Nomination for a Wooden Spoon, 2025.

The Hammersmith Belle

The former Hampshire Hog / Hampshire has struggled in recent years, changing hands, names and formats several times, including in the midst of the pandemic in 2020. It used to have a restrained image commensurate with its elegant 1883 Victorian architecture – see below.

In its most recent incarnation it has joined the Belle pubs and restaurants group as the Hammersmith Belle, and taken on their standard sports bar brand appearance with fake LED-lit mini-trees outside, described in the nomination as having the appearance of a ‘Bulgarian Black Sea beach resort’ (who knew? – Ed).

This fits with an increasing trend for pandemic-inspired pavement encroachments, in a way that can erode the character of a city – building by building – and in the same way that the Uxbridge Road petitioners have mentioned. These do actually require planning consent, and should be the subject of enforcement. In this case, as many, no consent exists.

While it’s good to see this large longstanding establishment being reinvigorated – and in its original function – despite the 4.6 Google review ratings, the unsympathetic paint scheme, the brand’s generic plastic trees, loud signage, and pavement encroachments don’t seem to do the streetscape or building justice. Rather than help make the case for a vibrant sports bar, the additions seem to detract from an otherwise valiant effort to improve the frontage with its many thriving window boxes, and planting in the garish containers next to the trees, which unlike them, is actually real.

For reference, the appearance is shown below – from 2016:

The Hampshire Hog, 2016 [photo: Edward Hands / Wikipedia]

Royal Masonic Hospital Block A – showing originally proposed glass pavilions, now removed

This project finally received permission by unanimous vote after a long planning meeting on 30th July, but with some remaining concerns expressed by neighbours. A member of your committee attended to observe and note the proceedings. We’ve written about this project four times and have been working to help improve the scheme since the site sale over three years ago.

The issues were primarily around proposed design and building heights for the new 5-storey blocks E and F (given the conservation area/listed building location), adjacency issues for neighbours at both ends of the site, transport access, affordable housing provision, historic gardens, and importantly in this case, proposed additions to the Grade II* listed  buildings, particularly glass pavilions originally proposed on block A (pictured above), and the liner-style balconies on blocks B and C which have adjacency issues with Ravenscourt Gardens neighbours. 

Recent Changes

There have been two significant revisions since the original planning application in April 2024, which sought conversion to 140 flats, 65 care home places (discharging a medical covenant), 21 affordable, plus community use of block A (the main entrance).

In the first, last November, the glass pavilions were ushered off after our concerns, those of Historic England (really notable harm), the Historic Buildings Group, and the 20th Century Society were acknowledged, and an improved solution was found to the privacy / adjacency issues on the balconies, after the proposed heavy concrete planters were similarly dispatched. The screening issue has been addressed by glass inner balustrades, and a pleached tree boundary treatment, with separation distances discussed at some length by the planning committee, and shown to be greater than 18m in all but one case.

RMH Blocks E & F  – from May 2023 revision

In the second earlier this year, replacement block E/F maximum heights were lowered, and made more uniform by removal of the roof plant, moving it below ground in the place formerly allocated for car parking, this now being a car-free development, satisfying LBHF planning policy and some traffic concerns mentioned by existing neighbours. Part of this change was brought about by welcome adoption of a Ground Source Heat Pump heating system, and solar PV on the roof.  There were also refinements to the landscaping and planting, including relocation of a copper beech tree at the end of block C.

A review of comments made in our earlier articles shows that many of the issues raised by us, and others, have been addressed positively in the final design.

The planning committee accepted the officers’ assessment that the substantial public and heritage benefits of restoring the vacant listed building and opening it to the public outweighed the identified less than substantial harm, and that the impacts on neighbour’s amenity were acceptable. Support from Historic England was a significant factor in this decision, the hospital having been on the Buildings at Risk register.

Nomination for a Nancye Goulden Award, 2025.

The replacement of the bus lane in King Street by a temporary cycle lane during the pandemic was not without it’s critics, including in this parish, given its impact on public transport – particularly with the problematic ‘floating bus stops’ pictured, plus the effect on the public realm – two of our top concerns.

But the recent creation of two rain gardens, together with gravel replacements for a significant number of tree pits on both sides of the western end of the street represent very significant improvements. The hard landscaping and tree pits were done by Conway under the council’s mandate, paid for by the Green Investment Scheme, but interestingly, the planting was undertaken by HCGA under contract to the council, partly by local volunteers.

