In a post on 20 September 2024 questions were asked about Painsfield Villa. A search of the picture gallery on the Barnes and Mortlake History Society has now produced some answers – see below the map.
The Villa does not appear on a map of the area in 1850. It is shown in the map below which is dated 1873 in what is now Paynesfield Avenue. Houses were built on the eastern part of the road in 1902. An Indenture (or Lease) of that year sets out that Joseph Neville of Barnes granted the lease for 99 years to Alfred Basden of Fulham in consideration of the costs and expenses incurred by William Hattersley, Builder, who lived, according to the Electoral Register of 1904, at No 2 Paynesfield Avenue. An early example of a developer who lived on the premises?
Model Cottages pathway: enquiry into measures to restrict scooters and speeding bicycles. CCTV has been considered and ruled out. New signs have been put up which are not proving to be very effective. However, residents have had the opportunity to air their concerns which have been addressed as far as possible.
Routine reports
a) Police
A quarterly report was presented, including the latest crime stats and tips on keeping your vehicle and home safe. (See below)
Residents noted that the category in the crime report ‘All other’ is by far the largest number and it would be more meaningful if it were broken down. After some discussion the chair agreed to consult with the police on alternatives.
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Concern was expressed about cyclists who go through red lights in many parts of East Sheen. The police responded by saying they stopped cyclists if they were in the vicinity but generally it was difficult to catch them.
b) Neighbourhood Watch – Andy Lindesay
Andy Lindesay, a street co-ordinator, gave an overview of how Neighbourhood Watch operates in his area. It is intended to prevent crime and promote community using WhatsApp and maildrops to keep in touch.
Specific advice included, firstly, in relation to smart doorbells:
they should be hard wired and not wifi
video was best stored locally rather than cloud storage
mount CCTV high up to avoid tampering
Secondly, re parcel theft:
opt out of click and collect
ensure deliveries are arranged for when you will be at home
keep a close check on notifications as couriers usually send a ‘delivered’ message – if you are unable to take in your parcel ask a neighbour
if you see a parcel left on a doorstep consider posting a message on the NHW WhatsApp to alert your neighbour
give an alternative drop off if possible
In the last quarter volunteers concentrated on signing up new members. In the next quarter the focus will be on visiting elderly and vulnerable residents and explaining the benefits of NHW.
The presentation gave rise to several questions from residents:
i) The police confirmed that parcel theft should be reported as it helps them build up a picture of which streets to focus on.
ii) A resident questioned how long it takes for matters raised with the Met online to be referred back to East Sheen officers. It was explained that an issue would be redirected immediately but a crime report may take longer. Residents could use local police emails to report, for example, intelligence on an event that has already happened.
The police advise that Met Engage is a valuable source of information and recommend that residents sign up. https://www.metengage.co.uk
Faraday bags are useful as they block the signal sent to keyless cars. They are available free at meetings.
Richmond Park Policing
The dedicated police unit has been disbanded and the SNTs from South Richmond, and Ham, Petersham & Richmond Riverside wards have moved their base to Holly Lodge – 10 officers in total.
There would be no routine patrolling in the park. A local response vehicle would attend in the event of a 999 call (as they do in East Sheen).
The content below gives useful information on the type of crime locally and what can be done to tackle it.
Motor Vehicle Crime
Interference:
3 x Attempt – Keyless unlocking device used but unsuccessful
Vehicle lock and ignition barrel broken – Immobiliser and alarm set off
Lexus – small hole drilled in the back of the vehicle
Toyota – Front bumper damaged – possibly to access vehicle electronics
Ford Transit – Side wall of tyre has been cut
Theft from Motor Vehicle – 14
Audi A5 – Window smashed & handbag stolen
BMW – Rear passenger window smashed & Laptop stolen
“Government axing of Livingstone Academy will put pressure on school places”: EastSheenMatters disagrees
In a statement issued on 23 January 2026: “Richmond Council has warned that the Department for Education’s decision to axe the Livingstone Academy West London risks worsening pressure on secondary school places in the east of the borough – and is formally appealing in a bid to secure a rethink.
“The proposed free school would have addressed a clear and longstanding shortfall in local provision, following years of joint work between Richmond Council and the Aspirations Academies Trust to deliver a high-quality secondary school for local children.
“Councillor Gareth Roberts, Leader of Richmond Council, said: “This is a deeply disappointing proposal. For several years now, children in the east of our borough have missed out on being offered a secondary school place on National Offer Day because demand already exceeds supply. That is not a future risk – it is happening now.
“The Livingstone Academy would have provided much-needed capacity and real choice for families, particularly with significant housing growth planned locally. Decisions about school places must reflect the realities communities are facing on the ground.”
“While welcoming the government’s ambition to increase inclusive provision for children with special educational needs, the Council stressed this must not come at the expense of sufficient places for pupils without additional needs. Richmond Council also rejected the suggestion that unmet demand can be met by sending pupils to schools in neighbouring boroughs.
