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Stamford Brook
This attractive Georgian house in Stamford Brook Avenue is Grade II listed and was the first house of any size in Stamford Brook. It was built about 1743 by Thomas Patterson and between 1795 and about 1865 it was home to the Frere family. The Frere's were longtime owners of sugar growing estates in Barbados. Click the link below and read more...
In the late 1890s, Stamford Brook House was bought by Archibald and Ellen Macgregor, beginning a long family association with the building. The Macgregors were from an artistic background. ‘Archie’ Macgregor was the grandson of Andrew Hunt, a well known landscape artist. Click the link below and read more...
In 1953 a train, loaded with mines, destined for the naval base in Southampton, was parked on the railway sidings between Prebend Gardens and Cleveland Avenue. One of the mines had been sabotaged, and the police struggled desperately to find the device before it could explode.
A bomb disposal expert works his way down the train, searching each device in turn. Meanwhile the police staked out the back garden of a house on Prebend Garden, hoping to see the saboteur return.
But was this real or was there more to the story? Click the link below and read more...
Researching the history of 19 Emlyn Road, we discovered Charlotte 'Lola' LeWinter. We knew she was a piano teacher, and had lived here with her sister but there was nothing else. Then our neighbours found a copy of a Vienna classical music magazine - Radio Vienna (Radio-Wien) from 1933 describing a concert featuring 'Felicitas Lewinter' a classical pianist. It was accompanied by a link to an article about an Irish Classical pianist Barry Douglas, who mentioned a Felicity Lewinter in his personal history.
Early in 1914 a young man, Harry Taverner, walked out of his home at 3 Emlyn Road HarryTaverner smallon his way to enlist in the Queen Victoria Rifles, County of London Battalion. The recruitment office was in the old Drill Hall on Stamford Brook Common, where the territorial army building now stands. Within a year Harry Taverner would be dead, succumbing to his wounds in a casualty station at Ypres as the Victoria Rifles bore the brunt of the fighting at Hill 60.
Harry left behind a grieving mother, Eliza, in Stamford Brook. Click 'Read More' below to hear the rest of the story and its links with the Sound of Music!
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The Stamford Brook House History project sent an advance guard to the London Borough of H&F Archives this week, which are held at Hammersmith Library. This was a first 'learning' visit so we could work out the kind of information available to residents and what we are allowed to do with it.
We are making progress with the first cohort of young people who are building Stamford Brook in Minecraft - part of the wider 'Chiswick In Minecraft' project. More details on the project can be found here.
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