Task 54: Read a book about the history of Ham

I think it's fairly normal to want to know about the history of the place where you live - its buildings, people, changes in social customs and so on - and I suppose having read History at university I have a particular interest in the past.  For years, long before we moved to Ham, I had intended to read a local history book but had never got around to it. Adding it to the list of tasks provided just the spur I needed.

There was no shortage of books to choose from, including a number that have been gathering dust at home, so I chose the most recent and well illustrated: The Matchless Vale - the Story of Ham and Petersham and their People, by Vanessa Fison, published in 2009. I would strongly recommend it if you want to know more about this lovely part of south-west London. Rather than produce a potted summary of it, I've focused on the parts that particularly appealed to me, as well as some extra bits and pieces, and hope that what I've written is more or less accurate.  

Having read Vanessa's book, I was thinking about how to write this post and realised it would be very dull without any photographs. As I couldn't simply copy the ones she had used, I dragged Peter - a better photographer than I am - on what turned into an extremely long walk all round Ham, snapping away. It became rather addictive, as we discovered other nooks and crannies, and couldn't resist adding them to the list of what I'd intended to cover. In the process we realised how long it had been since we'd last walked by the river or through the woods, as our normal route if we're going for a walk is past the Common to Ham Gate, through Richmond Park up to Pembroke Lodge and back again - a very pleasant round trip of three miles. We've now decided we must wander around more often.

Some 14 miles from central London, Ham and Petersham are adjacent villages, each with a charming rural character complete with river meadows, expanses of open land and a wealth of very attractive Stuart and early Georgian houses.  From the seventeenth to the mid-twentieth centuries their history was heavily influenced by the lords of the manor, the Dysarts of Ham House, who owned most of the land in the area. Despite its name, the House - built in 1610 and now a National Trust property - is in fact in the parish of Petersham, though the grounds straddle the boundary with Ham.  (Similarly, the Ham Polo Club is in Petersham, not Ham.)

Ham House

The gates, with motto Nemo me impune lacessit (No one provokes me with impunity!)

View of the rear of Ham House and part of its grounds

Although the two villages have to some extent a shared history, their characters are quite distinct. Petersham was recorded in the Domesday Book and has long been the preserve of dukes, duchesses, assorted aristocracy and the landed gentry. It has never had more than a handful of shops and now has none at all. 

Ham was originally a hamlet of Kingston and while it still has its share of the rich and famous, it has always been more agricultural, with three large farms in the past.  In the late nineteenth century it developed quickly into a proper village with the arrival of a significant number of tradesmen and smallholders, and now has three separate parades of shops, including a small Tesco and Sainsbury.  Unlike Petersham it has a very mixed environment. As well as mansions, beautiful cottages and plain ordinary houses like ours, it also has several large Council estates, at least one of which has a serious drugs and crime problem. As a friend who lives there commented, she feels safe at home at night as the criminals will all be out elsewhere!

One of the aspects of Ham that I've always liked is its eccentricity.  Since the late seventeenth century, for example, there has been a ferry linking Ham to Twickenham, but until relatively recently it was a simply one man in an old rowing boat. If you couldn't see him, you had to call and wave until he appeared (or not, if you were unlucky that day), wait until he came across and then slither down the muddy bank into the boat - or the river, if you were really unlucky. Now it's rather more sophisticated:

We have a Convent - but it's Protestant, which I hadn't realised was even possible. St Michael's was originally Orford Hall, built in about 1730, and was bought by the international Anglican Community of the Sisters of the Church, an order founded in 1870, to become the Mother House and Novitiate of the order. Martingales Close, where we live, was created partly from land that previously belonged to the Convent and the nuns - who sadly sold the building and moved last year - always regarded the occupants of the Close as part of their flock.

They had, in their words, "a particular commitment to hospitality and spiritual accompaniment" and were actively engaged in the local community. It was great fun watching them wandering around the annual Ham Fair on the Common, particularly when one of them rolled up the sleeves of her habit, seized the baseball bat and tried to "kill the rat" (a game that was later banned, apparently because a group of anti-vivisectionists complained, even though the rat was clearly a stuffed grey sock).

A few used to go to adult education classes and it was slightly unreal watching four of them squeeze into a mini and head off pretty briskly into Richmond. Sister Joy was one of my favourites. She was 80 when I first knew her and especially enjoyed making candles, which she used to pack into a suitcase and take up to London to sell for charity. No-one wanted to deprive her of this innocent pleasure, but as she grew less steady on her feet and more absent-minded, the risk of her accidentally incinerating the shed became a distinct possibility. In the end she switched to making cards.

