Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney

What was London before it became London? G.E. Mitton traces three riverside districts Hammersmith, Fulham, and Putney back to their murky, medieval origins, when the Thames bent differently and the names themselves sounded foreign on Norman tongues. This isn't a tourist guide; it's an archaeological excavation of memory, uncovering the marshes that became thoroughfares, the coaching inns that birthed neighborhoods, and the forgotten aristocrats who shaped streets still bearing their shadows. Mitton writes with the Victorian passion for provenance, grounding every church spire and riverside walk in centuries of anecdote: Sir Nicholas Crispe's defiance, the toll gates that taxed travelers, the schools that rose from swampy ground to educate generations. For anyone who's walked along the Thames at sunset and wondered who walked there before, this book answers with layered, loving detail.