You cannot currently bring meat or dairy products from any EU country into Great Britain for your own use. This temporary restriction is to help stop the spread of foot and mouth disease after recent outbreaks in Europe.
Given the informal nature of Michel’s sales from the car park, he is regrettably unable to continue for the time being. Tomorrow Saturday 26 April 2025 is likely to be the last day you will be able to get your cheese for a while. Michel is working hard to try to resolve the situation.
Following the interest shown for previous talks, a further event has been organised for an evening on Wednesday 30th April. (Some workers were not able to come during the day.)
Being an evening it will include more content on local pubs, existing, renamed, refurbished, demolished, those you may have drunk in but no longer can, reused, and those you may never have heard of.
Plus the history of Sheen House and the grounds of the Barnes Home Guard Club nd St Mary Magdalen’s Church Mortlake, and the Burton Mausoleum and the Vezlo Museum in the graveyard.
If you live in East Sheen and are familiar with Palewell Common – next to Richmond Park, near Roehampton Gate – you wouldn’t be surprised to hear of a road called Palewell Common Drive. Although it might sound familiar, if you were asked for directions to it, that might be more difficult. You won’t know anyone who lives on it, because nobody does.
But Palewell Common Drive does exist, running down from the wooded triangle at the top of Park Drive and Hertford Avenue (top left on Google Maps below), to the path to the bridge over Beverley Brook, or to the allotments if you turn left:
It’s only a proper road as far as the pitch and putt hut, after which it is for pedestrians and cyclists only.
I became interested in this when someone posted a 1930s map online. I noticed that Palewell Common Drive used to be a different and more important road:
The map showed that PCD (as I’ll call it) joined up in a straight line with Bank Lane, the wide, sloping road down from Priory Lane which has the Bank of England Club entrance on the right as you come down the hill.
Another map from 1930, on The Underground Map, shows even greater glory for PCD, having it take over Bank Lane altogether and run all the way up to Priory Lane, across the border into the borough of Wandsworth:
If I’d been asked to guess where a straight extension of Bank Lane would end up, I’d have had it leading to the tennis courts on Palewell Common, with today’s PCD far off to its right. But I was wrong, as today’s Google Maps proves:
The only slight deviation from the line is that the pedestrian section of today’s PCD drifts a little to the left as it reaches the path to Beverley Brook. Apart from that, the two roads line up perfectly.
So it seems that in the 1930s you could drive from Priory Lane all the way into East Sheen, via PCD – or Bank Lane and PCD. Somewhere, probably a little to the right of where PCD reaches the footpath today, there must have been a road bridge over the stream. I haven’t been able to find any sign of it but a bit of digging would surely reveal something.
So when did the through road disappear? Well, before 1950, it seems. By then, according to this map from The Underground Map, the current arrangement was already in place (although there was still a pond in the middle of the triangle at the top of PCD):
Knowing all this, when I made a visit, I noticed things I’d never seen before. First, there’s a proper sign by the triangle:
Second, PCD curves to the left on its way to joining the footpath at the point where it narrows from the full width of a road, suggesting, as my red line above indicated, that the old road was slightly to the right at that point:
And third, that if you look at the bottom of Bank Lane, you wonder why the road comes to a curious end, with a passageway as wide as the road but with just a footpath down the middle:
It’s great for the peace of the residential streets of East Sheen that you can’t drive through there today. I wonder whether that was why the change was made.
Does anyone know about this – or, even better, have old pictures that show PCD in its heyday?
As can be seen in the photo below there is a bench in front of the tree with a memorial to Susie, a beloved Corgi, donated by the owner T. S. Macadam. Does anyone know of Susie or Macadam?
This report is published today by the Michael Sieff Foundation, a charity based in East Sheen, which has been working in the child welfare field for forty years. The Foundation does not do face to face work with children but seeks to improve policy and practice.
Eighty per cent of children cautioned or sentenced in the youth justice system have special education needs or disabilities. The Foundation convened an expert working group to consider what reforms would enable these children to avoid contact with the justice system, and if they do enter the system, what would help them to lead well-functioning, fulfilled and productive lives.
The Report makes a number of recommendations to improve the system. Expert economic analysis reports that the cost of implementation would be in the region of £16m per year, with economic benefits of £191m.
Three generations of Penrhyns owned The Cedars in East Sheen from 1824 to 1920. They were substantial local philanthropists.
Edward Penrhyn ne Leycester was born in 1794 and died in 1861. In 1817 inherited a fortune from his cousin Lady Penrhyn. In accordance with her will he changed his name to Penrhyn. He was educated at Eton and St. John’s College Cambridge. He was President of the Cambridge Union.. In 1818 he was admitted as a barrister to the Middle Temple.
