I recently had a walk through Hampton and stopped here and there to sketch some its historic buildings. The first stop was Hampton Library, a very interesting Georgian building on Thames Street built by John Beard, celebrated actor and contemporary of David Garrick. Originally called Rose Hill, the building was erected in 1774, exactly 20 years after Garrick's villa.
The Hampton library is lovely space and it serves the community very well. It also features a beautiful area for children that can approach reading at a very young age.
It also sits right in front of the district water works building another very interesting example of 19th century architecture in Hampton. The waterworks buildings dealt with a clean end of the process and this is one of the reasons why the western suburbs of London have been historically very desirable. The waterworks also mark the exit from Greater London and stand at the entrance to Hampton Village both by the Thames and from Sunbury Road. They are a wonderful local landmark with several buildings being listed.
It is interesting to note the close relationship that these two buildings have with the A308 road being the only separation.
Several historic buildings surrounding both the library and the waterworks relate somehow to small industrial and commercial activities with an access from Thames Street and alleyways leading to the river. The ferry boat house has been active since the 16th century and it is still running a regular ferry service today.
As an office we worked on a project for a historic property right at the entrance of the nearby Church Street. The building used to be used as a blacksmith’s workshop and it was then replaced in the 1930’s by a boatyard building that is still forming the main fabric of the house today. The boatyard was then turned into a recording studio in the 1970’s (some say that Pink Floyd played there!) and then converted into a rather eclectic house. I will post more details about the building and our project in another blog post soon.
Downstream we can also find Garrick’s Villa and its temple along with St. Mary’s church that I have mentioned in two other blog posts.
Iacopo