CHAPTER XX - The Kensington Canal, Railways and Related Developments
Arteries of transport have had a powerful effect upon the
portion of Kensington discussed in this volume. This
chapter therefore enters into the history of those transport
developments which have made the strongest physical
impact upon the area, namely the Kensington Canal, the
West London and West London Extension Railway, the
Metropolitan and Metropolitan District Railways (now
part of the Circle and District Lines), and the Great
Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway (now the Piccadilly Line). Appended to this follow accounts of important developments built upon railway land, notably the
Earl's Court Exhibition, the West London Air Terminal
and a number of post-war hotels. Emperor's Gate and
Nos. 116–156 (even) Cromwell Road, built on railway land
shortly after the completion of the Metropolitan and District Railways, are considered separately in the next chapter, while a discussion of the effect of the railways upon
the area as a whole appears in the general conclusion to
the volume.
The Kensington Canal and the West London Railway
The common sewer known as Counter's Creek, a tidal
tributary of the Thames, formed the boundary of the
parishes of Kensington and Fulham, and for much of its
length also formed the western boundary of the vast estate
belonging to the Edwardes family (see page 239). In 1820
the Regent's Canal had been opened from near the Grand
Junction Canal basin at Paddington to the Thames at
Limehouse, and was soon carrying a large and rapidly
increasing traffic. (ref. 1) Stimulated no doubt by this example,
William Edwardes, the second Lord Kensington, hoped
that if the Counter's Creek sewer were made navigable,
the improved communication would assist the development of his property, and also provide him with a useful
income from the tolls. Accordingly in 1822 his surveyor,
William Cutbush, prepared a plan for this purpose. (ref. 2)
This first scheme related only to that part of the creek
which bordered on Lord Kensington's own lands, between
Fulham Road at Stamford Bridge (below which no
improvements were then thought necessary) and the Hammersmith Road (now Kensington High Street) at
Counter's Bridge. (fn. a) Here the proposed canal terminated
abruptly without any basin, suggesting perhaps an intention to continue it later to join the canal junction at Paddington. This plan was superseded by another (signed by
John Holland) in 1823, which provided for a small basin
to the south of Counter's Bridge, approached through a
single lock, and for improvement works between Stamford
Bridge and the Thames. (ref. 4)
This second plan formed the basis of the Parliamentary
proceedings which led in 1824 to the establishment of the
Kensington Canal Company. This consisted of eighteen
gentlemen, headed by Lord Kensington and Sir John
Scott Lillie (an owner of land on the Fulham side of the
creek), who were empowered by the Act to widen, deepen
and enlarge Counter's Creek from Counter's Bridge to the
Thames 'so as to form or make a Canal for the Navigation
of Boats, Barges and other Vessels'. They were also
authorized to raise among themselves a capital sum of
£10,000 by the issue of one hundred shares of £100 each,
and an additional £5,000 if necessary. The canal was to
be completed within three years. (ref. 5) Among the initial shareholders were Joseph and Thomas Brindley, who were then
building Warwick Square (now the northern end of
Warwick Gardens) on Lord Kensington's estate (see page
263). (ref. 6) Joseph Brindley was also one of the proprietors of
the company mentioned in the Act.
Most of the evidence about the construction of the canal
comes from the records of the bankruptcy of the original
contractors, and there are inevitably some gaps. (ref. 7) Bids for
the contract to build the canal were invited in August
1824. (ref. 8) The successful tenderer appears to have been
Robert Tuck, a carpenter. Tuck was then engaged in the
development of Pembroke Square in partnership with
John Dowley (see page 268), and there is no doubt that
Dowley was also involved in the canal works. His name
may, however, have been discreetly left off the tender
because he was surveyor to the Westminster Commissioners of Sewers, whose jurisdiction extended to Counter's
Creek. The principal sub-contractor under Dowley and
Tuck was apparently William Hoof of Brook Green,
Hammersmith, 'excavator', then in partnership with
Daniel Pritchard. (ref. 9)
Figure 129:
Kensington Canal, plan of basin and lock near
Warwick Road in c. 1850
The cost of construction had been estimated by John
Holland at £7,969, (ref. 6) but this very soon proved to be a gross
under-estimate. Early in 1826 the engineer (Sir) John Rennie was called in and estimated that over £34,000 would
be needed to complete the work with certain modifications,
the main items being the widening of the canal, excavations needed to slope the banks, the construction of long
stretches of wall, and the rebuilding of Stamford Bridge. (ref. 10)
Holland was superseded by Rennie's 'Surveyor of the
Works', Thomas Hollinsworth, as surveyor to the Canal
Company. (ref. 11) Rennie did not mention his role in the construction of the canal in his later autobiography, but his
involvement was substantial enough to include the supervision of the building of a bridge for the Commissioners
of Woods and Forests, presumably the King's Road bridgein Chelsea. (ref. 12)
In May 1826 the company therefore had to obtain
powers by another Act to raise a further £30,000. (ref. 13) Yet
despite even this great increase in costs the idea of extending the canal northward to connect with the Grand Junction Canal at Paddington was still under consideration, for
in November 1826 Hollinsworth produced plans (never
executed) for this purpose, the proposed meeting point
(reached through eleven locks) being at Westbourne
Green. (ref. 14)
Meanwhile in July 1826 Dowley and Tuck had been
declared bankrupt, largely it seems through difficulties
encountered in their development of Pembroke Square
(see page 270), though they were owed money for work
on the canal and this may have been a contributory factor.
During the bankruptcy proceedings £2,476 was stated to
be due to them from the Canal Company, of which £1,323
was in turn owed by them to Hoof, but the company
claimed £2,000 for the non-fulfilment of Tuck's contract. (ref. 15) The assignees in bankruptcy commenced an action
against the company, but the matter was compromised
when they agreed to take some promissory notes and
shares from the company. These eventually realized only
£320 when sold at auction after the canal had been
opened. (ref. 16)
Hoof, who may have agreed to adopt some of the Company's debts in lieu of the money owed him, took over
as principal contractor and was later described as the man
'who formed the Canal'. (ref. 17) He remained a creditor of the
company for some time, and in 1839 was castigated as a
'troublesome person' when he insisted on the settlement
of his claim for £2,695 from the Canal Company before
allowing preliminary works to take place on garden ground
he held as a tenant-at-will, for the construction of the Birmingham, Bristol and Thames Junction (later West
London) Railway to the canal basin (see below). (ref. 18)
Troublesome or not, he became a very successful builder
and railway contractor and was elected a director of the
West London Railway. (ref. 19) By 1840 he was able to buy a
large detached villa on the site now occupied by Prince
of Wales Terrace (see page 117), and at his death in 1855
he left an estate worth over £148,000. (ref. 20)
During the later stages of construction of the canal, from
about August 1827, John Fawcett of New Ormond Street
(now Great Ormond Street), surveyor, took over from
Thomas Hollinsworth as surveyor or 'engineer' to the
Canal Company. (ref. 21)
The Kensington Canal was finally opened on 12 August
1828. Witnessed by an immense number of persons (The
Times recorded), 'the Right Hon. Lord Kensington and
a number of friends to the undertaking, embarked in a
stately barge at Battersea-bridge and proceeded up the
canal … The whole party entered the basin amidst the
cheers of the multitudes assembled, the band on board
playing "God Save the King".' This was followed in the
evening by a 'sumptuous dinner' with Lord Kensington
in the chair and 'By his Lordship's command, and chiefly
at his expense, a substantial dinner with a butt of porter
was also given to about 200 of the workpeople'. (ref. 22)
The canal, about one and three-quarter miles long, was
one hundred feet broad and provided passage for barges
of a hundred tons' burden. The basin, some 300 yards
south of the Hammersmith Road, was four hundred feet
long and two hundred wide, and was approached through
a single lock about 180 yards further south (fig. 129). The
total cost of all the works had amounted to about £40,000,
and the income was estimated at £2,500 per annum. (ref. 23)
Traffic soon proved, however, to be 'very limited', (ref. 24) and
in the mid 1830s Lord Holland, whose estate to the north
of Counter's Bridge would be affected by any schemes for
the continuation of the canal to Paddington, described it
as 'a total failure'. (ref. 25) In 1840 the canal was said to be 'totally
unfit as a Channel of communication with the River
Thames' owing to the extremely short and constantly
changing period of time during each tide when it was
navigable. (ref. 26)
Lord Kensington must have been severely affected by
this fiasco. As the principal progenitor of the canal, he had
in 1824 subscribed £5,000 of the capital sum of £10,000
or £15,000 then envisaged (five times as much as the next
largest shareholder, Sir John Scott Lillie), and he may well
have invested more after 1826. He also appears to have
sold the eleven acres of his land needed for the canal at
well below its full value of £400 per acre. (ref. 27) In about 1833
he and his co-proprietors were still hoping to extricate
themselves by continuing the canal northward to
Paddington — a scheme which Lord Holland (against
whom Lord Kensington had recently been conducting a
prolonged law suit (ref. 28) ) had happily described as having been
'found so objectionable and afforded so small a prospect
of benefit to the publick' that it had soon been
abandoned. (ref. 29)
The West London Railway
By this time, however, the impending establishment of the
London and Birmingham Railway (in 1833) and of the
Great Western Railway (in 1835) was causing uncertainty
about the future development of communications
throughout west London. Neither company had yet
decided upon the site for its permanent London terminus.
