Black Bull Tavern 122a Holborn, 1901 [pubwiki.co.uk]

The Black Bull was modelled in the early 19^th century by Obadiah Pulham from Pulham & Son. In Victorian times, this was a well-known Suffolk-based firm specialising in the production of garden ornamentation for prestigious sites across the country and the material used would have been ‘Pulhamite”, a particular blend of artificial stone they had devised.

Brought into London by Thames barge, the bull’s destination was to serve as the sign for the Black Bull coaching inn at 122a Holborn, an establishment mentioned by Dickens in Martin Chuzzlewit. He adorned the front of that building until 1904 (seen below the second floor window alongside the Black Bull nameplate), when the old inn was demolished to make way for a corner extension to the original Gamages department store. 

Black Bull transitioning to Gamages, 1904, [pubwiki.co.uk]

Reporting this event with some regret as the loss of a favourite destination for American tourists, the New York Times wrote on May 20, 1904: … “the old Black Bull of Holborn was lowered from his perch yesterday, and his retirement from public life marked the demolition of the famous old London inn that bore his name”.

Sir William Bull MP’s offices at 269 King St, bull over entrance [H&F Archives]

But saved from destruction by the Hammersmith MP Sir William Bull, our bull was transported over to King Street and relocated above the entrance of the Georgian terraced offices of the MP’s law firm, then at number 269. There he stood for over half a century until those buildings too were demolished.

Rescued again, he was brought down to earth to be unsuitably positioned head-on, on a plinth in the forecourt of an undistinguished ‘estate-style’ pub called the Ravenscourt Arms, later renamed the Black Bull, built in 1966 on the site next to Vencourt House, now a Premier Inn, at 257 King Street. In recent years, that pub too closed, leaving the Black Bull of Holborn stranded in the tumbleweed, and once more seeking a suitable Hammersmith home.

The Ravenscourt Arms was owned by Charrington, its successor the Black Bull was part of Punch Taverns, but according to the council, current ownership looks to be connected to the hotel adjacent.  Do you know any more?  We, alongside Heritage of London Trust, would like to have him restored, and found a more appropriate home.

The Black Bull in King St. 2022

It is difficult to imagine when walking round the clean and tidy residential streets of Hammersmith with its shops and multi-storey office blocks that in the 19^th century it was a bustling industrial town taking advantage of the many watercourses and creeks that led into the river Thames to host oil mills, sugar and molasses refineries for the local beer and food industries and a whole host of bustling factories.

Among them was Gwynnes who having made a lot of money when their factory on the Strand became part of the new Victoria Embankment moved their patented centrifuge pump manufacturing business in 1867 to a new factory in Chrisp Road, Hammersmith overlooking the river. In 1920 in the spirit of enterprise the company bought Adam Grimaldi motorcar manufacturers and produced 2250 8 hp and 600 10 hp cars before financial problems stopped production in 1927. Their name still lives on in Hammersmith as Gwynnes Skip Hire Company.

In 1933 the factory was converted into a compact film studio with two stages and a dubbing theatre as part of Twickenham Studios which was in turn acquired by Jack Buchanan who produced such films as We’ll Meet Again with Vera Lynn, The Seventh Veil with James Mason and Father Brown with Alec Guinness.

Dr Who: Dalek in Draw Dock, Riverside

With the arrival of television the newly revamped BBC Riverside Television Studios was opened in March 1957 by Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. The Studios went on to make such classics as Hancock’s Half Hour, Z-Cars, Dixon of Dock Green and the first Doctor Who.

Riverside 1975

The BBC sold the building to Hammersmith and Fulham Council in 1974 who developed it into two large multipurpose studios that blossomed as an international theatre and arts venue where Samuel Beckett directed a production of Endgame and Waiting for Godot and most of Britain’s artistic talent was involved in directing or performing across all the art disciplines.

