned to redevelop Watermeadow Court in and Edith Summerskill House on the Clement Attlee estate, under a joint venture. Basically, the former would be private flats to help pay for the latter but it was announced last month that Stanhope’s role in redeveloping Watermeadow Court had ended. It is said that this will cost the council £3.49 million (apparently negotiated down from £5 million).

Edith Summerskill House comprised 68 social-rent flats until it was demolished in late 2017. It was due to be rebuilt as a 20-storey building with 133 new flats, all as either social or “intermediate” housing. The scheme was sent back to the drawing board after the planning application was quashed at the court appeal in October 2019. The council now plans to submit a new planning application and in the event that planning permission is granted the site will be transferred to Peabody Housing Trust, a housing association.

Watermeadow Court, formerly a block of 80 social-rent and leasehold flats, was condemned in 2008, cleared of tenants by 2011, bricked up in 2012 and emptied in 2013. It was demolished in November 2019 and was due to be replaced by the Stanhope/Council joint venture by a new block of 218 homes (mostly for private sale and only 36 at affordable and social rents). By terminating Stanhope’s involvement, the Council will have to provide £526,000 for the next 12 months for 24/7 security, clearing fly-tipped waste and pigeon excrement, and legal fees.

The buildings were standing empty sufficiently long (around 9 years x 80 flats = 720 rental years) to have been included in a book published in 2019 called Derelict London. Not a great advert for Fulham or 1980s construction! Empress Place The little Victorian houses in Empress Place, and those along Lillie Road, are part of the ill-fated Earls Court project. The change of ownership means the Earls Court land, including homes and shops in Empress Place and Lillie Road, are now co-owned by TfL, Delancey and APG.

Empress Place contains 14 properties while nine more flats, with their windows painted over, sit above the shops along Lillie Road. Any new set of proposals to build on the 1.3 million sq ft plot may not begin to take shape for another two to three years while new blueprints are drawn up. Campaigners are urging the new owners to open the boarded-up homes in Empress Place for short term residential use.

The developers commented: "Many of the empty buildings were stripped out in 2017 and are therefore not fit for living. However, we are reviewing options to assess whether they could be used on a sustainable basis in the future.”

The street inherited its name from the story of how Queen Victoria journeyed down it to visit the Exhibition Centre and pleasure gardens in 1887, to watch the highly-anticipated performance of American entertainer Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show.

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IN BRIEF fence post to the inside of the fence 2m above ground level with an anti-climb razor wire topping. The detailed design by the Former West London security consultant confirmed the height of Magistrate’s site 3m. (Ref FUL/2020/01113) This is not strictly in Fulham but any building on this site will affect local roads in Fulham. Fulham Town Hall The initial planning application for a hotel If planning permission is granted, 90 was very unpopular and has been 'hometel' rooms, most with their own withdrawn. New architects, Rogers Stirk kitchenettes, are to be created at the centre Harbour & partners (Richard Rogers’ firm) of the redeveloped Town Hall. Hometel have been appointed and a new planning combines your house or apartment (Home) application submitted. The four blocks of the with hotels(Hotel). Hometel specialist, hotel are planned around a landscaped open room2, which already runs a townhouse in space. They range from a 23 storey block Hammersmith Grove, has agreed a 30 year along the Talgarth Road to a 5 storey block lease as the headline tenant in the Grade II on the south side and 7 and 10 storey blocks listed building. Guests will be able to stay for on the east and west sides respectively. as little as one night to one year and beyond. There is great local concern about the tower block which will over shadow much of north Duke on the Green Fulham. (Ref FUL/2020/009150) The pub has plans to remove some recent modern additions to the listed interior. The Castle Club update owners will also refresh the tired outside and The formal notice granting planning enhance the street presence. It is proposed permission for the construction of a new to repair the external elevations where extension to this listed building and its use as required, deep clean the stone cladding, and a 33-bed nursing home was issued on 26 redecorate the existing facade in the existing March. The permission includes 45 painted locations. (Ref FUL/2020/00589) conditions many of which provide protection for nearby residents. West London College There are plans to demolish this interesting Chelsea Football Club building and replace it with a new seven- The three-year time limit on Chelsea Football storey college and adjacent apartment Club planning permission for its £500 million blocks. The present building was designed in stadium redevelopment expired on 31 the 1970s by Bob Giles of the Greater London March 2020. The club acquired planning Council Architects department on the open permission in 2017 to build a new 60,000- site in front of what had been St Paul’s Boys’ seat stadium in a scheme that included a new School which moved to Barnes. After it was bridge over the District Line, a museum, turned down for listing by Historic England, a shops and a restaurant. petition was launched to save the building, commenting “This college is a wonderful Empress State Building example of modernist master planning, The Metropolitan Police have acquired the inspired by Scandinavian models from Alvar Empress State building and have applied for Aalto, Arne Jacobsen and other designers in planning consent to erect security fencing - the functional tradition. It deserves to be a 2m high brick faced wall with a 1m high listed and to retain its function as a college. security fence sitting on top of it. The barrier It reinterprets the English quad in an also includes a cranked support arm at each ingenious way.”