But even before their incorporation as a company the
directors of the Great Western Railway had in 1834 considered acquiring a site for a goods terminus beside the
Kensington Canal basin, by which they would have
obtained access by water to the London docks. (ref. 30) The anxiety of the two main-line railway companies to obtain
access to the Port of London had, in fact, suddenly conferred a short-lived importance upon the Kensington
Canal, and in February 1836 its proprietors were no doubt
delighted to accept a very good offer from the provisional
committee of a new railway company then in course of
formation to buy their semi-moribund property. This new
company was the Birmingham, Bristol and Thames Junction Railway, incorporated by an Act of Parliament of June
1836 with power to buy the canal and to build a railway
northward from the Kensington basin to link up with the
Great Western and London and Birmingham railways in
the vicinity of Willesden. The price to be paid for the canal
was £36,000, of which £10,000 was to be paid in cash and
the remainder in shares in the new company. (ref. 31)
The directors of the company, who included the local
landowners Sir John Scott Lillie and Robert Gunter as
well as the Hon. Captain William Edwardes (Lord Kensington's son and heir), had wildly optimistic hopes for
the future of their project. In December 1836 they
announced that 'almost the whole of the merchandise and
produce traffic' of the Great Western Railway and 'a great
proportion' of that of the London and Birmingham would
use their railway and canal 'as the easiest, the most direct,
and by far the most economical means of conveyance to and
from the Thames'. Nor was this all. At least one-fifth of
the passenger traffic to and from London of the two mainline railways would use the new station to be built at Kensington, and this traffic could be greatly increased if, as
the directors now proposed, their line were extended from
the Kensington basin to a terminus 'near Hyde Park Corner', which formed 'the recognized portal' of the 'west-end
of the town', comprising 'almost all the rank and wealth
of London'. The 'London West-End Railway', as this proposed extension was to be called, was to curve through
Brompton to Knightsbridge, 'A very important and
favourable consideration' being that for over half its length
it would 'pass over the property of Lord Kensington, who
is a warm supporter of the undertaking'. (ref. 32)
More realistically, Lord Holland thought that (even
with the extension to Knightsbridge, for which an abortive
application to Parliament was made soon afterwards (ref. 33) ) the
railway would 'answer no purpose even if successful but
that of indemnifying the proprietors of the canal for the
sums they have lost in that improvident undertaking'; and
that in fact it would prove 'as signal a failure as the
Canal'. (ref. 34)
The Act of 1836 had authorized the company to raise
a capital sum of £150,000, (ref. 31) and construction of the railway from Willesden to the basin soon started, with William Hosking as engineer. (ref. 35) But some of the shareholders
began to refuse to pay their share calls, arrears quickly
amounted to £28,000, and the directors were unable to
pay current bills. In 1840 statutory power to raise a further
£75,000 was obtained, the opportunity provided by this
second application to Parliament being used to change the
name to the more manageable one of the West London
Railway Company. (ref. 36) Purchasers for the new shares were,
however, slow to come forward. Not until the winter of
1842–3 was the company able to pay its debts and make
new contracts, the principal contractor being Thomas
Earle. (ref. 37)
Purchasing the canal company proved troublesome too,
for there were numerous creditors to be paid, and possession was not obtained until 1 July 1839. (ref. 38) There were also
complex drainage problems to be sorted out with the
Westminster Commissioners of Sewers, (ref. 39) and in 1840
Robert Stephenson was appointed as engineer to the company. His opinion was that 'the present line is but of little
value unless extended to the Thames and to Knightsbridge'. (ref. 40) Under his auspices several plans for both these
purposes were prepared between 1840 and 1845; (ref. 41) and in
1840 the directors also considered a scheme for extending
the canal northward. (ref. 42)
The West London Railway was finally opened on Whit
Monday, 27 May 1844, and for regular services on 10 June.
From its junction with the London and Birmingham at
Willesden it traversed the Great Western line by a level
crossing (there being no station) and continued to Kensington Station, (fn. b) a little to the north of Counter's Bridge.
Thence it passed under the Hammersmith Road to a goods
yard at the canal basin. Traffic proved negligible; in
August and September passenger receipts averaged only
£15 10s. per month, and the unfortunate line became the
butt of so many jokes in the pages of Punch that it soon
became known as 'Punch's Railway'. This sobriquet was
due largely to the journalistic efforts of Gilbert Abbott a
Beckett, who lived close to the Kensington station and did
everything he could to fight the line, alleging that 'there
was so little traffic that the station-master was wont to grow
cabbages between the sleepers, and train vegetable marrows along the rails'. (ref. 44) The directors attributed their misfortunes to the failure of both the London and
Birmingham and the Great Western to stop their longdistance trains at the respective junctions with the West
London line; but with losses amounting to £50 a week
and an execution placed upon the company for nonpayment of a debt, they felt compelled to close the line
on 30 November 1844, less than six months after it had
opened. (ref. 45)
Soon afterwards several members of the Board resigned.