King St rain gardens

King St rain gardens

King St rain gardens

The gardens are already maturing after only a few weeks and will surely only get better in time. The adjacent gravel tree pits are a perfect example of what the society has campaigned on for well over a decade, awarding wooden spoons to the council in successive years for failing to improve the ‘asphalt situation’ around the borough’s trees. It didn’t seem to take Conway very long to dig out the old asphalt in around a dozen pits, and replace it with permeable and attractive real gravel. These represent what we’d like to see by default everywhere – of course in creative cooperation with guerrilla gardeners such as the award-winning Askew in Bloom, and The Green Project where they’re planting too. 

Guest Speaker Sally Prothero of the London Historic Parks & Gardens Trust on “London’s parks and open spaces at risk”

Faye Davies of Burrell Foley Fischer receives 2024 Tom Ryland Award for Conservation of the Ravenscourt Park Tea House

Members gather at the 2024 AGM

Dr Nicola Stacey of HOLT receives 2024 Tom Ryland Award for conservation of the Leaning Lady/woman

Andy Cutts, Development Manager for Youngs Pubs receives 2024 Nancye Goulden Award for The Defectors Weld

Guest Speaker Sally Prothero of the London Historic Parks & Gardens Trust on “London’s parks and open spaces at risk”

Richard Winterton and Dr Nicola Stacey of HOLT

Committee and former committee luminaries

Vice Chair Richard Winterton introduces the 2024 awards

Alistair Maddox, White City Place client services director receives 2024 Nancye Goulden Award White City landscaping

(AGM Photos: Franco Chen. Click for full-size versions)

Summary

This year there were no suitable nominations for the main Environment Award, which is probably the result of limited major project starts during the pandemic. The projects of recent Environment Award winners had started before the pandemic, completing in the last year or two.

In keeping with a tradition that started in 2015 with The Dorsett, and continued through The Palladium in 2022 and The Hoxton in 2023 adjacent, we had another winner close by, on the opposite corner to The Lawn, The Defectors Weld, winning a Nancye Goulden Award for its newly restored facades.

Tree pit Hammersmith Grove

We broke the recent run of Jane Mercer guerrilla gardening awards this year with no nominations, but we’re pleased to see previous winners still going strong. It’s notable that the most popular picture on our Instagram a month ago was the properly permeable low cost ‘hoggin’ or gravel tree pit shown adjacent, a welcome addition to the Hammersmith streetscape, and something we’ve long campaigned for in preference to the council’s default, asphalt, helpfully despatched by last year’s Jane Mercer winners in several spots around the Askew Road. Wooden spoons were awarded to the council in four of the last eleven years for poor asphalt tree pits.

Our second Nancye Goulden award this year was for landscaping associated with the White City area regeneration. There are a number of excellent examples between and around the new buildings which significantly improve the streetscape. We particularly noted the space between the Ed City building and the new home of L’Oreal at Gateway Central – a popular lunchtime retreat.

In the last couple of years, there had been few candidates for the Tom Ryland Award for Conservation, but happily the tide turned this year, and we had three!  We awarded the Ravesncourt Park Tea House for the council’s careful restoration, and the well-known Leaning Lady statue, restored through the efforts of affiliate SPRA, Heritage of London Trust and the council.

Award winners 2024

Chairman’s Annual Report 2024
Click on the image to open the pdf

Attached is this year’s Chairman’s Annual Report, reviewing the key activities of the Society, plus a look at emerging trends in Hammersmith.

Subjects include:

• Royal Masonic Hospital
• Earls Court
• Purpose-Built Student Accommodation (PBSA)
  • 181 Talgarth Road, M&S & 2 Queen Caroline St.
• Town Centre Masterplan / SPD
• Transport
  • Hammersmith Bridge
  • Roundabout consultations
• The Society
  • Prof. Hans Haenlein’s retirement
  • Committee changes & recruitment
  • Hammersmith Weekly

The agenda, accounts and other AGM information are on the dedicated 2024 AGM page.

Tom Ryland Award for Conservation, 2024.

Ravenscourt Park Tea House

Ravenscourt Park Tea House

The Grade 2 listed, 200 year old Tea House was on the buildings at risk register for some time (see related story), but has now been sensitively restored by the council and made weathertight, along with the adjacent toilet block (to the left of the photos).

The interior is now open and has been let to a third party café operator, providing an agreeable stopping point should the weather not allow the new outside seating to be used. We have some reservations about one or two details of the overprominent building services, and the immediately adjacent landscaping could be improved, but these are minor niggles. The rebuilt glasshouse adjacent, home of HCGA, is worthy of a mention too, though not nominated here.