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SOME MEMORIES OF A POLICE OFFICER AT FULHAM POLICE STATION (RIP) 1991 TO 2001

I joined the Fulham Police Division in 1991 on transfer from the 6 Area Training Unit where I had been training in all aspects of Police Duty and First Aid. I joined the Metropolitan Police in May 1975 directly from the Metropolitan Police Cadets, having joined from school in September 1972.

I was introduced to Fulham by the then then Home Beat Sgt Colin Humphrey. I spent the next two years, while learning the streets and many interesting places and buildings, on D relief (Response Team). A vacancy arose for a Home Beat Officer on the area to the East of Wandsworth Bridge Road and I was successful. I was allocated the beat that PC Jamie MacKay had made very much his own. Jamie left the police service to become an ordained Minister. The area was bounded by Peterborough Road, Carnwarth Road, Townmead Road (following the river and, prior to the Imperial Wharf development, all the derelict sites) then Imperial Road to New Kings Road This included Wandsworth Bridge Road, Sulivan Court and two parks. Getting to know the residents and working with the local projects to deter crime while enhancing public response towards the police was my aim and it was really rewarding.

In 1995 I was asked if I would consider applying to become a Crime Prevention Officer (CPO) as one of the current ones, Roger Joyce, was retiring. He had been in post a long time and during that time had taken many pictures to use in training and displays. These photographs are of many properties, parks and buildings in the Fulham Area and were taken in the late 1970s – late 1980s*. I was in my application and joined Richard Young, the other CPO, to learn the ropes. In early 1996 I went to the Home Office Crime Prevention College, at Easingwold, near York for 3 weeks training.

Once back at Fulham I started to respond to messages/requests and undertake CPO tasks which included surveys of properties and submission of reports to companies and to/for individual homes. We worked in liaison with Home Beat Officers (now no longer part of Policing) to identify and resolve local crime issues.

One of the latter was in the Sulivan Court area where pedal cycles were often stolen. I had picked up an idea to reduce crime by the presence of a CCTV camera. They were very much in their embryonic stage in the mid 90’s and I had to wait for a covert one to become available. I had some signs put up anyway to let the locals know. No bikes were stolen from that area from the day the signs went up. One of the local youth leaders stopped me, as I was previously the home beat for the area, a couple of weeks later and asked where the camera was. Once I had established, he would keep it confidential I advised him there were no cameras the signs had done their job. We kept moving the signs round Fulham and crime was reduced in the area. Jim Foster

*Jim has very generously donated this collection of photographs to LH&F Archives, through the Fulham Society. We are most grateful for this important and interesting gift

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COMMUNITY NEWS

Temporary bridge for cyclists and pedestrians across the Thames The Council are consulting on a temporary bridge for pedestrians and cyclists that would allow work to continue as quickly and safely as possible to restore the 133-year-old listed Hammersmith Bridge. The proposed temporary bridge would be a seven-metre-wide, prefabricated steel structure, supported by two piers in the river. The bridge would be step-free and have a 5.5- metre-wide carriageway for pedestrians and cyclists. It would be accessed by shallow ramps from Queen Caroline Street on the north bank and from close to the junction of Castelnau and Riverview Gardens on the south bank. Of major concern is the possible closure of the river walk on the Barnes side of the river. If the decision to go ahead is taken the cost of this temporary bridge will be covered by Transport for London. An artist's impression of the proposed temporary bridge can be seen here.

