In King Street West, after No. 229, there is a Methodist Chapel, with an ornamental porch. A few doors westward are the new or Upper Latymer Schools, with the arms of the founder over the doorway. The buildings are in red brick, with stone facings.
Returning to the north side of the Hammersmith Road, which has for some time been overlooked, we find the King's Theatre, stone-fronted and new, bearing date 1902. Near it is the West London Hospital, instituted May, 1856, and opened in July of the same year. Since that time it has been greatly enlarged, and an immense new wing overlooking Wolverton Gardens has been added. The hospital was incorporated by royal charter, November 1, 1894. It is entirely supported by voluntary contributions.
Near the Broadway is the Convent of the Sacred Heart, standing on ground which has long been consecrated to religious uses, for a nunnery is said to have existed here before the Reformation. In 1669 a Roman Catholic school for girls was founded here, and in 1797 the Benedictine nuns, driven out of France, took refuge in it. The present buildings were erected in 1876 for a seminary, and it was not until 1893 that the nuns of the Sacred Heart re-established a convent within the walls. The present community employ themselves in teaching, and superintend schools of three grades.
There stood in the Broadway until within recent years a charming old building called The Cottage--one of those picturesque but obstructive details in which our ancestors delighted. Behind the Congregational Chapel there is an old hall, used as a lecture-hall, which was originally a chapel, and which is said by Faulkner to be the oldest place of worship in Hammersmith. It was built by the Presbyterians. The first authentic mention of its minister is in 1700, when the Rev. Samuel Evans "collected on the brief for Torrington at a meeting of Protestant Dissenters held at the White Hart, Hammersmith, 13s. 6d."
In the Brook Green Road Nos. 41 to 45 contain an orphanage called St. Mary's Catholic Orphanage for Girls. On Brook Green itself one or two old cottages with tiled roofs are still to be seen--reminiscences of old Hammersmith. The long strip of grass, in shape like a curving tongue, justifies the name of "Green." Dr. Iles' almshouses, known as the Brook Green Almshouses, have long been established here, though the present buildings date only from 1839. They stand at the corner of Rowan Road, and are rather ornately built in brick with diamond-paned windows. The charity was founded in 1635 by Dr. Iles, who left "houses, almshouses, and land on Brook Green, and moiety of a house in London." The old almshouses were pulled down in 1839. At the north end of Brook Green, next door to the Jolly Gardeners public-house, stood Eagle House, a very fine old mansion, only demolished within the last twenty years. Bute House stands on the site. Eagle House was built in the style of Queen Anne's reign, and had a fine gateway with two stone piers surmounted by eagles. The back of the house was of wood, and the front of brick, and there was a massy old oak staircase. Like many other old houses, it became for a time a school.