Earl's Court
| Earl's Court | |
| Middlesex | |
|---|---|
 Typical Earl's Court Mansion blocks | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | TQ254784 |
| Location: | 51°29’26"N, 0°11’45"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 9,104 (2011) |
| Post town: | London |
| Postcode: | SW5 |
| Dialling code: | 0207/3 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Kensington and Chelsea |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Kensington |
Earl's Court is a district deep in the Metropolitan conurbation of Middlesex, by Fulham to the west, Kensington to the east, Chelsea to the south and Kensington to the north-east.
This area lent its name to the now defunct eponymous pleasure grounds opened in 1887 followed by the Earls Court Exhibition Centre built before the Second World War as one of the country's largest indoor arenas and a popular concert venue, and which stood until closure in 2014.
The area has long been known as "Bedsitter Land" with many of its stuccoed terraces converted into hotels and hostels.[1]
History
Early history
Earl's Court was once a rural area, covered in orchards, green fields and market gardens. The Thegn Edwin held the lordship of the area before the Norman conquest. For over 500 years the land, part of the ancient manor of Kensington, was under the lordship of the de Vere family, the Earls of Oxford, descendants of Aubrey de Vere I, who held the manor of Geoffrey de Montbray, bishop of Coutances, according to the Domesday Book 1086. By about 1095, De Vere’s tenure had been converted, and he held Kensington directly from the Crown.
A church had been built in the manor by 1104.[2] The earls held their manorial court where the Old Manor Yard is now, just by Earl's Court tube station, eastern entrance.[3] Earl's Court Farm is visible on Greenwood's map of London dated 1827.
The name ‘Earl's Court’ likely came from the fact that for a long time the owners of the land were an old noble family, the Rich family who were the Earls of Warwick. When Edward Henry Rich, 9th Baron Rich, 7th Earl of Warwick and 4th Earl of Holland died young in 1721, the assets including the Jacobean Holland House, passed by marriage to the Edwardes family.
19th-century
The original catalyst for development was the ill-fated vanity project by Lord Kensington (died 1852), which consisted of the two-mile conversion of the insanitary Counter's Creek into the Kensington Canal (1826 onwards), followed by its eventual replacement first by "Mr Punch's railway", opened in 1844 and next, by the Metropolitan District Railway in 1865–69, which eventually became London Underground's District Line and was joined after 1907 by the Piccadilly Line.[4][5] Meanwhile, the congestion apparent in London and Middlesex for burials at the start of the century was causing public concern not least on health grounds. In 1837 a decision was made to lay out a new burial ground on the edge of Earl's Court in an outlying area of Brompton. The moving spirit behind the project was the engineer, Stephen Geary. It was necessary to form a company in order to get parliamentary permission to raise capital for the proposal. Securing the land – some 40 acres – from local landowner Lord Kensington and the Equitable Gas Light Company, as well as raising the money, proved an extended challenge.[6] After two years the cemetery was duly established by Act of Parliament and laid out in 1839, it opened in 1840, originally as the West of London and Westminster Cemetery. It was consecrated by Charles James Blomfield, Bishop of London, in June 1840, and is now one of Britain's oldest and most distinguished garden cemeteries, served by the adjacent West Brompton station.
In the quarter century after 1867, Earl's Court was transformed into a loosely populated Middlesex suburb and in the 1890s a more dense parish with 1,200 houses and two churches. Eardley Crescent and Kempsford Gardens were built between 1867 and 1873, building began in Earl's Court Square and Longridge Road in 1873, in Nevern Place in 1874, in Trebovir Road and Philbeach Gardens in 1876 and Nevern Square in 1880.[7] Earl's Court's only hospital was opened in 1887 on the corner of Old Brompton Road and Finborough Road. It was named in honour of Queen Victoria's youngest daughter however, the hospital closed in 1978.[8]
20th century
For most of the century, Earl's Court was home to three notable institutions, all now gone. The first and indeed oldest school of its kind is the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art founded in 1861. It was located on the corner of Cromwell Road and Earl's Court Road, until its move to the former Royal Ballet School in Talgarth Road. The next foundation dated 1892, was the London Electronics College (formerly the London School of Telegraphy), which was located at 20 Penywern Road and in its heyday did much to expand the use of Morse code throughout the world. Already in the 1990s it was threatened with closure as technology had moved on.[9] It finally closed in 2017 having served as a further education college offering electronic engineering and IT courses. The third institution was the Poetry Society, founded in 1909 and housed at 21 Earl's Court Square. It decamped to new premises in the recently refurbished Covent Garden district in the 1990s.
Evidently, after the First World War, Earl's Court had already acquired a slightly louche reputation if George Bernard Shaw is to be believed, see his Pygmalion.[10]
Following the Second World War a number of Polish officers, part of the Polish Resettlement Corps, who had fought alongside Allied Forces, but were unable to return to their homeland under Soviet dominance, opened small businesses and settled in the Earl's Court area leading to Earl's Court Road being dubbed the "Polish Corridor".
During the late 1960s a large transient population of Australian, New Zealand and white South African travellers began to use Earl's Court as a UK hub and over time it gained the name "Kangaroo Valley".[11]
Local attractions
Earl's Court may be within walking distance of High Street Kensington, Holland Park, Kensington Gardens/Hyde Park, the Royal Albert Hall, Imperial College, the Natural History, Science and Victoria and Albert Museums.