Covid-19 memories LBHF Archives wants to hear from you about your experience during the coronavirus pandemic. Memories can be in the form of diaries, artwork, photographs, videos – any format will do – of residents’ experiences. All submissions will be deposited permanently in the borough archives as a community memory of this unprecedented period. For further details of how you can submit your selfies, stories & diaries, and creative pieces in any format go to “Humans of Hammersmith & Fulham: Coronavirus Edition”. Click here for the website

Sands End Arts and Community Centre and the refurbishment of Clancarty Lodge Work appears to be progressing well on this project: the roofing works are completed and all external windows and doors are installed, the new timber floor to the main hall in in place, as are the new gas, water and BT services, and the new electrical main is ready to be connected. Completion of the structural refurbishment to Clancarty Lodge and preparations for the retiling were due to be carried out in April. The contractors are hopeful that the works are still on target to complete in the summer of 2020.

Traffic in Wandsworth Bridge Road area The council has so far proposed two different traffic schemes involving no right turns from and into Wandsworth Bridge Road from surrounding streets. Both schemes were intended to appease complaints from residents in a small number of roads. Both schemes met strong local opposition because they did not take into account their impact on many surrounding roads as well as other traffic issues. These include the 'temporary' increase in traffic due to the closure of Hammersmith Bridge.

Planning continues on a scheme that should reduce through traffic in residential roads in this area of south Fulham by introducing a right turn from New King’s Road into Wandsworth Bridge Road. There is no timetable for this as the scheme will require major changes at the junction.

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How can we improve our parks? The Hammersmith & Fulham Parks Commission is a resident-led commission trying to develop a new strategy to help residents and visitors benefit more from the local parks. They want to hear from the public how you think they can be improved. Unfortunately, they only asked for input at the end of May and asked for it by mid June. You can email your thoughts, views and proposals to [email protected] as soon as possible, in particular tell them:

• Which parks and open spaces do you use regularly? • How do you use these spaces (for instance, to walk, to bring your children to the playground, to play sport, to sit and think, for picnics)? • How do you think we could improve the parks and open spaces you use? • What is the best way to involve local people in the decisions made about our parks? • How do you think the Council can ensure that a diverse group of people make decisions about our parks?

Tree Talk This is an odd little website called TreeTalk. It is a little out of date with venues and frustratingly lists all the (closed) pubs. You put in your postcode, or a start and destination, and it will give you a route to find a variety of specimen trees. We are lucky that previous generations have planted interesting and varied trees in public spaces. Take a walk and see if you discover anything new! Click here for the website

Heathrow Airport The Supreme Court granted permission on 6 May for the airport to challenge the Court of Appeal ruling in February that said the government’s plan for Heathrow expansion was unlawful on climate change grounds. The government had decided not to pursue further legal action but Heathrow is continuing to do so.

Delivery services A list has been compiled of local businesses in Hammersmith, Fulham and Shepherds Bush who are delivering food to residents in their own homes. The list is subject to stock and circumstances and may change at any time. Click here for the website

Swifts The return of the swifts to our skies over the last month has been welcome, but the RSPB report that the UK has seen the numbers of these birds plummeting, with a 53% decline between 1995 and 2016. They are campaigning to get more swift nest boxes installed. Swifts nest in gaps high up on our homes and in other buildings. But there’s a problem. When buildings are refurbished or demolished, these important nooks and crannies are lost and swifts have nowhere to nest.

You can help by providing alternative nest sites: Put up a swift nestbox, or if you’re involved in a new build or renovation project install a specially designed ‘swift brick’. This may need a bit of preplanning but worth bearing in mind if you are using ladders or scaffolding for any reason – just slip a nest box under the roofline.

