COMMUNICATIONS.
Two Roman roads
from London crossed the north part of the parish
and converged near Brentford. (fn. 17) The northern
one, from Newgate, having crossed Hammersmith along the line of Goldhawk Road, continued west to form the northern boundary of
Chiswick. Along the eastern part of that
boundary there was no road in 1746, although
short sections were later marked by Bath Road
and Chiswick Road. Farther west Chiswick High
Road, passing through Gunnersbury and curving towards the river, may represent the northern
road. The southern Roman road, Akeman Street,
left London along the Strand and passed through
Kensington and Hammersmith to Turnham
Green, where originally it may have headed westsouth-west, skirting the southern edge of the
common and continuing along the line of
Wellesley Road. By the late 17th century the
main east-west route was that of the later high
road, (fn. 18) which followed the southerly Roman road
to Turnham Green and thence cut due west
across the common to Gunnersbury. Still known
simply as the high road or Brentford Road in the
18th century, when it was turnpiked, (fn. 19) it was
placed under the metropolitan turnpike roads
commissioners in 1826 as the 'great western
road', a description which was later to apply to a
new route farther south. (fn. 20) From the late 19th
century it has been called Chiswick High Road. (fn. 21)
A minor east-west route crossed the peninsular part of the parish, linking Old Chiswick
with Strand-on-the-Green. (fn. 22) In 1728 it had no
name (fn. 23) and by 1832 it was called Burlington
Lane. (fn. 24) Shorter lanes ran southward from the
high road to Old Chiswick in 1746: corresponding to the existing British Grove, Chiswick Lane,
and Devonshire Road, they led respectively to
the east end of the riverside road called Chiswick
Mall, to its centre, and to Church Street at its
west end. (fn. 25) British Grove was so called by the
1860s, as was the southern part of Devonshire
Road, previously Chiswick Field Lane; Chiswick
Lane, the most direct and presumably the oldest
way to the village, was so called in 1747. (fn. 26)
Hogarth Lane, so called by 1832, (fn. 27) led northwestward from Old Chiswick and apparently was
a road in 1746; (fn. 28) although providing a short cut to
Turnham Green common, it had become no
more than a footpath across the duke of
Devonshire's land by 1800. (fn. 29) From the high road
the main northward route in the 18th century was
Acton Lane, at the western end of Turnham
Green common, although there were several
paths to the Back common. From Turnham
Green a lane also ran southward to Little Sutton,
where it described a westerly loop before continuing south from the medieval manor house to
join the western end of Burlington Lane; it was
called Little Sutton Lane until the 1860s and
Sutton Lane by 1890. (fn. 30) Strand-on-the-Green
could be reached from the east along Burlington
Lane or from the west by a short approach from
the high road to the Kew ferry. A lane, perhaps
afterwards Brook Road, in 1746 connected the
later Wellesley Road with the middle of Back
Lane, which ran behind the line of riverside
houses (fn. 31) and c. 1908 was renamed Thames
Road. (fn. 32)
CHISWICK c.1815
The only significant changes between the mid
18th and mid 19th centuries were made in the
1820s by the duke of Devonshire. West of
Chiswick Lane, and parallel with it, a carriage
drive was constructed from the high road to
Hogarth Lane, where it passed through the
northern entrance gates of Chiswick House, and
by the 1860s was called Duke's Avenue. On the
other side of Chiswick House, Burlington Lane
was moved farther south. (fn. 33) There were still no
public roads in the central part of the parish,
where the duke's parkland lay, and only tracks
leading to fields south of Burlington Lane.
Apart from the addition of Sutton Court Road,
which ran south from Turnham Green to
Burlington Lane by 1886, (fn. 34) the main thoroughfares remained the same until after the First
World War. In 1923 Chiswick U.D.C. bought
200 a. of riverside land from the duke of Devonshire as part of its plan to open up the southern tip
of the parish for recreation. By 1925 a 2,000-ft.
long embankment and terraced promenade lined
the loop of the river, opposite Barnes, and sports
grounds were under construction, (fn. 35) soon to be
reached by Promenade Approach Road and
Riverside Drive.
The first of several modern arterial roads,
dividing one part of Chiswick from another, was
planned in 1914 to improve the south-western
outlet from London. Traffic was to be diverted
from Chiswick High Road down Chiswick Lane
to Mawson Lane, behind Old Chiswick, and
thence along part of Burlington Lane to Great
Chertsey Road, cut diagonally across the peninsula to the new Chiswick bridge west of Mortlake
(Surr.). Work began in 1922 on a bridge over the
railway south of Burlington Lane but it was not
until c. 1930 that the eastern end of the lane itself
was widened to form part of Great Chertsey
Road (fn. 36) and not until 1933 that the bridge over the
Thames was ready. Meanwhile part of the Great
West Road, opened in 1925, (fn. 37) was formed from
Hogarth Lane and the suburban avenues to the
west as far as a new roundabout in Chiswick High
Road, whence it continued across Brentford.