Original gaiety
The introduction of two Underground stations, and a mass network of railways trapped a triangle of land on the border of the original parishes of Kensington and Fulham. The idea of expanding entertainment in the area was probably inspired by the existence of the Lillie Bridge Grounds popular sports facility, just inside the Fulham boundary, next to West Brompton station. The person who was to bring it to fruition was John Robinson Whitley, an entrepreneur from Leeds who used the land as a show-ground for a number of years from 1887. Whitley did not meet with business success, but his aspirations for Earl's Court took hold for others to fulfil.
In 1895 the Great Wheel, a Ferris wheel, was created for the international impresario, Imre Kiralfy's Empire of India Exhibition. A plaque in the former Earls Court venue commemorated some of these events and that the reclusive Queen Victoria was an occasional visitor to the many shows put on at the site. In 1897 Kiralfy had the Empress Hall built to seat 6,000 in neighbouring Fulham and he had the Earl's Court grounds converted into the style of the 1893 Chicago White City for the Columbian Exposition. More was to come.
Not until 1937 was the Earls Court Exhibition Centre opened, with its striking Art Moderne façade facing Warwick Road. A new entrance to Earl's Court tube station was constructed to facilitate easy access to the Exhibition Centre, including direct entrance from the underground passage which connects the District and Piccadilly lines. This was however closed in the 1980s at around the time the capacity of the Exhibition Centre was expanded by the construction of a second exhibition hall, Earl's Court 2, which was opened by Princess Diana, herself a former Earl's Court resident.
In its heyday the Earls Court Exhibition Centre hosted many of the leading national trade fairs, including the annual British International Motor Show (1937-1976) and Royal Smithfield Show, as well as Crufts dog show and the combined forces Royal Tournament, which gave its name to the public house (now demolished) on the corner of Eardley Crescent. The biggest trade fairs migrated to the National Exhibition Centre at Birmingham Airport when it opened in 1988. The longest-running annual show was the Ideal Home Show in April, which attracted tens of thousands of visitors. Otherwise, it was increasingly used as a live music venue, hosting events such as the farewell concert by the boy-band Take That. At the other end of the scale, it was also used for arena-style opera performances of Carmen and Aida.
Other highlights
The Prince of Teck is a Grade II listed pub at Earl's Court Road.[12]
An early 1940s and 50s Bohemian haunt in the Earl's Court Road was the café, el Cubano, which had piped music and an authentic Italian steam coffee machine, a rarity in those days. It was few doors down from the bakery, Beaton's, whose only other outlet was on the King's Road, Chelsea. Also from that era was the theatre club, Bolton's that in 1955 transformed into arthouse cinema, the Paris Pullman in Drayton Gardens.
The Troubadour is a coffee house and a small music venue, which has hosted emerging talent since 1954 – including Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix[13] and Elvis Costello.
The Drayton Arms is a Grade II listed public house at 153 Old Brompton Road, which is also a theatrical venue.[14]
The Finborough Theatre, which opened in 1980, is the neighbourhood's local theatre.
The area also has a police box of the type used for the TARDIS time machine in the BBC Television series Doctor Who. The blue police box located outside Earl's Court underground station in Earl's Court Road is actually a replica of the traditional GPO police telephone boxes that were once a common sight in the UK from the early 1920s.[15]
 |
("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Earl's Court) |
References
- ↑ Muriel Spark. A Far Cry from Kensington (Constable, 1988) ISBN 0-09-468290-9
- ↑ A History of the County of Middlesex - Volume 1 pp 116-7: {{{2}}} (Victoria County History)
- ↑ Richard Thames, Earl's Court and Brompton Past. Historical Publications, London, 2000
- ↑ Nicholas Barton (1992). The Lost Rivers of London. London: Historical publications. p. 71. ISBN 0 948667 15 X.
- ↑ Arthur William à Beckett, The à Becketts of Punch, 1903, reprinted by Richardson, 1969, ISBN 978-1115475303
- ↑ Sheppard, F.H.W., ed (1983). "Brompton". Survey of London. 41. London: London City Council. pp. 246–252. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol41/pp246-252. Retrieved 24 June 2018.
- ↑ Hermione Hobhouse, ed (1986). 'The Edwardes estate: South of West Cromwell Road', in Survey of London. 42, Kensington Square To Earl's Court. London. pp. 300–321. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol42/pp300-321. [accessed 22 April 2019].
- ↑ The Lost Hospitals of London - Princess Beatrice, SW5
- ↑ Sir Nicholas Scott (Chelsea). "London Electronics College". Hansard vol 275 cc685-92 685 1.29 pm. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1996/apr/17/london-electronics-college.
- ↑ "Pygmalion, His Majesty's Theatre, 1914, review of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion in London 100 years ago. Here is the original Telegraph review". Daily Telegraph. 19 April 2019. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/10757120/Pygmalion-His-Majestys-Theatre-1914-review.html.
- ↑ To the World's End: Scenes and Characters On a London Bus Route, director Jonathan Gili, BBC, 1985.
- ↑ National Heritage List 1031501: Prince of Teck public house
- ↑ "The Troubadour has been saved!" (in en-GB). Evening Standard. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/iconic-earls-court-caf-and-live-music-venue-the-troubadour-saved-from-closure-a2871296.html.
- ↑ National Heritage List 1225769: Drayton Arms public house (Grade II listing)
- ↑ h2g2 – The Earl's Court Police Box, London, UK. BBC.
- Tames, Richard. Earl's Court and Brompton Past. London: Historical Publications. ISBN 0 948667 63 X. 2000
- AA Illustrated Guide to Britain, 5th edition, 1983, p. 240-1