After some difficulty in financing replacements six directors were appointed, of whom three were resident in
Manchester and three in London, the latter being Stephen
Bird, the Kensington builder and contractor, William
Cubitt (the civil engineer, not the brother of Thomas
Cubitt) and William Hosking, formerly the company's
engineer. They 'found the affairs of the company in a state
of far greater embarrassment and difficulty than they had
anticipated'. Debts amounted to £60,000, the contractor
had filed a bill in Chancery for non-payment of a debt,
and the line had been seized and actually advertised for
sale. (ref. 46)
By 1844 both the London and Birmingham and the
Great Western companies had settled upon the sites for
their respective termini and they were much less interested
in the Kensington Canal and the little railway leading to
it than they had been in the mid 1830s. The new directors
of the West London Railway Company were therefore
fortunate to find that the London and Birmingham Company was willing to pay £60,000, in discharging the West
London's debts and to take a 999-year lease of the line
at the rent of one-quarter of its gross proceeds. But the
canal remained the property of the West London Railway
Company, which thus achieved the unusual situation of
having charge of a canal but no railway. (ref. 47) These arrangements were agreed in March 1845 and confirmed later in
the same year by an Act of Parliament which also
authorized the Great Western Railway to use the line. (ref. 48)
No passenger service was re-introduced, however, and
the line was only used for the conveyance of coal. (ref. 49) The
rent payable by the London and North Western (as the
London and Birmingham was now known) must therefore
have been very small, and traffic on the canal (which in
1857–8 yielded about £800 per annum) was falling. (ref. 50) In
1849 the West London Railway Company's misfortunes
were compounded when its secretary, after defalcating
with some £1,000 of company funds, had escaped to New
York; and even though the numerous disputes which had
soon arisen with the London and North Western Railway
Company had been referred to arbitration by yet another
Act of Parliament, the future of the line remained as uncertain and unprofitable as ever. (ref. 51)
The West London Extension Railway
This unsatisfactory state of affairs continued until 1858,
when the directors of the West London Railway decided
to convert their canal into a railway which would provide
a connecting link with the rapidly developing railway
system on the south side of the Thames. The West
London's own shareholders refused to subscribe the
necessary funds, (ref. 52) but in the end the capital of £300,000
was jointly found by the London and North Western, the
Great Western, the London and South Western and the
London, Brighton and South Coast companies, which
together promoted a Bill for the establishment of the West
London Extension Railway Company. This Act, passed
in 1859, authorized the new company to fill in the Kensington Canal from its terminus at the Kensington basin
as far southward as the King's Road bridge, Chelsea, and
to use the site for a railway which, commencing at the
south end of the West London Railway, was to cross the
Thames by a bridge and, by four different branches, join
the lines of the various companies then active in the
vicinity of Clapham Junction. The line was opened on 2
March 1863, with a new Kensington station replacing the
old one of 1844 on almost the same site. (ref. 53)
Figure 130:
Lock-keeper's cottage, Kensington Canal, elevation. West London Railway boardroom on right
Soon half a dozen companies were running services
along the extended line, to which a number of important
connections were made. The first of these was with the
Hammersmith and City line near Latimer Road in North
Kensington, opened in 1864, by means of which passenger
trains were run from the West London's Kensington
(Addison Road) Station via Paddington to Farringdon
Street on the new underground. (ref. 54) The building of the
Metropolitan District Railway and its spurs to join the
West London Extension Railway, described below,
offered further opportunities. To meet these, a new station
named West Brompton was opened in 1866 on a lonely
spot at Lillie Bridge (Plate 133c). (ref. 55) A simple brick building
with subdued touches of Gothicism, set back from Richmond (now Old Brompton) Road, it was to be on its own
only until 1869, when it was joined by the District Railway's station of the same name (see page 329). Although
no physical connection was ever made between the two
railways at West Brompton, the land beside the West
London Extension Railway for about a quarter of a mile
was later used by the District for its route to Putney (1880)
and Wimbledon (1889). In addition, from 1872 the
London and North Western ran a service from Broad
Street in the City to Mansion House via Willesden and
Kensington (Addison Road) Station. (ref. 56) Meanwhile in 1869
the London and South Western used its financial stake
in the West London Extension line to build a feeder from
a point on the latter a little to the north of Kensington
Station to Hammersmith Broadway and thence on to
Richmond. (ref. 57)
The heyday of the West London and West London
Extension line lasted from the 1860s for some forty years.
In 1903 it was claimed to pay 'a dividend of enormous
proportions on the original stock'. (ref. 58) But after 1914 the
building of deep-level electric tube railways and the advent
of the motor bus and the motor car all provided quicker
and more direct travel than the often circuitous routes on
which the line had largely depended for its passenger traffic. The service from Broad Street to Earl's Court via Willesden (where passengers had to change) was, however,
only discontinued in 1940, and when exhibitions are held
at Olympia the District Line still runs trains to Kensington
(Olympia) Station from High Street Kensington. Changing conditions of living have also resulted in the closure
of the coal yards, but the line is nevertheless still an
important freight route, (ref. 59) and Kensington (Olympia)
Station is now used as a motorail terminus. The line's West
Brompton Station was closed in 1940 and demolished
some years later. (ref. 60)
The only significant survival from the Kensington
Canal in the area covered by this volume is the lockkeeper's cottage (Plate 115c, fig. 130) which presumably
dates from the canal's construction in 1824–8 (provision
for a 'lock house' having been included in the original estimates). (ref. 6) It now stands boarded-up in forlorn isolation a
short distance to the north of the bridge which carries the
West Cromwell Road extension over the railway tracks.
The single-storey addition to the south of the cottage is
the boardroom built by the impecunious West London
Railway Company in 1845. (ref. 49)
Figure 131:
Railways in the Earl's Court area
The Metropolitan and Metropolitan District Railways
The history of the Metropolitan Railway and its companion, the Metropolitan District Railway, is well known
and documented and need only be recited in so far as it
affected Kensington's development. The Metropolitan
Railway having prosperously opened its pioneering line
from Paddington to Farringdon Street in 1863, a plethora
of railway schemes for London followed. Few survived the
test of scrutiny by Select Committee in Parliament during
the first half of 1864, but among these was the scheme
for completing an 'Inner Circle' put forward by John
Fowler, acting as engineer for the Metropolitan. Under
Acts of 29 July 1864, the Metropolitan company was
permitted to extend its line southwards from Paddington
to a new station at South Kensington as well as to continue
on at its eastern end from Moorgate to Tower Hill. But
the completion of the circle between Tower Hill and South
Kensington was allotted to a second company, the
Metropolitan District Railway, which also undertook to
build two short spurs through Kensington: one starting
westwards from South Kensington, running parallel at
first with the Metropolitan and then diverging through
Earl's Court to join the new West London Extension Railway (opened in 1863) at West Brompton; the other beginning at High Street Kensington, turning westwards
through Earl's Court alongside its sister spur and then
veering northwards to meet the West London Railway at
a junction just south of Addison Road (fig. 131). (ref. 61)
In due course the two companies intended to
amalgamate and operate as one — a hope that was to be
dashed until the creation of the London Passenger Transport Board in 1933. For the time being, separate companies spread the risk and helped to ensure speedier
completion. Fowler acted as engineer to both companies
and the same contractors, Peto and Betts (succeeded after
their failure in 1866 by Lucas Brothers), Kelk, and Waring
Brothers, undertook the task of construction. Three of the
local stations, at High Street Kensington, Gloucester Road
and South Kensington, were for the joint use of the
companies.
The compulsory purchases authorized under the Acts
included only a modicum of developed property in
southern Kensington. Major demolitions occurred only at
two of the station sites, on the south side of Kensington
High Street and on the Alexander estate south and west
of Thurloe Square. Indeed H. B. Alexander and the
residents of Thurloe Square and Onslow Square were the
only vociferous objectors to Fowler's plans along this part
of the line. In the hope of shifting the position of South
Kensington Station, an influential procession of witnesses
from Onslow Square, comprising Sir James DairympleHorn-Elphinstone, Sir Robert Anstruther, Theodore
Martin and Baron Marochetti averred before the Commons Select Committee that the expected traffic traversing
the east side of their square on its way to and from the
station would wreck their amenities. (ref. 62) 'My probable conduct is that my first step would be to leave the house',
stated Theodore Martin (who continued to inhabit Onslow
Square till his death in 1909), '… which I went to with
a view to getting great quiet.' (ref. 63)
Such, however, were relations between the railway companies and the other landed interests in the area, principally the Commissioners for the 1851 Exhibition and
Charles Freake, that these protests fell on stony ground:
the South Kensington Station was confirmed in its original
position. Other large Kensington proprietors affected were
more complaisant, anticipating no doubt the benefits
which good transport would one day confer on their as
yet undeveloped land. They included Robert and James
Gunter, the Harrington, Broadwood and Vallotton families, and above all the third Lord Kensington, through
whose fields in particular the lines west of Gloucester Road
were scheduled to be driven. Lord Kensington's readiness
to part with some thirty acres of his estate (for some
£10,000) may have followed from his hapless father's
involvement with the West London Railway, in which the
family had had large shareholdings. The District Railway's
scheme promised both to open up his estate for development and to link the West London Railway with the projected Inner Circle and thus restore its profitability. (ref. 64)
Yet the peculiar curving configuration of lines in South
Kensington and Earl's Court, coupled with the fact that
in many places four tracks ran together, meant that the
new railways ate up or sterilized much valuable land. As
the companies requisitioned more land than they
ultimately needed, awkward areas were left over which
later proved hard to use. The largest were the sites of the
'Cromwell Road triangle' and of the future Earl's Court
Exhibition (fig. 131), at which the contractors dug up
swathes of land to take out clay and bake some fifty million
bricks in massive kilns specially built for the purpose. (ref. 65)
Stations and sidings also took up much space. The more
practicable remnants such as the site of Emperor's Gate
were sold after the railways' completion, but the two large
triangles remained in the companies' hands.
