| Mortlake | |
|---|---|
.JPG) Mortlake from the Junction of Upper Richmond Road and Sheen Lane | |
  Mortlake Location withinGreater London | |
| Area | 4.50 km2 (1.74 sq mi) |
| Population | 10,919 (Mortlake and Barnes Common ward 2011)[1] |
| • Density | 2,426/km2 (6,280/sq mi) |
| OS grid reference | TQ205755 |
| London borough | |
| Ceremonial county | Greater London |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | LONDON |
| Postcode district | SW14 |
| Dialling code | 020 |
| Police | Metropolitan |
| Fire | London |
| Ambulance | London |
| UK Parliament | |
| London Assembly | |
| 51°27′56″N0°15′51″W / 51.4655°N 0.2643°W /51.4655; -0.2643 | |
Mortlake is a suburban[2] district of theLondon Borough of Richmond upon Thames on the south bank of theRiver Thames betweenKew andBarnes. Historically it was part ofSurrey and until 1965 was in theMunicipal Borough of Barnes. For many centuries it had village status and extended far to the south, to includeEast Sheen and part of what is nowRichmond Park. ItsStuart andGeorgian history was economically one ofmalting, brewing, farming,watermen and theMortlake Tapestry Works (1617–1704), Britain's most important producer. A London landmark, the former Mortlake Brewery or Stag Brewery, is on the edge of Mortlake.
TheWaterloo to Reading railway line runs through Mortlake, which has a pedestrianised riverside, two riversidepubs and avillage green.The Boat Race finishes at Mortlake every March/April.
The area lies within the Mortlake and Barnes Common ward of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. In the2018 local elections twoConservatives and oneLiberal Democrats were elected to represent the ward,[3] with two Liberal Democrats and oneGreen elected in2022.[4] The ward is part of theRichmond Park parliamentary constituency, and theSouth West constituency in theLondon Assembly.[5]
The place-name 'Mortlake' is first attested in theDomesday Book of 1086, where it appears asMortelaga andMortelage, a name with two possible derivations. If the second element is theOld Englishlacu meaning a stream, then the first element is very likely the fish-namemort meaning a young salmon, hence 'salmon stream'. If the second element is the dialectlag meaning a long, narrow marshy meadow, then the name means 'Morta's meadow'.[6]
Mortlake lay in thehundred ofBrixton, which faded into obscurity.[7]
According to the Domesday Book, themanor andparish ofMortlage[8] was held byArchbishop Lanfranc of Canterbury when its assets were: 25hides; 1 church, 2mills worth £5, 1fishery, 33ploughs, 20 acres (8 hectares) ofmeadow, wood worth 55hogs. It rendered a large £38 plus 4s 4d from 17 houses inLondon, 2s 3d from houses inSouthwark and £1 from tolls atPutney per year to itsfeudal system overlords.[8] The manor belonged to theArchbishops of Canterbury until the time ofHenry VIII, when it passed by exchange to the Crown. From the early part of the 17th century until after theEnglish Civil War, Mortlake was celebrated for the manufacture oftapestry, founded during the reign ofJames I at theMortlake Tapestry Works.
Mortlake was reduced by 732 acres (296 hectares) when Richmond Park was created byCharles I in 1637. Other parishes also lost smaller amounts of land to the newdeer park.[9]
Colston House's forebear was built byThomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex then acquired byEdward Colston, major benefactor and investor to the port city ofBristol. This was pulled down in 1860. John Barber, Lord Mayor in 1733, a suspected Jacobite opposed to the 'Georgian'House of Hanover but Member of Parliament for theCity on the strength of his opposition toWalpole's protectionistexcise scheme, was buried in Mortlake in 1741. He had given land to extend the churchyard. SirHenry Taylor,KCMG, the dramatic poet, lived in Mortlake in the 19th century.[10]
SirJohn Barnard,Lord Mayor of London in the year 1737 and also an MP, used public addresses and private campaigns to outstanding effect in supporting the government against the Jacobite movement in 1745.[10]
Since 1845, theOxford and Cambridge Boat Race has had its finish point at Mortlake, marked by theUniversity Boat Race stone just downstream ofChiswick Bridge. Several other importantrowing races over theChampionship Course also either start or finish at the stone. The first National School in Mortlake was built providing compulsory education at primary level in 1869, followed by an infants school in 1890 and county level, into secondary level school in 1906.James Chuter Ede taught there in the years leading up to his election toSurrey County Council in 1914, when he became the leading figure in the development of education in Surrey; he eventually becameHome Secretary throughout theAttlee administration.[11]
Katherine Jenkins, classical singer, lives in Mortlake.[12]
Tom Hardy, actor, producer, writer and former model, grew up in Mortlake.[13]
Apart from Archbishops of Canterbury, Mortlake's most famous former resident isJohn Dee (1527–1608/09),mathematician,astronomer,astrologer,alchemist and adviser to QueenElizabeth I. He lived at Mortlake from 1565 to 1595 except for the six years between 1583 and 1589 when he was travelling in Europe. His house no longer exists but it became theMortlake Tapestry Works and at the end of the 18th century was a girls' school.[14]
