''For the place in
Adelaide ,
South Australia , see
Fulham, South Australia .
is a district in the
London Borough Of Hammersmith And Fulham located 3.7 miles (5.9 km) south west of
Charing Cross
Fulham was formerly the seat of the
Diocese of "Fulham and
Gibraltar ", and Fulham Palace the official home of the
Bishop Of London , the grounds of which are now divided between public
Allotment s and an elegant
Botanical Garden .
One of the
Football hotbeds of the country, the borough itself contains two
Premiership teams (
Fulham and
Chelsea ) and one
Championship team (
QPR ).
Fulham nestles in a loop of the
Thames across the river from
Barnes and
Putney . It is on the
Wimbledon branch of the
District Line of the tube - Fulham stations include
Putney Bridge ,
Parson's Green ,
Fulham Broadway and
West Brompton . Fulham is popular with young, white middle class professionals because of its homogenised, suburban character and the ease with which residents can escape from London to the country along the
A4 trunk road which lies just to the north, via the
A219 .
Fulham has in the past been a politically significant part of the country, having been the scene of two major parliamentary
By-election s in the
20th Century . In
1933 , the Fulham East by-election became known as the "peace by-election" taking place shortly prior to the outbreak of
World War 2 .
In
1986 , Fulham experienced another by-election following the death of
Conservative MP Martin Stevens.
Labour's Nick Raynsford gained the constituency on a 10% swing - one of the first elections that heralded the slick, modern campaigning
New Labour techniques that would become renowned. Posters announcing that "Nick Raynsford lives here" adorned thousands of windows in the constituency - a reference to the fact that Labour's candidate was a long-time local, while the Tory was an "outsider" from
Notting Hill .
Fulham has, however, been trending towards the Conservatives since the which had housed
Working-class families employed in the heavy industry that dominated Fulham's riverside being rapidly replaced with young
Professional s who had a very different less egalitarian political outlook. In
1971 , Fulham elected 28 Labour and 2 Conservative councillors; in
2002 the figures were 16 Conservative and 10 Labour.
Fulham's main claim to fame is the two premier league football clubs that are based here: in the west
Fulham F.C. and in the east
Chelsea F.C. .
There is a cinema complex as part of the Fulham Broadway Centre. The world famous River Cafe is in Fulham, alongside the architects Richard Rogers Partners' HQ.
The area has a large number of pubs catering for the increasingly homogenised population. Traditional Fulham pubs include the Pear Tree in Margravine Road, the Wilton in Dawes Road, the Eight Bells in Fulham High Street and the Seven Stars, and The Elm in North End Road. More popular with the young professionals are pubs like The Crabtree in Rainville Road (expensive), The Durrell in
Fulham Road , The Mitre on Bishops Road, and the White Horse in Parson's Green, to name but a very few.
Fulham also has some pleasant parks and open spaces of which Bishops Park,
Fulham Palace Gardens, Hurlingham Park, South Park, Eel Brook Common and Parson's Green are the largest.
There's an interesting, little-known, story of how Fulham and Putney got their respective names. 'A long time ago, long before Putney Bridge (or it's predecessor Fulham Bridge) spanned the River Thames, there were two giant sisters who wanted to build a church on each side of the river. The problem was that they only had one hammer with which to cut and fashion the stone for bricks. But these were giant sisters! And so, whenever the giant sister on the northern side of the River Thames wanted the hammer she would shout 'full home' (from which, it is said, Fulham got its name); and the other sister would throw the hammer across the river, and the giant sister on the other side of the river, when she wanted the hammer, would shout 'put nigh' (from which, it is said, Putney got its name), and the giant sister on the Fulham side of the river would throw the hammer to her.'
Ofcourse, it's folklore, it's just for fun - there were no giant sisters, and hammer-throwing across that stretch of the river would require super-human strength, and the churches were built (so I'm informed) at different times. More than likely Fulham got its name from the anglo-saxon term foulenham, describing the nature of the banks of the River Thames which, at that time, were muddy and used to flood large sections of that area.