Construction (Plates 130, 131a, 134) began in 1865, continued intensively until 1868, and dribbled on thereafter
as successive sections of the District line were opened. The
methods of layout used were orthodox, with covered sections in the eastern, more developed, areas giving way to
open stretches further west. 'Cut-and-cover', noted William Humber in 1866, was largely adopted 'by reason of
the value of the land … By far the greater portion of the
line is simply opened out, the arch turned, and the surface
of the ground above made good as may be required.' (ref. 66) One
feature of outstanding technical interest was a short-lived
bridge, claimed by the railway historian the late Charles
Lee as the first concrete arch bridge in the world. (ref. 67) This
was thrown across the southern section of the 'Cromwell
Curve', beneath the present British Airways building, in
1867–9. A large triangular site here was completely cut
off by the radiating lines. To reach it, Fowler in 1867 had
a thin bridge, twelve feet wide and seventy-five feet in
span, built across the District lines next to Cromwell Road
in mass concrete, 'with a view to determine the fitness of
that material for arches' (Plate 134). (ref. 68) It was constructed/plt
with the help of centering, entirely lacked reinforcement,
and weighed some 200 tons. Early in 1869 the bridge was
broadened by similar methods, probably to forty-two feet,
and finished off with voussoirs simulating stonework. It
had gone by the time the railways were plotted by the Ordnance Survey in 1872, more probably because the access
was no longer needed than for any deficiencies. The Cromwell Curve triangle remained under-used for many years,
though from the inter-war period it was increasingly taken
up with sidings.
The first portion of the railways to be finished was the
Metropolitan from Paddington through High Street Kensington to Gloucester Road, opened on 1 October 1868.
Its continuation on to South Kensington and the District
line on from South Kensington to Westminster came into
service on 24 December 1868, but District trains westward
from Gloucester Road to West Brompton did not run until
12 April 1869. The District's operations were established
in very piecemeal fashion. Their tracks between Gloucester Road and South Kensington were not ready until 1
August 1870, their service from High Street Kensington
to Earl's Court not until 1871, and its extension to Addison
Road not until 1872, though the lines had been laid before
then (fig. 131). (ref. 69)
Up until 1871 the inconvenience of these fragmented
services was limited by the operating agreement between
the companies, whereby the Metropolitan worked and
maintained the District lines with their own stock in
exchange for a proportion of the receipts. But in 1870 the
companies fell out. James Staats Forbes of the London,
Chatham and Dover Railway became the dominating force
on the board of the District, soon to be opposed by Sir
Edward Watkin of the South Eastern Railway, from 1872
the chairman of the Metropolitan. A long era of friction
ensued between the companies. The agreement was abrogated. In haste the District had to buy rolling stock, lay
out a depot at Lillie Bridge, insert an unauthorised short
stretch of line at the Cromwell Curve to link High Street
Kensington and Gloucester Road, and add its own section
to South Kensington Station, all in time to run its own
services from July 1871. Under these circumstances the
companies co-existed uneasily for many years. (ref. 70)
The Kensington Stations
The original stations built by the railway companies in
southern Kensington in 1865–9 were four in number:
South Kensington (at first to be called Brompton
Exchange), Gloucester Road (originally Brompton: Gloucester Road), High Street Kensington (originally to be
simply Kensington), and West Brompton. Like other
Metropolitan and District stations, they were designed by
Fowler and his staff in a light-brick Italianate manner,
with balustrading, urns and chimneys of a sufficiently
'ornamental description' to satisfy local proprietors. They
varied slightly: South Kensington, West Brompton and
High Street Kensington were single-storey buildings, but
Gloucester Road (Plate 131a) boasted an upper storey and
wings, and here a separate two-storey office building was
added on the District side shortly after completion. From
a concourse behind the booking office, passengers took
staircases down to the platforms. At High Street Kensington (Plate 130b, 131b, fig. 132) and Gloucester Road, these
were wholly covered by elliptical iron roofs of some
breadth and elegance, spanning the whole width and buttressed by high retaining walls. This type of arrangement
also obtained at South Kensington, but here the original
span (1867–8) covered only the Metropolitan tracks, coming to rest on columns in the centre; from here a second
and broader arch accompanied by a lean-to roof was added
to shelter the separate District tracks (1871). At West
Brompton, where the District station abutted that of the
West London Extension Railway (Plate 133c), only the
northern end of the long platforms was covered in, and
in a plainer idiom. (ref. 71)
Earl's Court Station was an afterthought. It was at first
a temporary affair, built in wood for some £1,600 on the
east side of Earl's Court Road in 1871. (ref. 72) It burned in 1875
and was then reconstructed in 1876–8 at a cost of £60–
65,000 on a bigger site on the west side of Earl's Court
Road, to designs by the independent District's engineer,
John Wolfe Barry. By then the District had extended its
operations westwards from Earl's Court through Hammersmith to Richmond (1874–7) and was well forward
with plans for its branch to Putney Bridge (opened 1880).
So the enlarged station (Plate 132b) spanned a hundred
feet and accommodated four sets of lines, to allow both
for the District's traffic and for 'the trains hereafter expected from the Midland and South-Western systems' by way
of the West London Railway. Barry put a pitched roof
over the platforms using a simpler, lighter style of ironwork than Fowler's, but the station offices and front (Plate
132a) were no better than a bald parody of their
predecessors. (ref. 73)
The last piece of important surface railway construction
in the area took place in 1877–8, when R. M. Ordish on
behalf of the Midland Railway laid out a big coal depot
off Scarsdale Place next to High Street Kensington
Station, on the site of the present London Tara Hotel (see
page 108). This and a larger depot at West Kensington
came into being after the Midland Railway had acquired
an interest in the District's Richmond extension in 1875,
thus securing a route for its coal trains into the heart of
London.
The Advent of the Piccadilly Line
In 1897 the District Railway acquired an Act to electrify
its line and build a tube beneath it for non-stop trains from
Earl's Court to Mansion House. In the same year a separate company, the Brompton and Piccadilly Circus Railway, also obtained sanction for a tube which would meet
the former at South Kensington. The companies were
united under the District's control in 1899. But shortly
afterwards the District fell into the hands of the celebrated
tycoon Charles Yerkes and became a central plank of his
combine, formalized in 1902 as the Underground Electric
Railways Company of London. The District's plan for a
high-speed line now vanished. Instead, the Piccadilly to
Brompton line, extended westwards to Earl's Court and
Hammersmith, went ahead in 1902–7, with stations in
Kensington at Knightsbridge, Brompton Road (closed in
1934), South Kensington, Gloucester Road and Earl's
Court. The line, officially part of the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway, was opened on 15 December 1906. (ref. 74)
By and large, the Edwardian deep-level tubes made a
small physical impact on the metropolitan environment.