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THE FULHAM & HAMMERSMITH BOUNDARY AND THE POSTCODE ANOMALY

The precise boundary between Fulham and Hammersmith can be confusing. So often we hear that Charing Cross Hospital is in Hammersmith or that if you live in W6, you cannot live in Fulham. We have an MP for Fulham & Chelsea and one for Hammersmith but part of the latter’s constituency is in Fulham (basically north of Lillie Road). In this historical article Keith Whitehouse, Chairman of the Fulham & Hammersmith Historical Society, explains some of the confusion.

Fulham was inhabited in Roman times, probably until the early 5th century AD. Archaeological excavations in the late 1980s uncovered a late 5th/6th century Saxon settlement on the site of the former Manbre sugar works at the end of Winslow Road and also the remains of Parr Ditch, the historic boundary between Fulham and Hammersmith. Incidentally, this was the site of Brandenburg House and its grounds, the home of Queen Caroline, the divorced consort of King George IV, who died there in 1821.

After the Dark Ages the first recorded date for the area is AD704/5 when the Bishop of the East Saxons (London) acquired a place called Fulanham from the Bishop of Hereford. It included Hammersmith and is virtually identical to the present Borough. Parr Ditch was a branch of Stamford Brook that flowed down Brook Green (hence the name) and after crossing Hammersmith Road, became the boundary between Fulham and Hammersmith.

Originally the boundary was slightly south of the present-day statue of Capability Brown. In the river wall may be seen the brick archway outlet of the brook and above it a stone bearing the initials HP and FP (pictured here) for the boundary line between Hammersmith Parish and Fulham Parish. The ditch was culverted as a sewer during the 19th century. This would tend to indicate that before the 8th century Fulham and Hammersmith were two separate districts but by the time of the Bishop’s acquisition the two districts had been united.

The boundary has shifted slightly over the years but basically runs along Chancellors Road, Yeldham Road, south of Margravine Gardens, west of Gliddon Road cutting through the former St Paul’s School playing fields and the school itself, then meeting the Hammersmith Road opposite Brook Green. It then turns right along the centre of Hammersmith Road ending at Addison Bridge. The other side of the railway line is Kensington. The railway follows the line of the culverted Counters Creek, also known as Billingwell Ditch, and where it enters the Thames known as Chelsea Creek (now ). Counters Creek separated Hammersmith from Kensington, and Fulham from Chelsea.

In 1857 London was a post town but due to its rapid expansion was divided into many separate postal districts, hence SW, W, EC, N, etc. Fulham was designated as being SW, Hammersmith as W. In 1889, the Post Office decided that the part of Fulham north of Crabtree Lane would get a better delivery service from the

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Western District office that had its HQ at Paddington. This caused much controversy in Fulham and the Vestry Clerk wrote to the Postmaster General complaining. The Post Office was striking out Fulham on letters and writing Hammersmith. In 1906, Sir William Bull, MP for Hammersmith put a question to the Postmaster General in the House of Commons as Fulham people did not like being told they lived in Hammersmith. This was to no avail. The same applied to Fulham residents being told they lived in , W. The number suffixes were added to London postal areas in 1917 to increase efficiency of delivery; it has been said to be due to the temporary employment of women postal workers due to the shortage of men because of the Great War.

The Office of National Statistics, in its Postcode Look-up User Guide 2011, states categorically that: postcode areas are defined and used by Royal Mail for the purpose of efficient mail delivery and have no relationship with administrative and electoral areas. So, although Charing Cross Hospital is styled Hammersmith W6 it is located in Fulham.

FULHAM SOCIETY

THE FULHAM SOCIETY ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

will be held on

On Monday November 2nd, at 7.00 pm

It will be followed by a talk and a glass of wine.

Environment Fund The Fulham Society has a very healthy balance thanks to members paying their subscriptions promptly and for signing the gift aid forms (as a result over £800 just received from HMRC). We have very few costs mainly because the committee do so much. At some point we will need to spend some money but for the moment we are able to make donations to local causes. We will be considering more at our next committee meeting and always welcome suggestions from members.

We gave £1000 to the local Hammersmith & Fulham foodbank. The demand has soared–and they are handling 1,000 food parcels a week, rather than the usual 160.