“Councillor Julia Cambridge, Chair of the Education and Children’s Services Committee, said: “Families consistently tell us they want their children to attend school close to home, alongside friends and support networks. Expecting young people to travel out of the borough is not a realistic or fair solution – particularly given the continued closure of Hammersmith Bridge and the travel challenges that creates.
” “Livingstone Academy would have offered something genuinely distinctive, with a focus on technology and digital creativity that is not currently available in Richmond or neighbouring boroughs. That opportunity should not be lost lightly.”
The Council is urging Ministers to reconsider the decision. “Our priority is simple,” added Councillor Roberts. “Every child in Richmond deserves access to a local school place. We will continue to press government to work with us to make that happen.” “
The above is of course Council speak and a repetition of the Achieving for Children evidence at the Inquiry. It ignores evidence given by local schools and other experts, and the feelings of the vast majority of the local community. See for example among many EastSheenMatters comments before and since the Inquiry https://childlawobserver10.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=1200&action=edit
In so far as children should benefit from this funding, it is money that needs to be used for special educational needs.
An appeal merely further extends the uncertainty hanging over local education and the use of the Stag Brewery site. It is difficult to escape the impression that even now the Council Leadership is engaged in denial and a desire for self justification. Or a determination to heighten political blame for the decision on central Government. Or the acquisition of central Government money. You have to wonder just what discussions there have been within the Council hierarchy. The statement refers to ‘risks’; have those risks been adequately weighed? Sadly we are unlikely ever to know the real motives.
The Rally at Hammersmith Bridge this Saturday now promises to be more devisive than might have been planned.
According to the Barnes Bugle today there are two separate rallies. The first at noon is for those who do not want it to reopen to cars and standard buses. The second at 2pm is for those who support reopening to bridge.
The occasion will no doubt be viewed as an influential photo opportunity. So if you turn up early there is every prospect that you will be viewed as a supporter of closure to cars.
It is rare for EastSheenMatters to engage in international politics but such is the state of the world that it seems necessary to bring every attention when truth is spoken to power.
Below is the full transcript of Mark Carney’s speech to the G7 yesterday. It was delivered against a backdrop of rising geopolitical tensions between great powers like Russia, China and the United States, and as U.S. President Donald Trump threatens allies with tariffs and pushes to acquire Greenland from Denmark, a member of the NATO military alliance.
It seems that every day we’re reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry — that the rules-based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must. And this aphorism of Thucydides is presented as inevitable, as the natural logic of international relations reasserting itself. And faced with this logic, there is a strong tendency for countries to go along, get along to accommodate, to avoid trouble, to hope that compliance will buy safety.
Well, it won’t. So what are our options? In 1978, the Czech dissident Václav Havel, later president, wrote an essay called “The Power of the Powerless,” and in it he asked a simple question: how did the communist system sustain itself? And his answer began with a greengrocer. Every morning, the shopkeeper places a sign in his window: “Workers of the world unite.” He doesn’t believe in it. No one does. But he places the sign anyway to avoid trouble, to signal compliance, to get along. And because every shopkeeper on every street does the same, the system persists — not through violence alone, but through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false. Havel called this living within a lie. The system’s power comes not from its truth, but from everyone’s willingness to perform as if it were true. And its fragility comes from the same source. When even one person stops performing, when the greengrocer removes his sign, the illusion begins to crack.
The Parish encompasses Mortlake and East Sheen. St Mary the Virgin in Mortlake High Street had served as the church for the whole of the Parish since 1543. By the middle of the 19th century, with an increasing population and new housing at some distance from the parish church, there was a clear need for a new church at the southern end of the parish.
In 1860 parishioners who lived in East Sheen, notably Edward Penrhyn of The Cedars, see https://childlawobserver10.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=2329&action=edit made a call for funds. A Building Committee was formed, whose members read like a directory of the grand houses of East Sheen and Mortlake: James Stuart Wortley of East Sheen Lodge, Octavious Ommanney of The Planes, Charles Bagot of The Gables, Joshua Bates of Sheen House, Charles Ellis of The Orchard, William Gilpin of Palewell Lodge, Henry Kendall of The Limes, Josceline Percy (from whom Percy Lodge is named), Adolphus Liddell of Park Cottage, Henry Taylor of Uplands, Rev. FJH Reeves of Spencer House, Ottiwell Waterford the headmaster of Temple Grove School, and James Wigan of Cromwell House; with the perpetual curate Rev. John Manley as Chairman.
The Committee chose Arthur Blomfield as their architect. His work include numerous churches, the Royal College of Music and Selwyn College, Cambridge. Thomas Hardy, the novelist and poet, then aged 21, joined Blomfield’s practice as assistant architect in April 1862. He worked with Blomfield on Christ Church, East Sheen.
Blomfield drew up plans for a church with a nave, chancel, south aisle and tower at the east end of the aisle. Provision was made for future enlargement by the addition of a north aisle, which was added in 1887. The church was designed to seat 400 in the nave and 125 in the aisle. The architectural style was 13th century northern French.