Though this was certainly the case in Kensington, the Piccadilly line's coming did lead to major reconstruction at
all the previously existing stations along its route. At South
Kensington and Gloucester Road, where the stations were
still split between the Metropolitan and the District, the
impending arrival of the tube and the electrification of
their own lines spurred the companies to make major
adjustments. At both stations, space for the surface buildings of the Piccadilly line had to be found on the southern
or District side. The Metropolitan took this opportunity
to reorganize the stations to George Sherrin's designs.
Sherrin had first been asked by the Metropolitan to rebuild
High Street Kensington Station, where no deep-level tube
was anticipated but where the old station took up space
of increasing commercial value. Here, by a scheme devised
in 1903–4 and carried through in 1906–8, Sherrin took
down Fowler's elliptical iron roof, substituted a wnings of
wood on the platforms, and at street level created a shopping arcade leading to the booking hall, with a commercial
superstructure above. The same principles operated at
South Kensington, where in 1905–6 his arcade was simpler
and without upper storeys. At Gloucester Road, a less
profitable site, the original buildings facing the road were
left intact but the iron roof was again removed and separate
roofs erected on each platform. (ref. 75)
As for the Piccadilly line stations themselves, all except
Earl's Court were designed by Leslie W. Green in the distinctive house-style of the Yerkes tubes, with round
arched fronts clad in ox-blood faience. Earl's Court Station
was rebuilt in 1915, when the U.E.R.L.'s architect, H. W.
Ford, replaced the District Railway's unworthy frontage
of 1876–8 facing Earl's Court Road with a new elevation
in Green's manner but in a paler colour of faience (Plate
132c). (ref. 76)
Figure 132:
High Street Kensington Station, details of roof. John Fowler, engineer, 1866–7. Taken down
Among later changes made at these stations, the most
important were the making of a new booking hall at High
Street Kensington in 1937–8, and of an improved western
approach to Earl's Court Station from Warwick Road in
1936–7, to serve the new Earl's Court Exhibition building
(Plate 133a, 133b). (ref. 71) This latter work, which included a new
circular entrance feature next to Warwick Road, was
carried out with some style, in the best tradition of the
London Passenger Transport Board's architecture during
the Frank Pick era. At West Brompton, London Transport
also planned for a time in 1935 to form a ticket hall north
of Lillie Bridge for the benefit of visitors to the exhibition,
but neither this nor schemes of 1937 for rebuilding or uniting the two adjacent West Brompton stations were carried
through. The West Brompton Station of the West London
Extension Railway closed in 1940 and was later demolished, leaving the old District station in less than splendid
isolation. (ref. 60)
Earl's Court Exhibition
Much the most ambitious development upon 'railway
land' in Kensington, that is to say upon land bought by
the railway companies in the 1860s and then found surplus
to their requirements, was the Earl's Court Exhibition.
This enterprise has a complex history dating back to the
1880s.
The present Earl's Court Exhibition building, designed
by C. Howard Crane and built in 1936–7, lies entirely in
Kensington, just west of Warwick Road. Previous exhibitions here, however, spread also on to land immediately
to the west, beyond the West London Extension Railway
and in the parish, later the borough, of Fulham. For the
purposes of understanding the exhibitions, the sites are
treated as a whole in what follows. But neither the early
history of the land in Fulham before the coming of the
railways, nor buildings raised there since 1930 (principally
the Empress State Building), are considered in this
account.
Early History: The Kensington Catholic Public School
The present Earl's Court Exhibition and the concrete raft
on which it stands together cover some eleven acres. These
were part of the main sale of land from the Edwardes estate
to the Metropolitan District Railway Company in 1866
for the layout of the District line. (ref. 77) The divergence of
tracks here beyond Warwick Road north and south to meet
the West London Extension Railway left an empty triangle, similar to the area further east within the 'Cromwell
Curve' but larger. Westwards, beyond the West London
Extension Railway, the District in 1871 built their Lillie
Bridge Works and the Midland Railway in 1878 opened
their West Kensington Goods and Coal Depot. (ref. 78) The
resulting tangle of tracks, sidings and workshops made the
area awkward to develop. Between them patches of land
were still cultivated, for the first exhibition grounds were
said to be 'won out of a cabbage-field and a sea-kale
swamp'. (ref. 79)
The triangle, which amounted only to about six acres
once the lines had been built, was not wholly without
potential, small bridges having been built over the District
tracks from north and south to allow future access. For
a few years it seemed destined to achieve respectability.
In 1873 Monsignor T. J. Capel opened his 'Kensington
Catholic Public School' with an address in Warwick
Road. (ref. 80) This was an early step in Capel's scheme,
explained on page 105, to build up a system of middle-class
Catholic education in Kensington, including a 'university
college' at Abingdon House in Wright's Lane. At first his
foundations, supported by Catholics of high family,
flourished. In October 1875 Capel began raising a singlestorey (perhaps temporary) school-building, described as
in Warwick Road but probably on the triangle; (ref. 81) and in
the ensuing March he borrowed £9,500 on mortgage,
enough to complete the purchase of the whole site and
draw up a scheme of new school buildings. (ref. 82) George
Goldie, architect of the Pro-Cathedral in Kensington High
Street (to which Capel was attached) provided a design.
This comprised a main block with a hall and short wings
at right-angles, and a hundred-foot-long chapel (probably
separate). An internal perspective of the chapel, a selfconsciously collegiate affair with a broad ante-chapel, was
published in November 1877, when benefactors were said
to be forthcoming and excavations progressing. (ref. 83)
It is doubtful if building went much further. In June
1878 Capel was disgraced and resigned, in circumstances
described on page 106. Debt on the Earl's Court site
played its part in his further downfall. Early in 1879 he
desperately remortgaged the property, raising his obligations here to some £15,500. (ref. 84) In December he appealed
to the Duke of Norfolk, a trustee of the Catholic University
College, to buy him out. The Duke's solicitor, after commissioning a surveyor's report, advised emphatically
against. The surveyors, Farebrother Ellis and Company,
reported that the only approach was by way of the southern
bridge from a private road behind Eardley Crescent, as
the northern bridge had been blocked when building
started in Philbeach Gardens. This, they argued, would
make any development 'exceedingly dull, as there is no
traffic over the Roads except that actually appertaining to
the Houses'. They also apprehended noise from the trains,
opined that 'the property generally on the borders of the
Railway is not of a desirable character', and hazarded the
suggestion that the triangle might be best suited for
'Model Lodging Houses or Artizans Dwellings'. This
crushing advice, together with Cardinal Manning's aloofness in the face of Capel's difficulties, persuaded the Duke
not to buy. (ref. 85) After further attempts to sell the site, Capel
succumbed to foreclosure and bankruptcy in 1880. (ref. 86)
In 1881 a certain T. Ingram of Beckenham toyed with
developing the triangle, naming it the 'Wrexford Building
Estate'. (ref. 87) But this venture failed to materialize, doubtless
for the reasons adumbrated by Farebrother Ellis and Company. Meanwhile the District Railway seems to have taken
back the freehold from Capel's mortgagees. For the time
being, the prospects of the land again looked uninviting.