St Michael's Convent

Another building with an interesting history is the tiny Gate House built in 1771, which was at one time an almshouse.  Its name derives from the fact that there used to be a gate across the road nearby to stop cattle straying off the Common. Mrs Sarah "Grannie" Morffew, the daughter of a charcoal burner, moved there in 1852.  Apparently very fond of snuff, she died forty years later at the remarkable age of 105 - according to her death certificate, of "senility and exhaustion". The building is now part of a physiotherapy studio, having been restored in 1892 by the Hon Mrs Algernon Tollemache in memory of her husband.  (The Dysarts of Ham House adopted the name Tollemache in 1821).

In the same year she also built and endowed a row of six almshouses in Ham Street - three for married couples and three for single people - which are still in use.  An elderly friend and his wife were given the chance of living there some years ago and although they were grateful to be able to get out of their grotty flat in a high rise Council estate, and to have a garden, they found there were a few problems. In particular, they had to retain the original draughty leaded windows and consequently faced hefty heating bills in the winter.

One of the many interesting old houses on Ham Common is Ensleigh Lodge, which has a large curved gable with nothing behind it at the top, so the two highest windows are false and there purely for symmetry.  Also the fanlights are wooden, which is unusual:

Further along the Common is the Cassel Hospital (or Casserole, according to predictive text).  A late eighteenth century grade II listed building, it was originally called Morgan House.  Robert Philippe, Duc de Chartres, lived there from 1863 until 1871, with his wife and cousin the Princesse d'Orleans. He was a grandson of King Louis Philippe and was exiled from France with him in 1848.

The house became West Heath, a school for young ladies, in 1879. The school moved to Sevenoaks in 1930 and later became famous when Diana, future Princess of Wales was a pupil. After a period as a hotel, the house became the Cassel Hospital just after the Second World War and pioneered a new technique of behavioural rather than medicinal group and individual psychotherapy. It now provides specialist NHS treatment for adults with severe and complex personality disorders and young people with emerging personality disorders, who have often exhausted all other avenues of help from mental health services.

 

On the other side of the Common is South Lodge, formerly known as Alcott House, and occupied in 1838 by a community - the Concordium - dedicated to changing the world and creating a new Eden. The term "New Age" originates from one of their publications. Members were meant to be celibate and led an increasingly austere life. Meals were generally uncooked and consisted mainly of bread, raisins, fruit and cold vegetables which they grew themselves. Alcohol, meat, salt and spices were eschewed as too exciting. The men grew long beards and wore loose clothes and sandals, while the women discarded their corsets, which must at least have been some relief, and wore similarly simple clothes.

The day started at 5am and would have felt rather long, especially when the community latched on to the new fad of hydropathy. This required them to bathe in and drink pints of cold water, and wrap themselves in cold wet sheets. It was said to cure all sorts of ailments that had hitherto failed to respond to treatment. The incentive to claim a return to good health and a warm bed must have been powerful.

The Concordium was one of the founders of vegetarianism in England and attracted the attention of many of the radically unorthodox of the day, including Amos Bronson Alcott, the American transcendentalist philosopher and educator, and father of Louisa M Alcott. He stayed with them in 1842 and returned to New England resolved to set up a similar community there. He did co-found Fruitlands on a 50-acre site near Harvard but it lasted barely 6 months, whereas the Concordium managed to stagger on for 10 years, with a mere 30 members at its peak. Louisa, who was eleven at the time, later wrote a subversive short story about Fruitlands, to show what life there was really like.

In 1848 the building was acquired and later extended to provide a home for girls left orphaned and destitute by the current serious outbreak of cholera. It became known as the National Orphan Home and offered accommodation for 120 girls, many of whom were orphaned by the Crimean War. The Home eventually closed in 1922 and soon after the Second World War was converted into flats.

South Lodge

The New Inn, at the corner of the Common near South Lodge, hardly warrants its name as it was built in 1756. However there has been an inn on this site since at least 1675 and apparently there has been one on the site of the Hand and Flower pub across the road since much earlier even than that.

Next door stands one of the oldest buildings in Ham - Stafford Cottages, dating back to the beginning of the seventeenth century. In 1799 it was divided into three dwellings, which in 1851 were occupied by two gardeners, a carpenter and their families, but it is now a single dwelling again:

A little further along are the two Gate House Lodges, built in about 1679, when the Avenues leading to Ham House were laid out. They look charming but with such small windows and abundant wistaria, are probably rather dark inside. Next to the one on the left is a cottage that used to belong to Chris Brasher, Olympic athlete, distinguished journalist and organiser of the first London marathon in 1981.