Another phase of road building for longdistance traffic began in 1955 with the widening
and straightening of the Great West Road as part
of the Cromwell Road extension. Roundabouts
were built at the intersections with Devonshire
Road and Sutton Court Road; (fn. 38) the names of
Mawson Lane, Hogarth Lane, and its western
continuations thereafter applied merely to
stretches of the main road; the avenues which it
crossed were bisected and later given the suffixes
'North' and 'South', (fn. 39) many being turned into
cul-de-sacs and some linked by pedestrian subways, first opened in 1956. (fn. 40) From 1959 the
Great West Road was carried over the roundabout near the western end of Chiswick High
Road by a flyover (fn. 41) and from 1964 Chiswick
flyover was linked with an elevated section of the
M4 motorway. (fn. 42)
Bollo brook in 1826 passed under the high road
at the west end of Turnham Green common,
where a small culvert sometimes overflowed. The
stream from the grounds of Chiswick House in
1746 apparently passed under Burlington Lane
and in 1826 was confined to a width of 10 ft.
beneath a brick bridge recently built by the duke
of Devonshire. (fn. 43) Foot ferries at Old Chiswick
and Kew were mentioned in 1659 (fn. 44) and presumably had long been in use, since there were no
medieval bridges over the Thames in Middlesex. (fn. 45) Kew ferry grew busier after Kew became
a royal residence, William III being among those
who probably took short cuts to the high road
along Sutton Lane from Strand-on-the-Green, (fn. 46)
and more traffic followed the opening of a bridge
in 1759. (fn. 47) There was no other bridge nearer than
Fulham in 1826, however, (fn. 48) and Chiswick ferry
was still used in the 1890s. (fn. 49) Apart from the
approaches to Kew bridge, on the boundary,
Great Chertsey Road became the only road
across the Thames from Chiswick parish, with
the opening in 1933 of the 700-ft. long Chiswick
bridge, designed by Sir Herbert Baker and faced
with Portland stone. (fn. 50)
A coach made two return journeys daily from
Turnham Green to London in 1825 (fn. 51) and
coaches, some of them presumably stopping only
in the high road en route, left every half hour by
1832. (fn. 52) Eleven omnibuses ran between Turnham
Green and the Bank in 1838-9, eight of them
operated from the George IV inn by George
Cloud, who also operated four from Kew
bridge. (fn. 53) By 1845 omnibuses left for London
every quarter hour. (fn. 54)
The West Metropolitan Tramways Co., which
already ran horse cars from Shepherd's Bush to
Acton, in 1882 opened a route from Shepherd's
Bush along Goldhawk Road to Young's Corner
at the east end of Chiswick High Road. Thence
horse cars ran westward along the high road to
Kew bridge from 1882 and eastward to Hammersmith Broadway from 1883. Services were poor
by 1894, when the West Metropolitan, whose
main depot lay north of Chiswick High Road,
was taken over by the new London United
Tramways Co. Electric trams were introduced
by the L.U.T. on the enlargement of the depot
and the opening of a power station in 1901. (fn. 55)
Lack of public transport in the areas away from
Chiswick High Road led to rival but abortive
proposals for new routes by the L.U.T., the
county council, and Chiswick U.D.C. between
1900 and 1902. Trolleybus powers were conferred on the U.D.C. by an Act of 1911, to take
effect from 1913, but were not exercised, (fn. 56) the
first trolleybuses arriving only in 1935 (fn. 57) and
surviving until 1962. (fn. 58) Motor buses operated by
the London General Omnibus Co. reached
Chiswick in 1911 (fn. 59) and, as part of London
Transport's network, later served most parts of
the parish.
The first railway reached Chiswick from
Surrey, cutting diagonally across the empty
southern part of the parish. A branch of the
London & South Western Railway Co.'s line
from Waterloo to Richmond, it crossed the
Thames by Barnes bridge and ran northwestward through Chiswick and Kew Bridge
stations to Brentford and Hounslow. Chiswick
station, designed by William Tite and opened in
1849, was renamed Chiswick and Grove Park in
1872 and Chiswick again in 1920. (fn. 60) Not until
1869 did the L.S.W.R. open a line from Kensington through Hammersmith to Turnham Green (fn. 61)
and Brentford Road. South of Brentford Road
station, renamed Gunnersbury in 1871, the line
divided: part of it was connected by a westward
curve to the old line north of Strand-on-theGreen, while part ran south across the Thames to
Kew Gardens and Richmond. At Hammersmith
the station of the L.S.W.R. was close to that of
the Hammersmith & City Railway Co., whence
trains ran to central London. The populous
northern part of the parish was also served from
1877 by the Metropolitan District Railway Co.
from the City, which used the L.S.W.R.'s track
from Hammersmith to Richmond, and by the
Metropolitan. In 1879 the Metropolitan District,
known simply as the 'District', opened a branch
from Turnham Green to Ealing Broadway, with
a station just across the parish boundary called
Acton Green, renamed Chiswick Park and Acton
Green in 1887 and Chiswick Park in 1910. (fn. 62)
Early trains for workmen were provided by the
L.S.W.R. and the District by 1890. (fn. 63) The
District electrified its service in 1905 and opened
Stamford Brook station, on the Chiswick side of
the Hammersmith boundary, in 1912, after the
track through Turnham Green had been
widened. (fn. 64) In 1923 the L.S.W.R. was absorbed
by the Southern Railway (fn. 65) and in 1933 the
District's lines passed to the London Passenger
Transport Board, thereafter forming part of
London's Underground system. (fn. 66)