The first Earl's Court Exhibition
The idea of using the surplus railway lands west of Earl's
Court for exhibitions originated with John Robinson
Whitley (1843–1922). Whitley gained experience of such
ventures as manager of a Leeds engineering business
which displayed goods at the large European exhibitions
of the 1860s and 1870s. Later he had been a partner in
promoting the wall-covering 'Lincrusta-Walton'. While
visiting the United States in 1884, he found that a consortium of businessmen proposed to hold an 'American
Exhibition' in London. Whitley teamed up with this group
and was soon in effective control. Late in that year, he
opened negotiations with the District Railway and its
canny chairman, James Staats Forbes, for use of a variety
of sites in their ownership, including the triangle in Kensington and some land in Fulham beyond the West
London Extension Railway. For an exhibition, the land
had the attraction of being within easy walking distance
of four stations: Earl's Court, West Brompton, West Kensington and Addison Road (now Kensington Olympia). (ref. 88)
Whitley intended the first Earl's Court Exhibition to
open in 1886. But because a British Colonial and Indian
Exhibition under royal patronage was already scheduled
for South Kensington, he decided to postpone his opening
for a year. During this interval the tenor of the exhibition
changed, as several American manufacturers proved fairweather friends and backed out. Visiting Washington in
1886 to enlist President Grover Cleveland's support,
Whitley saw Colonel William Cody's 'Buffalo Bill
Roughriders and Redskin Show' arriving in town. Forthwith he booked them for Earl's Court. This chance proved
the outstanding success of Earl's Court's first season,
turned its nature into one of spectacle as much as of serious
exhibition, and introduced Englishmen for the first time
to the cult of the Wild West. (ref. 89)
The land leased by Whitley fell into three parts (Plate
135a, fig. 133). In the triangle occupied by the present
exhibition building he made an open arena and covered
stand, accessible from an entrance in Warwick Road; here
Buffalo Bill and his troupe gave their performances. The
stand itself was built at three weeks' notice by Peto
Brothers on Cody's verbal instructions, and 'reaped a rich
harvest' for Basil Peto's brother-in-law Penruddock
Wyndham, who sold a large quantity of timber from his
estate to meet this sudden need. (ref. 90) Between the West
London Extension Railway's tracks and the sidings of the
Midland Railway, sandwiched next to the Lillie Bridge
Depot, was squeezed a long single-storey building, 1,140
by 120 feet, with annexes for refreshment and the fine arts.
This was the main exhibition building, entered from Richmond Gardens, a short cul-de-sac off Richmond (later
Lillie) Road (just in Fulham). It was cheaply constructed,
consisting merely of columns each of two steel rails bolted
together, with simple covering walls and roof of glass and
corrugated iron; the front was covered with Portland
cement. (ref. 91) North of this, on a slightly broader site between
the Midland's sidings and North End Road were pleasure
gardens. These included a switchback railway, a toboggan
slide, the largest bandstand in London and various buildings including the 'Welcome Club'. These awkward sites
were linked by seven bridges over the various railway lines
and landscaped to give a superficial air of rural isolation.
Two gangs of a thousand men each, working alternative
shifts by day and by night, constructed the buildings and
grounds under the supervision of Whitley's staff over the
first four months of 1887. The buildings were apparently
designed by O'Driscoll, an engineer, and the grounds
landscaped by William Goldring, gardener. (Nominally
John Gibson was architect and Alfred Pickard engineer,
but their contribution is not apparent.) (ref. 92) As is the way
with exhibitions, all was by no means ready on the opening
day (9 May 1887). The entrance fee was high, and from
some quarters came criticism of the exhibition's slight
nature. Nevertheless its success was great, thanks mainly
to Buffalo Bill. Nearly 15,000 visitors came daily during
the five-month season, including on one occasion the
whole of Harrow School. Among early guests were Gladstone and the Prince and Princess of Wales, who watched
the first performance of the Wild West Show ('The sensation … was instantaneous and electric'); the Queen was
shown a shortened version a few days later. All were
intrigued by Cody's hapless Sioux warriors, particularly
by the chief Ogila-Sa ('Red Shirt'). Gladstone and the
Prince of Wales conversed with him about the weather
in London and the Dakotas, and the latter gave him the
contents of his cigarette case. In addition Queen Victoria
'expressed a desire to see the Indian babies or papooses.
Two of these were presented … and she was pleased to
shake their hands and pat their painted cheeks.' (ref. 93)
Whitley capitalized on his success with further 'national
exhibitions': the Italian Exhibition in 1888, the French
Exhibition in 1890 and the German Exhibition in 1891
(in the intervening year, 1889, 'several Spanish gentlemen'
took on the grounds for the season). Each year the main
building was redecorated and filled with commercial products from the country concerned, the arena and flimsier
erections were redressed in fitting garb and some new
buildings were added. In 1888, for instance, 'two large new
annexes' were built in the western gardens and in the
northern sector T. W. Cutler, architect, added a theatre
and concert hall to hold 1,200, disguised as the Palazzo
dei Signori at Perugia. Attractions like the switchback railway operated as before, 'but the crags and peaks hardly
soar high enough to shut out the disillusioning effect of
stray chimney-pots belonging to the houses in the rear',
carped The Builder. (ref. 94) In the arena Buffalo Bill proved hard
to follow. In 1888 'Rome under the Caesars' was given
in the 'Flavian amphitheatre'; in 1890 came the 'Wild
East' show, presented by a troupe of 'French Africans',
and in 1891 a tableau of Germania. This last was less sedate
than it sounds, for the 'bombardment and blowing-up of
German castles' every afternoon and evening proved a
source of distress to nearby residents in Philbeach Gardens
and Eardley Crescent. (ref. 95)
Figure 133:
Earl's Court Exhibition, ptan at the time of the American Exhibition, 1887. The broken line marks the western boundary
of Kensington
Whitley retired after the 1891 season, having lost rather
than gained from his four exhibitions as a whole; no doubt
the momentum of 1887 had not been kept up and
attendances had dropped. Late in life he founded an
'Anglo-French pleasure resort' at Le Touquet, but he had
no further connection with Earl's Court. (ref. 96)
There followed a period of uncertainty. The District
Railway threatened to put a coal depot on the site of the
arena but eventually relented and decided to promote
improvements instead. Exhibitions (managed by H. E.
Milner and H. P. Dodson) were held on horticulture and
forestry in 1892 and 1893 respectively, supplemented by
new entertainments erected under licence by a variety of
concerns. In 1893 the arena was turned into a shallow lake
with small islands and a chute for Captain Paul Boyton's
'World Water Show', Britain's first water-toboggan. (ref. 97)
The Exhibition Expanded
Late in 1893 a new figure appeared in the saga of Earl's
Court. This was Imre Kiralfy (d. 1919), a Hungarian
showman who had made his mark in the United States
from the 1870s as a producer of 'spectacles'. Several had
featured in the programmes of Barnum and Bailey, and
the most celebrated, 'Nero or the Destruction of Rome',
having been staged in New York in 1888, was brought
to London's Olympia for a show put on there by P. T.
Barnum in the following year. In 1890 Kiralfy with the
backing of Harold Hartley and Joseph Lyons produced
a further spectacle at Olympia. Then at the Chicago
World's Fair of 1893 he staged 'America', a 'Grand
Historical Spectacle'. The effect of the 'Great White City'
(as the World's Fair came to be known) shaped his conceptions when he began negotiating for Earl's Court late in
that year. His plan was to replace all the old buildings.
On the site of the arena he proposed a 'reproduction of
a part of the Chicago Exhibition'; further north was to
rise a great 'Graydon Wheel' similar to the gigantic Ferris
Wheel built in Chicago. In place of the old exhibition hall
there was to be a new enclosed building for 'spectacles'
seating 6,000. (ref. 98)
Figure 134:
Earl's Court Exhibition, plan in 1899
None of this could be achieved for the season 1894. So
Milner and Dodson were recalled to put on an Industrial
Exhibition in that year, while construction commenced on
the Great Wheel (for which Kiralfy was not responsible).