The Lodge to the left of the Avenue

The only house in Ham to have a Blue Plaque is Newman House on Ham Street, previously called Grey Court House. Built in 1742, it was the boyhood country home of John Henry Newman, who was born in 1801, converted to Catholicism in 1845 and was created a cardinal in 1879.  His beatification was officially proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI on 19 September 2010 during his visit to the UK. His canonisation as a saint is dependent on the confirmation of a second miracle attributed to his intercession. 

More bizarrely, the only house in Ham to have a horse's head sticking out of a window is Park Gate House, next to the Ham Gate entrance to Richmond Park.  The house was re-built in 1768 and significantly altered and extended since it was bought by an Arab prince in the early 1980s. When he first bought the house, he was apparently keen to reassure local residents about the scale and extent of the proposed alterations, so he invited members of local societies on a guided tour. My mother, whose father owned a small building company until it went out of business during the Great Depression, has always enjoyed looking around homes and building sites and she was able to take part in the tour. I can't remember her saying much about it, other than that it had lots of rooms and they were given tea and biscuits.

Ham Gate is one of the six historic gates into Richmond Park, dating from the time of its enclosure by Charles I.  In 1921 the existing wrought-iron gates replaced the old wooden ones. They are carefully removed every time the Park hosts a major cycling event - an increasingly frequent occurrence - to ensure they don't get damaged. The lamps on top of the pillars are gas, not electric, and there is a Victorian pillar box in the wall:

Not surprisingly, Ham has a number of connections with the British royal family. Like many people who live here, I had heard that Nell Gwynn, the most popular mistress of Charles II, was living at Sudbrook Lodge - a fine tall house opposite the New Inn - at the time of the birth of their illegitimate son Charles Beauclerk. The story was that she had held the baby out of an upstairs window and threatened to drop him unless he was made a duke. King Charles gave way and the infant was later created Duke of St Albans. It seemed entirely plausible, but unfortunately Vanessa's book points out that the boy was born in 1670, ten years before the Lodge was built.

Sudbrook Lodge

Ormeley Lodge on Ham Gate Avenue was built in about 1715 and is the longstanding home of Lady Annabel Goldsmith, mother of Zac Goldsmith. Pevsner described the house as "exquisite" and it is one of the most beautiful houses in Ham. There is a story that the future King George IV, when he was the Prince of Wales, and Maria Fitzherbert spent their honeymoon there in December 1785 after their (invalid) marriage, but this has never been substantiated.

Ormeley Lodge

There have been at least three houses on the site of Forbes House on Ham Common. The original Georgian house was bought in 1872 by Harry Warren Scott. His wife had been married before and had a daughter named Nina, who in 1881 married Claude George Bowes-Lyon, Lord Glamis, at St Peter's church in Petersham. They had ten children including Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the late Queen Mother, who used to come and stay with her grandmother at Forbes House. Her elder sister Violet Hyacinth died there of a fever at the age of only 11 and is buried in St Andrew's churchyard, which is where both my parents are buried. It's the church where Peter and I were married.

In 1935 the house was bought by Mrs Winifred Buckley, who pulled it down and replaced it with a neo-Georgian house.  At one stage it was an old people's home and when this closed in 1992, it was demolished and replaced with the present neo-classical building, to be used as a family home. Apparently the then owner had wanted it to be a virtual copy of his house in France, but when his wife saw it she was less than happy and declined to live there. It was on the market for a long time and rumours were rife about who might buy it. Boris Becker was said to be interested but it's not generally known who lives there now.

Forbes House

There are also some unusual modern buildings in Ham, including the flats in Langham Close, just off the Common. Co-designed by Sir James Stirling, one of the most influential British architects of his generation, they are considered a landmark in the emerging Brutalist style of the late 1950s in England:

We now even have a Huf house in Ham Street, which I would love to see inside:

Finally, there is the heart of Ham village - the Common, with its rejuvenated pond, complete with nesting swans and a wonderful assortment of coots, moorhens, geese and ducks. It has a lovely village green atmosphere, especially when the cricket team is playing, and is well used by everyone who lives here, whatever their age or circumstances. Right up until the 1930s, the villagers exercised their ancient rights as commoners to keep a cow, horse or sheep on the Common. Often animals got stuck in the pond and had to be helped out. I wonder whether those rights still exist?

Every time we come home from trips abroad, no matter how enjoyable, we always feel how lucky we are to live here. For years I've thought the icing on the cake would be to own a tricycle and pedal around the Common, down to the river and back across to the Park. Peter disagrees.  He thinks Ham has enough eccentrics already.