In 1823 he married Lady Charlotte Elizabeth Stanley (1801–1853), a daughter of the 13th Earl of Derby and a sister of the 14th Earl of Derby, who in 1852 became prime minister. They had two sons:
Edward Hugh Leycester Penrhyn (1827–1919), first Chairman of Surrey County Council
Oswald Henry Leycester Penrhyn, (1828–1918), Vicar of Huyton and Canon of Liverpool Cathedral.
In 1823 Edward Penrhyn was “of East Sheen”. He bought the Cedars in 1824. He built Derby Road and Stanley Road. He was largely instrumental in building Christ Church but died before its consecration in 1864.
His son E Leycester Penrhyn was the first chairman of Surrey County Council in 1899. The County Council offices are in Penrhyn Road Kingston upon Thames. He bought the sixteen Model Cottages built by the Labourers’ Friends Society between 1852 and 1858 and built ten more between 1866 and 1870.
In 1920 the family gave a strip of land to allow for the widening of the Upper Richmond Road: see the plaque on the pavement near the junction with Sheen Gate Gardens. Round the corner is Penrhyn Crescent.
The Cedars was demolished in 1930 and replaced by Cedar Court.
Hammersmith Bridge’s main carriageway is now open for pedestrians, cyclists and e-scooter users.
There are now three separate lanes in the carriageway – one dedicated for cyclists traveling north, another for cyclists traveling south and a third two-way pedestrian path.
The outer footways will also remain open to pedestrians only.
There’s a lot going on in Mortlake at the Stag Brewery Film Studio.
In April 2024 The Story Collective, a production company co-founded by Simon Vaughan and Damian Keogh, a Barnes resident, launched The Story Works at the Stag Brewery in Mortlake. The Story Works is a film and television studio complex developed and owned by The Story Collective. The Story Collective, co-founded by Simon Vaughan and Damian Keogh, is the company behind the development and management of The Story Works.
The Story Works is described as the “largest film and television studio in the heart of London,” and it provides production offices, workshops, and soundstages. The site has also been used for outdoor set construction, like the Victorian East London docks and back-streets for the Disney+ drama series “A Thousand Blows”.
The highly praised A Thousand Blows filmed on the site in 2023 has already been shown on Disney + (and can still be streamed) with a second season already in the can. The Guardian awarded the series five stars, praising its depth of storytelling and themes. Stylist Magazine lauded it as “an immersive, entertaining, and gripping watch,” with particular praise for its “grandiosity” enhanced by authentic costumes and film sets.
A sequel to Downton Abbey has been filmed and more is expected. Filming for the fourth season of Jack Reacher will begin in the summer of 2025.
Exciting times. And if the Academy does not get the planning go-ahead in the forthcoming decisions of the Planning Inspector or the Department for Education, the company would be up for expansion on the site. That could get really exciting.
There’s a lot going on in Mortlake at the Stag Brewery Film Studio.
In April 2024 The Story Collective, a production company co-founded by Simon Vaughan and Damian Keogh, a Barnes resident, launched The Story Works at the Stag Brewery in Mortlake. The Story Works is a film and television studio complex developed and owned by The Story Collective. The Story Collective, co-founded by Simon Vaughan and Damian Keogh, is the company behind the development and management of The Story Works.
The Story Works is described as the “largest film and television studio in the heart of London,” and it provides production offices, workshops, and soundstages. The site has also been used for outdoor set construction, like the Victorian East London docks and back-streets for the Disney+ drama series “A Thousand Blows”.
The highly praised A Thousand Blows filmed on the site in 2023 has already been shown on Disney + (and can still be streamed) with a second season already in the can. The Guardian awarded the series five stars, praising its depth of storytelling and themes. Stylist Magazine lauded it as “an immersive, entertaining, and gripping watch,” with particular praise for its “grandiosity” enhanced by authentic costumes and film sets.
A sequel to Downton Abbey has been filmed and more is expected. Filming for the fourth season of Jack Reacher will begin in the summer of 2025.
Exciting times. And if the Academy does not get the planning go-ahead in the forthcoming decisions of the Planning Inspector or the Department for Education, the company would be up for expansion on the site. That could get really exciting.
This picture is exhibited in the Orleans House Gallery in Twickenham. The subject is the Five Alls Pub in East Sheen.
Where, when. what does the name mean?
And nearby….. is a plaque which includes the name Major A Leycester-Penrhyn.
Find out more at the Barnes Home Guard Club at 76a Richmond Park Road SW14 8LA at 730pm on Wednesday 30th April 2025. And about other pubs and personalities.