To finance his scheme Kiralfy approached Harold Hartley,
who helped set up London Exhibitions Limited under the
chairmanship of Paul Crémieu-Javal (of Spiers and Pond,
the catering firm). The new company agreed to a twentyone-year lease of the site (later extended to forty-two years)
from the end of 1894, by which time work was well under
way. Progress proved not uneventful and in the early days
the company was close to ruin. To save money the directors purchased from Battersea Park the old Albert Palace
building, originally designed for the 1865 Dublin Exhibition. This was meant to occupy the western part of the
'arena' site and to be the main exhibition building. But
the ironwork proved too heavy for the made-up ground
and had to be sold at a loss. A similar purchase of the
'Paris Hippodrome' was also disastrous, for it blew down
whilst incomplete in February 1895. After this mishap
Harold Hartley took control of all the works except the
new theatre, in order to finish them in time. This he did
successfully. The 'Empire of India Exhibition' duly
opened in May 1895; the Great Wheel was inaugurated
in July and the theatre in August. (ref. 99)
As renewed by Kiralfy and his partners, the exhibition
site (fig. 134) was too complex and many of its features
too ephemeral to describe fully. Three items in particular
may be singled out: the Queen's Court, the Empress
Theatre and the Great Wheel.
The Queen's Court occupied the arena site. Here
Kiralfy fulfilled his intention and used the lake to achieve
some particle of the effect of the great court at Chicago.
On the west side stood the Queen's Palace, the main
exhibition building, which annually took on a new external
dress geared to the character of the year's theme. With
it was associated the Ducal Hall on the east side of the
lake, next to the approach from Warwick Road. (ref. 100)
The Empress Theatre (Plate 135b) was Kiralfy's personal venture. It was intended for his 'spectacles' and differed much from orthodox theatres. It measured 370 by
220 feet with unobstructed sight-lines. The seating, in a
single tier accommodating 5,000, was arranged lengthwise
and faced a broad proscenium arch. The stage itself, with
a frontage of 315 feet, possessed platforms of varying
height, and the front platforms could be rolled back to
reveal an expanse of water. The orchestra was elevated
and hidden from spectators behind the proscenium arch;
all scenery was suspended. The theatre was constructed
of an iron frame covered inside and out with concrete slabs,
upon base walls of concrete. The roof was in a single span
and consisted of bowstring girders covered with corrugated iron. The architect of the Empress Theatre, Allan
O. Collard, supervised other of Kiralfy's new buildings,
probably including the Queen's Palace and Ducal Hall.
The chief contractor was D. Charteris; the ironwork was
supplied by Handyside and Company; and the internal
plasterwork was by one Verstappen, a Belgian. (ref. 101)
The Great Wheel of Earl's Court (Plates 136a, 152) was
based upon the celebrated Ferris Wheel that had been the
most arresting feature of the Chicago Exhibition of 1893.
The patentee of the Chicago Wheel, a United States naval
engineer called James Weir Graydon, had signed over his
European rights to Walter B. Basset, a retired British naval
officer. Basset was therefore the contractor for the project,
but not apparently being himself an engineer he was
assisted by others in its preparation and execution, notably
the engineers J. J. Webster and C. F. Hitchens and the
firm of Maudslay, Sons and Field, of which Basset was
a director. (Basset later built further wheels at Paris, Blackpool and Vienna, of which the last alone survives.)
Maudslays made the axle and bearings but other firms
were also involved. The steel girderwork was supplied by
the Arrol Bridge and Roof Company and the forty carriages around the circumference by Brown, Marshall and
Company. To promote and run the enterprise, the Gigantic Wheel and Recreation Towers Company Limited was
formed. The Chicago Wheel had paid handsome dividends
and the Earl's Court one was thought likely to follow suit.
Several newspapers compared it with the Watkin Tower
at Wembley, then being promoted by the District Railway's more affluent rival, the Metropolitan. Commented
Vanity Fair: 'A revolution of the Graydon wheel will exalt
the passengers in its forty cars by 300 feet above the
groundlings ... it can hardly be doubted that we shall all
do the circular trip at Earl's Court — rising as if in a
baloon, in a comfortable carriage, without risk and
"without exertion".' (ref. 102)
The Earl's Court wheel was commenced in March 1894,
when massive concrete footings were put in. Effectively
completed in April 1895, it was not opened to the public
until July. Its 300–foot diameter made it slightly larger
than its predecessor. It weighed altogether 1,100 tons, of
which the wheel itself accounted for 500 and the eight
inclined columns supporting the axle 600. Originally there
were to be 'recreation towers' on either side with lifts
carrying visitors up to the axle, through which it would
have been possible to walk, but this was not carried
through. The wheel rotated by means of two 50 h. p. steam
engines; a complete revolution, with interruptions so that
passengers could admire the view, took twenty minutes.
Each of the forty cars could accommodate forty persons,
so that up to 1,600 could ride on the wheel together. In
its life it conveyed two and a half million passengers. Despite an embarrassment when the wheel stuck for four and
a half hours in May 1896 (the passengers were handsomely
compensated for their ordeal and the episode spawned a
music-hall song 'I've Got The Five-Pound Note'), its
operations were uneventful and innocent. Few who travelled on it would have endorsed this pontifical verdict from
The Builder: 'We have as little sympathy with this foolish
kind of sensational toy as we have with Eiffel towers …
It is only a pity that all the ability and cost expended in
its construction should not be devoted to some more useful
end than carrying coach-loads of fools round a vertical
circle.' The wheel survived until 1906–7, when it had
ceased to be profitable and Basset supervised its demolition
(Plate 152b, 152c). (ref. 103)
Kiralfy's reign at Earl's Court lasted from 1895 to 1903.
These years were the heyday of the grounds. Kiralfy's own
chauvinist spectacles in the Empress Theatre were a
notable part of the proceedings and included 'India'
(1895–6), 'Our Naval Victories' (1898 — in this year loss
of life was narrowly averted when sodium destined for
explosions blew up in a store) and 'China, or the Relief
of the Legations' (1901). After 1903 Kiralfy was less
involved, and from 1906 he withdrew completely from
Earl's Court to devote himself to a new venue for international exhibitions at White City, where he operated
between 1908 and 1914. After the Hungarian Exhibition
of 1908, Earl's Court was in perceptible decline, hardly
arrested after London Exhibitions Limited assigned their
leases and agreements in 1910 to a new company, Earl's
Court Limited. The grounds continued in operation up
to the war of 1914–18, but were then used for five years
as a Belgian refugee camp. (ref. 104) They became 'the largest
clearing house in England for dealing with the refugee
problem'. (ref. 105)
Figure 135:
Earl's Court Exhibition, site plan of present building. Based on the Ordnance Survey of 1973–6
The immediate post-war history of the grounds is not
inspiring. By now the site had reverted to the Underground Electric Railways Company of London, as successors to the Metropolitan District Railway Company.
Some parts were used as a bus depot, in others a circus
was held sporadically, others again lay derelict. The
Empress Hall, as the theatre was by now known, was put
to sundry uses for storage and for the assembling of experimental 'mock-ups' for stations. In 1929 the U.E.R.L. tried
to promote a new exhibition building, but this came to
naught. Nor for the moment did a less ambitious proposal
of 1932 to turn the Empress Hall into an ice-hockey rink
prosper. (ref. 106)
The present Earl's Court Exhibition
In 1935, with the end of the old lease in sight, a new scheme
appeared—seemingly the brainchild of Frank Reginald
Lewis. The London Passenger Transport Board, by now
the freeholders, promised a new ninety-nine-year lease of
some eighteen and a half acres to a resuscitated Earl's
Court Limited, in which American interests became
prominent. The company started its programme by
renovating the Empress Hall, which reopened as an iceskating rink seating 7,000 in November 1935. On the
eastern triangle the company proceeded to build the
present exhibition hall. C. Howard Crane of Chicago was
the architect, with Gordon Jeeves as his English representative and Robert J. Siddall as chief consulting engineer.
The main contract was managed by Hegeman-Harris of
New York, who had organized construction of the Rockefeller Center; their role was essentially one of coordinating a long list of sub-contractors. (ref. 107)
The building was constructed at speed between January
1936 and July 1937. It cost £1.5 million and was one of
the largest reinforced concrete structures then existing. All
the foundations and reinforcement were designed by the
English subsidiary of the French firm L. G. Mouchel and
Partners. One feature of the work was the covering-over
of the two curves of the District Line to form roadways.