By early 1863 the building of the church was well advanced, and consecration planned for 16 April. But on Sunday 15 March, the tower collapsed, carrying a portion of the roof with it and destroying the main arch at the altar end.
It is not thought that Hardy was responsible! The Builder reported that there had been no clerk of the works appointed and, in the absence of the architect, the lower walls had been packed with rubble rather than being built of solid masonry. The work of clearing the site and rebuilding progressed quickly and the new church was consecrated on 13 January 1864.
The building is Grade II listed as are the wrought iron railings around the buildings.
The Hammersmith Bridge Rally will take place on Saturday 24th January 2026 between noon and 3pm. It is well beyond the time that this major arterial road and bridge should be restored to its former glory and capacity to link important parts of London.
After a very long break, it appears that the Hammersmith Bridge Task Force is due to meet again early this year.
In advance of this meeting (no date for which has been published) Putney MP Fleur Anderson is hoping to show the Task Force the level of support for reopening the bridge by holding a rally on its south side.
The Leader of Wandsworth Council, Simon Hogg, is also expected to attend for a public demonstration calling for the bridge to be fully reopened to motor traffic.
It is to be hoped that other local MPs and local politicians will turn out in force.
Fleur hopes that a large turnout will provide a photo opportunity which can be used to show the level of local support for the full restoration of the bridge. Event attendees are asked to assemble at noon on the Barnes side of the bridge on Saturday 24 January for the photo with speakers expected between 2-3pm.
Anyone intending to turn up is invited to register on Eventbrite.
Between numbers 54 and 56 Palewell Park there is an alley known as Pale Lane, with grass along the verges left from the 17th century. It is a fragment of an ancient way from East Sheen to Palewell Common.
Pale Lane began on the east side of Milestone Green at the East Sheen crossroads leaving Sheen Lane near Larches Ave. It ran southeasterly, the Lane being part of what is now Park Avenue and on the West side of All Saints Church.
At the western end is the estate wall of the former Sheen House built by EJ Darley in 1867. Running along the wall was Alley Hill Footpath, originally intersecting with Pale Lane on the east side of the wall.
Pale Lane below: at the far end there is a path to the right behind a locked gate.
In 1807 Henry Hope of Sheen House wished to stop up and enclose the part of Pale Lane running through his estate on the South side of his kitchen garden and field. Under a writ of ad quod damnum he was given permission on condition that he made another road which is now the section of East Sheen Avenue between Park Avenue and the Upper Richmond Road.
On what is now Park Avenue at the crossroads with East Sheen Avenue was also situated the Mortlake Pesthouse described as a barn and garden for the isolation of people sick with the plague. Four poor families lived there until 1845 when Mortlake Vestry resolved to sell it for £200 to William Gilpin of the nearby Palewell Lodge.
On the east side of the Pesthouse, Pale Lane turned south and then southeast to Palewell Common. In present terms its course was on the east side of All Saints Church through back gardens and coming out at the southern end of Park Drive. On the way it passed on the east side Palewell Lodge which was demolished in 1925.
Pale Lane petered out near the end of the present Park Drive becoming a footpath shown on old maps but now gone. This ran along the common in a curving southeasterly fashion past the vanished original Palewell Pond in the northwest tip of the common. The footpath continued diagonally halfway down the common where it turned east across Palewell Fields and a bridge over the middle ditch. It crossed the Beverly Brook on a two arch brick bridge and thence into what is now known as Priory Lane.
Alley Hill Footpath became a back way to the houses in Palewell Park. Richmond Park Road was built on the western side of the Sheen House Estate wall part of which remains. All the rights of ways subsisting in the former footpaths were diverted into the pavements of the new roads.
With acknowledgement to the Barnes and Mortlake History Society
Original edition published in 1982; latest edition published in June 2009
Ad quod damnum is a Latin phrase meaning “according to the harm” or “appropriate to the harm”. It is used in tort as a measure of damage inflicted, and a remedy, if one exists, ought to correspond specifically and only to the damage suffered.
The position is gradually hardening. You should be able to read a confirmatory statement to that effect on: Free_schools_pipeline_list_December_2025.xlsx , except you can’t because going into that link produces ‘error’. And who produces a ‘pipeline list? or as it elsewhere described a mainstream pipeline review worksheet? Civil service speak. And it has taken them over a year to produce a ‘worksheet’, while local plans and the site fester.
Meanwhile there is a statement floating around confirming that ‘the Secretary of State for Education is minded to cancel Livingstone Academy West London, following careful consideration of evidence gathered for this project’. Stakeholders have been informed and there is an opportunity for them to provide any further relevant information (not already provided) that they think should be taken into account, before the Secretary of State makes a final decision.
We still do not know when that final decision will be taken, although speculation is for January, but it would be difficult to see how at this stage there could be further relevant information not already provided, sufficient to move the SoS mind.
So if common sense finally prevails, what happens next? A Viability Review is required in accordance with the section 106 agreement attached to the appeal decision. But what that means seems to depend on how the Council and the Developers interpret it.
