Hampton Wick Village
Hampton Wick is a village on the South-West outskirts of London, UK. The population varies around 3,000. We are about eleven miles from the centre of London and about two miles from Hampton Court Palace. The first photo shows part of the centre of Hampton Wick Village. The building in shadow, opposite the Swan public House, and with the dark, sloping, entrance porch, is Wolsey Cottage, where Cardinal Wolsey lived during the building of Hampton Court Palace, which was taken from him by King Henry The Eighth. Historically associated with Hampton Court Palace, the village developed in it's own right in the 1860s, with the coming of the railway. A tram service was introduced in 1902. In the past, there were market gardens and industry was centred around gravel-digging and foundry work.
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The old library building was originally the municipal offices and dates from the 1860s. Navigator house has variously been a hotel, a house of ill-repute and a motor garage, and is now divided into offices. We see the rear of Wolsey Cottage, which view has only been open to the public gaze for a few years.
The first picture shows the studios of two prominent Hampton Wick artists - Enoch Ward, the low building on the left, and Lucy Millet, the ridged building to the rear, both in Lower Teddington Road. In the centre picture, we catch a glimpse of the old Crystal Film Co. studio, seen between two houses, also in Lower Teddington Road. The right-hand picture shows a section of "the walls" - historic brick walls that separate the Hampton Court Road from the Royal Parks. The bricks are at least Tudor, but I have wondered if they might even be older, as they may have come from the original Hampton Court Palace.
Here we see two views of the River Thames, at Hampton Wick, and part of the interior of St John's Church.
Hampton Wick is dominated by The River Thames and the Royal Parks - Home Park and Bushy Park. Here we see three views of Home Park - one of them showing the icehouse, where ice was stored for use during the summer.
Three pictures from Bushy Park, but only one showing the parkland. We see the memorial to the USAF, erected by the RAF, and the memorial showing the exact site of Eisenhower's office, used by him during the preparation for the D-Day invasion of Europe.
This memorial was erected by the good people of Hampton Wick, to celebrate the Silver Jubilee of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria. In those days there was much civic pride and most towns and villages would have made some such gesture. However, we should note that civic pride extended further than celebrating the reign of the Monarch. At around this part of the nineteenth century, fresh water was being piped to affluent homes. The companies were required to provide a stand-pipe for the less affluent, but it was common practice for the local community to supply substantial contrivances to supply the need. This would include drinking fountains for the populace and troughs for horses and dogs. This memorial to Queen Victoria includes a triple drinking fountain.