This contract was executed by Sir Robert McAlpine and
Sons Limited directly for the London Passenger Transport Board. The Board stipulated that no loads from the
superstructure should fall directly over tracks or tunnels.
Therefore the reinforced concrete beams had to be of great
strength and size, the largest amounting to ninety-seven
feet in length and 1,200 tons in weight. Mouchels were
just then beginning to adopt Freyssinet's method of prestressing beams and considered using it here to lighten
the mass of concrete, but the delays that would have been
necessary to perfect the new technique narrowly prevented
the Earl's Court Exhibition from becoming Britain's first
pre-stressed building. (ref. 108)
By the nature of the site the building itself was triangular, with entrances at the three corners (fig. 135). In
style it was up-to-date and striking but not distinguished.
The main front (Plate 136b) bore a strong resemblance
to the unbuilt design for an 'International Music Hall and
Opera House' designed just previously for Hyde Park Corner by the consortium of American architects involved in
the building of Rockefeller Center, together with Crane. (ref. 109)
Nearly 450,000 square feet of exhibition space were provided, without any columns impeding the view. The upper
floor was divisible into three sections, so that four exhibitions could be shown simultaneously. A large swimming
pool was included, built in three sections which could be
lowered or raised with hydraulic jacks. Concealed artificial
lighting in various colours was installed, and hot-air heating supplied from seven large thermal storage tanks via
the same system of filters and ducts as the cool-air
ventilation.
The Earl's Court Exhibition Building continues in use
today and is substantially the same as when first built, despite much modernization. After various changes of ownership it is now controlled by Earl's Court and Olympia
Limited, a company itself controlled at the time of writing
by Sterling Guarantee Trust Limited. The freehold of the
site now belongs to London Regional Transport, the latest
body in succession to the Metropolitan District Railway.
Developments stemming from Transport since 1945
The opening in 1941 of the road bridge linking West
Cromwell Road with Talgarth Road set the scene for the
transformation of Cromwell Road into a major arterial
road. It offered a new and faster route from central London
to Hammersmith and the Great West Road beyond. Above
all, with the post-war emergence of Heathrow Airport,
which lacked the benefit of rail connection until 1977,
Cromwell Road became the natural thoroughfare for international travellers coming in and out of the capital. This
had far-reaching effects on South Kensington and Earl's
Court. Physically it made its direct impact in two ways,
through the building of the West London Air Terminal
in 1957–63 and the springing-up of a rash of international
hotels on the face of the area.
The West London Air Terminal
While Croydon remained London's chief airport, the main
airline terminal in central London was by Victoria Station.
But when Croydon was gradually supplanted by Heathrow
from 1946 onwards, this location became less logical. A
joint committee of the airlines, British Railways and
London Transport therefore investigated the problem and
decided that as money for a rail link with Heathrow was
unlikely to be quickly forthcoming, it was best to build
a large terminal in west London, at the edge of the more
congested area of London's traffic. The best site which
the committee was able to identify in its report of 1954
was the 'Cromwell Curve', which was already in the
ownership of London Transport, easily accessible by road
from Heathrow, and close to Gloucester Road Station. (ref. 110)
In order to use the site effectively, it was first necessary
for London Transport to cover most of the tracks and the
central area of the triangle with a concrete raft, as had been
done at the Earl's Court Exhibition twenty years previously. Only the west end of this raft was at first constructed; it was begun in 1955 and finished only in April 1957.
As British European Airways needed to have its terminal
ready by September 1957, their in-house architects
together with Air Terminals Limited (the company officially in charge of the project) engaged Richard Costain
Limited to erect a modest, short-life building which could
be put up quickly. This was done by using a modified
version of a standard prefabricated system, with structural
members of hot-rolled steel, welded box stanchions and
mahogany panels for cladding. It was finished seven weeks
ahead of schedule. This original two-storey West London
Air Terminal remained in use for some years. (ref. 111)
By 1960 a permanent building had been planned to
house B.E.A.'s main London offices and a much enlarged
terminal handling up to 25,000 passengers per day. The
architects for this scheme were Sir John Burnet, Tait and
Partners, and the builders Holland and Hannen and
Cubitts. Work on extending the raft and raising this commanding but not wholly coherent building took place
mainly in 1962–3. (ref. 112) It functioned as B.E.A.'s main
London terminal until the end of 1973, when facilities for
checking-in there were suspended following a reduction
in use. In 1983 J. Sainsbury Limited opened a large supermarket in the western half of the building, taking advantage of the ample spare car parking created by the vacation
of the terminal. British Airways, of which B.E.A. became
part in 1974, occupied the upper parts of the building until
July 1985. (ref. 113)
Hotels
Before the First World War hotels were few in number
in southern Kensington. The notable example in the
environs of Cromwell Road was Bailey's Hotel, opened
close to Gloucester Road in 1876 (see page 181). As the
district declined socially in the inter-war period, residential hotels and boarding-houses proliferated in old
premises.
The opening of the air terminal, combined with the
boom in tourism which London experienced in the 1960s,
gave many of these existing hotels a fresh lease of life and
brought a new set of larger ones into being. The
neighbourhood of the West London Air Terminal was particularly touched by the Development of Tourism Act of
1969, whereby hoteliers building over the next four years
could earn a subsidy of £1,000 per bedroom. (ref. 114) The
London Tara Hotel in Scarsdale Place (page 108), the
London Penta (now the Forum) in Ashburn Place (page
182), the Gloucester in Harrington Gardens (page 182),
the London International in Cromwell Road and the
Elizabetta, also in Cromwell Road (page 299), were all
built in these years. None reached a high architectural
standard; the whole crop of subsidized hotels was comprehensively indicted by Lance Wright in the Architectural
Review. 'The most offensive single thing about the new
flight of hotels,' wrote Wright in 1972, 'is the way in which
they arrogate a civic importance which they do not
deserve.' (ref. 115) These heavy buildings, intensively used for
business events as well as for accommodating tourists, have
altered the social as well as the physical character of this
portion of Kensington.
Like the West London Air Terminal, two of the hotels
were built upon railway land, the London Tara (Plate 44a)
on the old Midland Railway's goods yard, and the London
International on the south side of Cromwell Road, over
the tracks leading out of the Cromwell Curve towards
Earl's Court Station. Other hotels of this vintage are discussed elsewhere (see above); by way of example, the
London International Hotel is considered here. Plans for
this project, then backed by Transworld Hotels Limited,
were made in 1967. As at the air terminal, a reinforced
concrete raft had to be laid over a steel bridge by London
Transport all the way from Cromwell Road to
Knaresborough Place, with no support at all between the
tracks, before the hotel could be built. The engineers for
this complicated work were Brandt and O'Dell. The
London International Hotel itself, designed by George
Beech, was first conceived as a tower block, but after objection the height was reduced to a hundred feet. Built in
stages between 1968 and 1972 at a cost of some £4,730,000
to accommodate 850 guests, it is in four blocks of which
the most south-westerly stands on the west side of
Knaresborough Place, connected to the others by a bridge.
The structural frame is of steel, with pre-stressed concrete
beams for the floors and aluminium curtain walling. The
contractors were Trollope and Colls, whose parent company, Trafalgar House Investments, bought the hotel from
the original clients during the process of construction. The
revolving stainless steel globe in front of the main entrance
was designed by John Hardman Studios of Birmingham.
Beech designed much of the internal finishings, including
the 'Cavalier Restaurant' and 'Stuart Bar' where according
to Building Specification the walls were 'covered in brown
velour hung with Laughing Cavalier period pictures'. (ref. 116)
At the time of writing these attractions have given way
to the Aviary Coffee House, the Earl's Dining Room and
the Heritage Bar.