The Thames from Hampton Court to Sunbury Lock

hampton

Hampton Church

There’s been a St Mary’s church overlooking the river since at least 1343.

 

The church was rebuilt several times – the tower was rebuilt in red brick 1679, replacing one of flint and stone; the north aisle was rebuilt in 1726. The tower was hit by lightening in 1827 and part of it crashed to the ground.

 

The whole church was rebuilt between 1829 and 1831, with most of the building materials brought in by barge to the hard in front of the church (where the Westel Canoe Club building is now). The architect was Edward Lapidge, who also designed Kingston Bridge, St Mary’s in Putney, St Peter’s in Hammersmith, St Andrews in Ham and St John the Baptist in Hampton Wick.

 

You can see the iron posts from the tollgate of the 1865 Hampton Court Bridge on either side of the church steps descending to the road. The posts were moved here after tolls were abolished in 1876.

Slightly boring photo of quite interesting green posts that used to be part of the tollhouse at the third Hampton Court Bridge

This is St Mary’s Church Hampton, seen from Hurst Park. The white building is the Westel Canoe Club HQ

Bell Hill

On the riverside in front of St Mary’s Church is the HQ of the Westel Canoe Club.

 

It’s on Bell Hill, the public hard or quayside also used by Hampton Ferry. For hundreds of years this hard was used for shipping goods by river—coal, timber, bricks, hay, etc. It was here that a new clock for St Mary’s was unloaded in 1809, and where the building materials for the new church were delivered in 1830.

 

Bell Hill was landscaped as a riverside garden with terraces and benches in 1884. It’s very neglected nowadays but there are plans to improve the site.

 

On the site of the Westel clubhouse was a similar single storey building from about 1850. It was used by the ferry operators Langshaw’s for building and hiring boats—there’s a photo from around 1910 in ‘Hampton and Teddington Past’—and later became Kenton’s.

 

The existing building dates from 1947 and it housed an engine to pump sewage from Hampton up the hill to the main sewage system—I assume so it could then flow downhill to Mogden. Within a few years the system was changed and the pump wasn’t needed any more. It was used as a storeroom for 20 years, then was taken over by Westel after they moved from Platts Eyot.