Sir Christopher Packe (1593?–1682),Lord Mayor of London, lived in Mortlake in about 1655–60.[15]
John Partridge (astrologer) (1644–c.1714) was born at East Sheen and apprenticed to a local shoemaker. He died in Mortlake and is buried there.[15]
Edward Colston, the English merchant,philanthropist andTory Member of Parliament who was involved in theAtlantic slave trade, lived at (old) Cromwell House (demolished 1857) from about 1689 until his death in 1721.[16]
The cemetery ofSt Mary Magdalen Roman Catholic Church Mortlake contains thetomb of the Victorian explorer and orientalistSir Richard Burton (1821–1890).[17]
Former British Prime MinisterHenry Addington (1757–1844) who, as Lord Sidmouth, was Ranger ofRichmond Park, and after whom the park's Sidmouth Plantation is named, is buried atSt Mary the Virgin Mortlake.[17][18]
Ada Lovelace (1815–1852), English mathematician and writer, lived in Mortlake when she was 15 years old.[19]
Mortlake is mostly a residentialcommuter town with a strong history of self-employed trades as it has traditionally centred its commerce on its foreshortened boundary, the Upper Richmond Road, arguably half part ofEast Sheen. Some businesses on the north side of the Upper Richmond Road make reference to the old ecclesiastical and ward boundaries supported by their still Mortlake side streets.[20] East Sheen was once a manor in the parish of Mortlake and since early times an economic forum, and now a dining and convenience hub of the two districts. TheVictoria County History's volume on Surrey, written from 1910 to 1912, does not list East Sheen as a parish, describes its detailed history under Mortlake and states the parish was "now connected with Barnes on one side and with New Richmond on the other".[10][21] With the advent of motor transport, the buildings onMortlake's winding high street, also known as the Lower Mortlake Road, have been mostly residential or used by the brewery.
In the 1840s Charles James Philips and James Wigan acquired Mortlake Brewery, which had existed since the 15th century.[22]
In 1889 the brewery was acquired by James Watney & Co., which in 1898 becameWatney Combe & Reid after acquiring Messrs.Combe Delafield and Co. and Messrs. Reid and Co. When Watney's Stag Brewery inVictoria, London, was demolished in 1959, the name was 30 years later, applied to Mortlake Brewery. Being the last phase ofThe Boat Race which refers to all the traditional local names, it is still widely referred to as the Mortlake Brewery.[22]
The brewery became part ofScottish Courage, briefly part ofHeineken and was then divested toAnheuser-Busch Europe Ltd as it produced the company'sBudweiserpale lager. In January 2009,Anheuser-Busch InBev said that the company was proposing to close the Stag Brewery in 2010 as a result of a merger between InBev and Anheuser-Busch.[23] In November 2015, it was announced that the site had been sold for £158m to Reselton – part of Singapore's City Developments, which also bought the formerTeddington Studios. The brewery closed in December 2015[24] and there are plans to build 850 apartments on the 22-acre (9-hectare) location.[25]
Mortlake affords an undistracted view of the river as its riverside promenade is set by its buildings including the former brewery, unlike the embankment style roads along other London banks such as in Barnes untilBarnes Bridge.
The two largepubs at either end of the riverside promenade are notlisted buildings:
Places of worship include:
These are minor stops on theWaterloo–Reading line which has four branch lines: toWindsor Riverside station, toWeybridge and back to the London terminus viaKingston upon Thames orBrentford. The stations are only served by trains on the latter two lines, as services to Windsor or Reading bypass both.
This railway is a narrow bisector of the settlement, being generally on the flat with its streets, which tend to run perpendicular to it. It runs in the middle of Worple Way, separating it into north and south sides.
Adjacent to Mortlake Station is Queen Victoria's old Waiting Room – now occupied by a classic car showroom – built for her and Prince Albert as they frequented White Lodge in Richmond Park, where their family and later their son, Prince of Wales (later Edward VII ) lived.
To ensure that all the local authoritywards have electorates of approximately the same size, the ward covering Mortlake also includes parts of Barnes.
| Ward | Detached | Semi-detached | Terraced | Flats and apartments | Caravans/temporary/mobile homes/houseboats | Shared between households[1] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mortlake and Barnes Common | 167 | 547 | 1,765 | 2,453 | 1 | 8 |
| Ward | Population | Households | % Owned outright | % Owned with a loan | hectares[1] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mortlake and Barnes Common | 10,919 | 4,771 | 27 | 32 | 185 |
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