Tom Ryland Award for Conservation, 2024.

The Leaning Lady was restored this summer, after more than sixty years. Along with other artworks, the statue was a gift to the community from the LCC partly as reparation for the damage caused by the building of the Great West Road through the middle of Hammersmith in the 1950’s. The statue was created by Czech refugee Dr. Karel Vogel in an unusual concrete material that had eroded over time. The restoration project was driven by affiliate SPRA and the council, and managed by Heritage of London Trust who also part funded the project with many local people in a community-driven fundraiser. 

Leaning Lady restored 2024

Dr Nicola Stacey of Heritage of London Trust at the unveiling of the restored Leaning Lady Statue with HRH Duke of Gloucester

Leaning Lady unveiling “Proud Places”

Tom Ryland Award for Conservation 2024 – with affiliate S.P.R.A. and Heritage of London Trust [Photo: HOLT]

Visit the above links for the charming story of the unveiling by HRH the Duke of Gloucester, in the presence of many local schoolchildren who created their own projects around the restoration, as part of HOLT’s Proud Places programme.

Wooden Spoon, 2024.

True? It certainly looks like it.  First, the popular paddling pool acquired a costly gated cage, a pre-booking requirement taking much the spontaneity out of a summer visit, with numbers, time limits and families frequently turned away. Next, some gates  – function unclear –  have appeared across the busy Ravenscourt Avenue entrance. Ugly and unwelcoming, these gates not only obscure views into the Park but cause maximum inconvenience and frustration to park users who find themselves having to queue to get either in or out. The Friends of Ravenscourt Park were not consulted on either.

Ravenscourt Park – before

Ravenscourt Park – after

Ravenscourt Park Paddling Pool June 2024

Ravenscourt Park Paddling Pool, August 2024

Paddlers beware

Goldhawk Road would have been an attractive boulevard in its day: at the Shepherds Bush end,  a wide street lined with terraced housing, shops at ground level, pubs on every corner, changing as you travel west, to the more sedate, semi-detached villas with front gardens – gardens which were later cut short to make way for a road widening which never took place. Over the years, development has eroded this street consistency but the distinctive scale and style remains.

190-194 Goldhawk Road

On the north side, near the Paddenswick Road roundabout, there are proposals for residential redevelopment on an unusual site at 190-194 Goldhawk Road,  next to the 1930’s style Melville Court flats, a site with a wide frontage and stretching back some 140 metres to the Hammersmith Academy at the rear. The development proposals include a 6-storey block on Goldhawk Road, with 24 flats (50% affordable) and a ground floor commercial unit, and a 2-storey mews terrace of 12 houses at the rear.

Apart from the penthouse, the scale of the front block sits comfortably in its street setting, but the street frontage, with its dominant projecting balconies and pronounced banding, would bring a heavy, dominant presence, out of harmony with the street and belittling the more reticent balconied façade of Melville Court next door. The penthouse proposed for the roof of the block is wholly out of place, its height and its awkward projecting roof an alien feature in the Goldhawk Road streetscape. 

190-194 Goldhawk Road Mews Houses

At ground level a gated access-way under the block leads to the mews housing behind, where you arrive in a more domestic, private world. This is an ingenious design, making  the most of a difficult site, and creating an attractive backwater tucked away from the busy road. The layout is very compact, leading to one or two shortcomings which deserve further consideration:  there appears to be no access to the houses for delivery/removal vehicles, and there is little outdoor recreation space for children or adults – and if there is to be reliance on proximity to public parks, a development contribution should be included towards parks maintenance; noise from comings and goings at the front of the houses is likely to disturb the private gardens of Cathnor Road very close by.

Wheelie Bins roll into Brackenbury
Click on the image to open the pdf

Under the banner ‘Taking a View’,  from time to time, we’re pleased to publish articles by members on a subject of their choice, which they believe will be interesting to the wider membership.

Late last summer we wrote about Wheelie Bins, which seemed to touch a nerve amongst members and affiliates. It continues to be one of the most popular articles on our website nearly a year later, and now that the bins have arrived, its predictions appear more accurate than many an election claim, as More or Less may confirm.

In this follow-up, two longstanding members detail what’s happened in Brackenbury, with photos.  The council might reasonably improve the situation for the large number of smaller properties in the borough by rightsizing the default offer, as described here.

If you have an article you would like to be considered, please contact .
Articles are unedited personal viewpoints, and may not always represent the views of the Society