We also gave £500 for food parcels for some vulnerable Fulham residents self-isolating as a result of Covid-19. These were distributed through All Saints Church and A bit of TLC. I was very touched to read some of the thank you notes that we received. A big thank you to Maria Sturdy-Morton for all that she and her husband, Julian, are achieving.

Front Garden Competition We decided, reluctantly, that the garden competition should be cancelled this year but we will be taking our daily walks around Fulham and will have our phone cameras with us so we hope to see some lovely window boxes or gardens to include in the autumn newsletter.

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Other Local Organisations

No meetings or events have been organised in the past months or can be planned for the future so we include some links to local groups whose websites and publications you may find of interest.

Fulham & Hammersmith Historical Society (FHHS) was formed in May 1971 by the amalgamation of the Fulham History Society (founded 1934) and the Hammersmith Local History Group (founded 1955). It encourages the study of local history and archaeology; compiles and publishes historical material relating to the Borough; and encourages interest in local history and archaeology by meetings, visits and other appropriate means. Click here for the website

Hammersmith & Fulham Historic Buildings Group works to promote, research, record, preserve and enhance Hammersmith and Fulham’s historic environment. This includes not just historic buildings and built structures of all types, but also open spaces, parks and gardens, landscape and views, the Thames and the Grand Union canal. Click here for the website

Fulham Palace has an interesting website with information about the building and the various Bishops who have lived there over the centuries. The link below is to their newsletter so that you can enjoy the Palace virtually. There is a special blog that looks back at the resilience of the site, from the Neolothic to the present day and there are links to other blogs. There is also information about their online plant sales. If you live locally and are able to collect please do take a look! Click here for the website

The Hammersmith & Fulham Local Studies and Archives Centre holds the archives and local history collections for the borough, including documents, books, maps, photographs, old newspapers and other sources for family and local history. These records come from the council and its predecessor bodies, local institutions such as churches and schools, local businesses, local organisations and individuals. It periodically publishes blogs of its material. Click here for the website

Riverside Studios was gradually reopening at the end of last year after a complete rebuild. As all their performances and meetings have had to be cancelled, they have created a community engagement programme, Dive In. This is a virtual space for talks, a yoga class, film club, family dance for the young ones and a book club. All the activities take place on Zoom. Click here for the website

Below are links to local groups who will be delighted to see you when public events are again allowed so do keep an eye on their websites.

Music by the Bridge, All Saints Church, Fulham Click here for the website

Fulham Opera Click here for the website

Fulham & Hammersmith Choral Society Click here for the website

Fulham Symphony Orchestra Click here for the website

Society of Fulham Artists & Potters. Click here for the website

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COMMITTEE MEMBERS

VICE-PRESIDENTS Patrick Ground QC, Lord Carrington of Fulham, Greg Hands MP, Andy Slaughter MP CHAIRMAN Fiona Fowler VICE-CHAIRMAN Niel Redpath HON. TREASURER Isobel Hill-Smith HON. SECRETARY Maya Donelan MBE HON.MINUTES SEC. Binky Aylmer HON. MEMBERSHIP SEC. Margaret Kemp MEMBERS Kim Hawkins, Caroline Marston, Anne Soutry, Maria Sturdy-

Morton

Committee Meetings are held on the 3rd Monday of each month (except August & December)

A REMINDER

If you are changing your email or your address please let us know by emailing [email protected]

CONTACT US

Address 1 Rosaville Road, SW6 7BN

020 3080 0655 Telephone Website fulhamsociety.org

Email [email protected] @fulhamsociety Twitter

Hammersmith & Fulham CAN The contact centre acts as a triage for enquiries, filtering residents through to the appropriate service and working closely with the various mutual aid groups which have also been formed in response to the crisis. It handles calls and emails from some of the borough’s 8,000 Shielded residents – those that were instructed by the NHS to self-isolate for 12 weeks. Requests have varied from those looking for help with getting food, to just wanting to talk because they’re lonely. Life is getting easier but if you need support with food, loneliness or isolation or you are you worried about a friend, neighbour or relative, call: Freephone 0800 145 6095, 9am-7pm Monday to Friday and 9am-2pm on weekends and bank holidays or email: [email protected]

Charity no. 262396

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