Riverside entrance 1974-2014

There were also some memorable art exhibitions of works by Eduard Munch, Yoko Ono, Antony Gormley and David Hockney. In addition, the building provided a home the dozens of small film and theatre production companies allowing them to develop their business in a collaborative environment.

2018 Environment Award – Riverside Walk & Queens Wharf

In September 2014 the Riverside was closed for redevelopment following two years of discussions in which your correspondent took part with a neighbouring empty property owned by a Housing Association. The end result was a most imaginative scheme that created 165 residential flats, importantly adding a further link to the London River Walk, increased the size and capacity of Riverside Studios and added a public display area, café’s and a 130 seat Michelin Guide restaurant. We gave the Queen’s Wharf and River Walk our highest Award, the Environment Award, in 2018.

Riverside Studios continues its long tradition of providing the Hammersmith and Fulham community with an outstanding range of theatrical and cinematic experiences as well as first-class production facilities for the television industry.

Long may the show go on!

Hammersmith School of Art and Building
[ Illustration: Roger Warry : H&F HBG ]

The college buildings together with their boundary wall are listed Grade II by Historic England, under the original title ‘Hammersmith School of Building and Arts and Crafts’, and sits in the Coningham & Lime Grove conservation area.  The site also contains about a dozen mature trees, including a mulberry.

The buildings are now up for sale as the college is rationalising to their other site in Stratford by the end of next year. Allsop are marketing the two acre Lime Grove site, and indicating potential for continuing educational use, but there appear few safeguards against inappropriate (over)development.

We could go on to use many of the same words contained in our popular recent article on the Royal Masonic Hospital similarly on the market for redevelopment, which, as well as being a hospital, was also partly an educational institution for nurse training. Instead, here we reproduce an article from 2006, written for H&F Historic Buildings Group by our president Prof. Hans Haenlein, who has the additional distinction of having been a student of architecture at the college from 1955-1960.  Firstly, some local context:

The origin of Hammersmith &West London College in Gliddon Road W14 is firmly rooted in the history of the London County Council at the end of the 19th century, and the actions of Architect William Lethaby (1857 – 1931) who was appointed in 1894 as the LCC’s Inspector to its Technical Education Board. William Lethaby’s dominant role in the Arts and Crafts movement, his friendship with William Morris, a Hammersmith resident, as well as with his connections with the Weimar Bauhaus through Walter Gropius and Hermann Muthesius, provided a unique and strong European foundation for the LCC’s setting up of Hammersmith College of Art and Building in the late 1890s in Lime Grove. This in turn was the foundation of H&WL College.

Click on the newsletter image to open the pdf 

The Special 20-page Anniversary Newsletter has been published, celebrating 30 years of Hammersmith Society Awards. Printed copies are being distributed to subscribing members.

As part of the refurbishment of the Lyric, Hammersmith BID, – the Business Improvement District group of which Tom was a board member – took the opportunity to sponsor and dedicate one of the Main House boxes to Tom, and the unveiling was held on 29 October. 

Liz Ryland, with Charles Dori12n and Ghada Al-Madfai, both members of the West London Architects Society (WLAS)

The dedicatory plaque and box are shown, with Liz Ryland seated in the foreground – the box itself is a delightful feature of the theatre’s Victorian interior. It is a very fitting memorial to Tom, who greatly enjoyed the theatre and was very supportive of the Lyric.

As one of the ways in which The Hammersmith Society will be commemorating Tom, we plan to erect a bench dedicated to him at a location along the Hammersmith riverside. We know that among the members of the Society there were personal friends of Tom’s, and if you would like to make a donation to the cost of the bench, do please contact Melanie Whitlock ().

Lyric Hammersmith

Now that the Lyric have completed the latest round of expansion and building works, they are looking to overhaul the main auditorium and studio spaces. They have asked us to be involved in consultations which will commence in the New Year. This is obviously important to the Hammersmith Society which played such an important role in saving the theatre from destruction back in the 1970s.