TW1 3DY is the postcode for an island 5 miles from the perimeter of Heathrow airport and just a mile from Twickenham Rugby Stadium.
Like these establishments, the isle was an vital element of the British identity. Have confidence in me. But first, love the just one-hour journey to this sliver of land in the center of the Thames, just downstream from Teddington Lock.
Bernardo O’Higgins shows the way. The Chilean innovative hero is commemorated with a handsome bust in Bridge House Gardens in Richmond – ideal beside the bridge.
O’Higgins expended his late teenagers in what is now a genteel southwest London suburb, and it was in Richmond that he grew to become a rebel with a induce: independence for his dwelling state, Chile.
Observe his gaze down to the waterside: your voyage throughout the Thames will appear later on. A kink in the river implies you are quickly on the north financial institution and heading southeast, when your focus on is really to the west. But a wonderful sweep of the Thames will ease you close to to the ideal route, curling clockwise beneath the handsome homes substantial on Richmond Hill.
Glover’s Island before long swings into look at, festooned with trees that surface to be hoisting on their own out of the river.
Ten minutes later, hold your eyes open for what my map grandly phone calls the Ham House Ferry Terminal, but which I connect with a short set of steps main down to the water.
“If waiting around on the Ham side, be individual and wave if needed,” advises the family members business that operates Hammerton’s Ferry, a two-moment trans-Thames experience that, for £1 transports you from the Surrey bank to the Middlesex facet – even though it feels surprisingly like France.
In the early 19th century, Twickenham was a well-liked vacation spot for French aristocrats in exile. The Duke of Orleans, afterwards to come to be the last king of France as Louis Philippe, moved into a Palladian villa that was unforgivably demolished in 1926. But the Octagonal Area was left intact, and this exquisite survivor has because turn into the Orleans House Gallery – brought to you absolutely free by the London Borough of Richmond, whose Town Hall is confusingly future doorway at York Property.
The good thing is the route is a lot easier to stick to than the string of names, and qualified prospects to a stately residence masquerading as a French chateau. Appropriately, it was the 19th-century household of Orleanist Pretenders to the situation of King of the French.
When an Indian merchant prince, Sir Ratan Tata, took possession in 1906 he included a delicious Italianate flourish in the gardens. A scattering of sea nymphs, sculpted from Carrara marble, frolic with winged horses: a suitable opening act for the excellent weirdness that occurred halfway throughout the Thames on Eel Pie Island.
“Trad jazz to major steel,” is how Michele Whitby sums up the 15 remarkable years in mid-Thames that started 1956. She is creator and curator of the Eel Pie Island Museum, situated on the mainland and anchored in the previous.
Just one probable resource of Eel Pie Island’s name is that Henry VIII paused below for a feed of the snake-like freshwater fish on the voyage concerning his palaces at Richmond. One more is that eel pies were being bought to the visitors for whom a boat trip to the island manufactured a grand day out.
A prim and suitable hotel was crafted in 1830 and prospered in the course of the Victorian age Charles Dickens was amongst the company.
By the 1950s, folks who fancied an island escape could head for the Mediterranean fairly than the center of the Thames.
Michael Snapper, an antique dealer and ice skater, bought the Eel Pie Island Lodge in 1952. He supposed to rework the assets into an ice rink and casino. But as an alternative it became a rock’n’roll legend.
Four years later on, Arthur Chisnall started out up a jazz club in the ballroom. And the relaxation was rock historical past.
The first act was Ken Colyer’s jazz band, but by June 1963 Eel Pie Island was internet hosting the Rolling Stones – each Wednesday evening for 3 months. They gained £45 at first, but as their superstar increased so did their price – to £55.
In 1964, a musician named Davy Jones, who was not previous plenty of to drink, joined the Manish Boys on phase. He later on grew to become identified as David Bowie.
Jimmy Site, Rod Stewart and Eric Clapton were among a lot of other songs luminaries. Any one substantial in the British blues explosion played Eel Pie Island, and when rock was youthful Elton John (then Reg Dwight) was regularly in the audience.
By the time The Who previewed their rock opera Tommy in 1968, the unique jazz club experienced shut and Colonel Barefoot’s Rock Backyard experienced planted itself in the hotel. With the clientele becoming ever more unique, the local police took an unhelpful curiosity in the goings-on on Eel Pie Island.
As the Sixties disintegrated, so did the material of the lodge and the musical qualifications. It became a commune, which just one occupant explained as overrun by an interesting cross-portion of modern society: “Dossers, hippies, runaway college youngsters, drug dealers, petty intruders, heroin addicts, artists, poets, bikers, American hippie visitors, au pair ladies and Zen philosophers from all about the earth.”
The lodge burnt down in 1971, leaving the rebels without a commune. In the previous 50 %-century, Eel Pie Island has prospered: boatyard firms and artists’ studios coexist with 150 people who enjoy lifetime on a hideaway just 50 percent-an-hour by coach from central London. But a specific radical spirit lingers, claims Celia Holman, who lives on the island and volunteers at the museum
“There’s a great deal of that environment from the Sixties that continue to continues to be on Eel Pie Island,” she claims.
“The component of creativeness is extremely much here.”