Other

(lost) Friends’ Meeting House - Hammersmith

Inscription

This garden is on the site of the Friends’ Meeting House and Burial Ground, 1765-1944.

Looks like something used to be mounted on the granite top of this pillar, but what? This memorial was probably erected in 1951 when the bomb site was cleared for the Festival of Britain celebrations.

See here for another sad empty plinth.

Site: Friends’ Meeting House - Hammersmith (2 memorials)

W6, Furnivall Gardens

The tree-less plaque is in the lawn some distance to the right, outside our photo, which was taken from inside the garden.

Concerning Furnivall Gardens generally, a nearby information board informs: "The gardens are named after Dr Frederick James Furnivall, 1825 - 1910, a distinguished scholar of English literature and an important figure in the development of the sport of rowing. In 1896 he founded the Hammersmith Sculling Club for Girls and Men, now called the Furnivall Sculling Club, whose premises are in Lower Mall.

Furnivall Gardens cover the area which was formerly the mouth of the Hammersmith creek, an outlet into the Thames from Stamford Brook. In 1936 after the decline of the fishing industry in the creek harbour in the early 19th century, the creek was filled in and the water channelled through an underground culvert.

Many of the buildings in the creek area were destroyed by bombing during World War II and, in 1948, the council created an open space in this area, to be used during the Festival of Britain. A walled garden was constructed on the bombed site of what had, since 1765, been the Friends' Meeting House and burial ground.

Furnivall Gardens and Hammersmith Pier were opened on 5th May 1951."

The pier was built as a dock where festival-visitors could board a ferry to the Battersea and the South Bank.

The 1954 film Impulse has a scene at about 44 minutes where the characters arrive at Dove Pier and walk across Furnival Gardens. The camera briefly shows some of the large buildings on the other side of the Great West Road, and before that a windowed ruined wall which seems to stretch northwards from what is now River House, across the Gardens to the Great West Road.

This section lists the subjects commemorated on the memorial on this page:
Friends’ Meeting House - Hammersmith

Subjects commemorated i

Friends’ Meeting House - Hammersmith

Hammersmith Quakers gives: "Members of the Society of Friends (better known a...

Read More

This section lists the other memorials at the same location as the memorial on this page:
Friends’ Meeting House - Hammersmith

Also at this site i

Fred Haines

Fred Haines

This tree was planted in memory of Fred Haines by his colleagues on 20th Apri...

Read More

Nearby Memorials

Bedford Park panel

Bedford Park panel

W4, The Avenue, St Michael & All Angels Church

On the back of the panel 8 Bedford Park men are featured, each with a paragraph of text, and, for some, a small portrait image. We’ve cre...

11 subjects commemorated
P&O lamp-posts

P&O lamp-posts

EC3, Undershaft

This lamp-post is on one side of a flight of steps. The other side, as you see, is a building site soon to be the Pinnacle. Behind the ca...

1 subject commemorated
St Aloysius' College

St Aloysius' College

N6, Hornsey Lane

This memorial is in the grounds at the front of the school. Note the statue in the photograph - there is nothing on it to say but we gue...

1 subject commemorated, 2 creators
Louise Cattell bench

Louise Cattell bench

NW1, Chalk Farm Road, 88

We don't normally collect benches but this was so stunning we photo'd it before we even realised it was a memorial. It was so beautifull...

1 subject commemorated
Kirsty MacColl

Kirsty MacColl

W1, Soho Square, southern section of the garden

MacColl's 1993 "Titanic Days" album contains the track "Soho Square", set in the winter. Wikipedia says: "Every year on the Sunday neares...

1 subject commemorated, 1 creator

Previously viewed

Walter de la Mare - Montpelier Row

Walter de la Mare - Montpelier Row

TW1, Montpelier Row, 30

Walter de la Mare, 1873 - 1956, poet, lived here, 1940 - 1956. English Heritage

1 subject commemorated, 1 creator
Prince Albert

Prince Albert

Born Schloss Rosenau, Coburg, Germany, as Albert Francis Augustus Charles Emanuel. Married his first cousin, Victoria, in 1840. President of the Commissioners for the Great Exhibition. Generally in...

Person, Royalty, Seriously Famous, Germany

20 memorials
G. F. Hill
War dead, WW1
1 memorial
C. Burling
War dead, WW1
1 memorial
William John Graham

William John Graham

A parishioner or member of the congregation of St Matthias, N16, who died in WW1.

Person

War dead, WW1
1 memorial