History of the area

18th century

Two hundred years ago, Earls Court was a collection of hamlets, grand estates and market gardens in rural Middlesex clustered around Counter’s Creek. Like all the 55 tributaries that once flowed down to the Thames, this ‘lost river’ has shaped the history of this part of London. Its waters created rich and fertile soil, and fruit, vegetables and flowers were grown here and taken to Covent Garden market every day by horse-drawn cart to feed the increasingly prosperous capital.

19th century

When Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837, it signaled a new era of urban development and innovation for London, and Earls Court in particular. Counters Creek had been converted into the Kensington Canal in the 1820s, but after an outbreak of cholera, it was filled in to create the West London Extension Railway in 1863. The Metropolitan District Railway Company bought a patch of waste ground that now forms part of the Earls Court Project Area and built West Brompton Station on Lillie Road and Earls Court Station a decade later. New transport links made Earls Court part of the infrastructure that helped build the world’s first metropolis. Where Counter’s Creek once flowed, brick-makers, brewers and factories sprang up.

The wealthy local landowners moved further out of town, their mansions were pulled down and their estates bought up by entrepreneurial property developers. Streets and crescents of terraced houses were built for railway workers and the clerks who commuted into London’s financial district. In 1889 the London County Council was formed, the city limits expanded and Earls Court officially became part of London.

The Victorian middle classes expected landscaped parks, exhibition halls and pleasure gardens, and in 1887 an entrepreneur called John Robinson Whitley transformed two acres of derelict land into the Earls Court Exhibition Grounds. This spectacular covered space had gardens, rides, pavilions and a grand arena where he staged Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. Millions of visitors flocked to Earls Court which became known for innovation and entertainment, and less than a decade later Whitley built the Earls Court Gigantic Wheel. Spanning an impressive 300 feet (the London Eye is around 450 feet), it had views across London that stretched as far as Windsor Castle.

20th Century

By the turn of the century, Earls Court had become a prosperous London suburb and its old, stately mansions had been converted into hospitals and schools. Industry moved away, but when the Earls Court and Olympia Exhibition Centres were built in the 1930s, the area kept its reputation as a centre of innovation and entertainment. These state-of-the-art venues became celebrated centres of globalization, innovation, new technology and popular culture. They formed part of a ‘valley of giants’ which included Lots Road Power Station, Stamford Bridge Football Stadium, the BBC complex and the hospital and prison complex on Old Oak Common (Wormwood Scrubs) which stretch north of the Thames along the ancient riverbed of Counters Creek.

21st Century

London has already changed dramatically over the last decade. Customers are demanding different experiences and their expectations are changing. The new Excel and O2 exhibition centres have shifted much of the city’s conferencing to the east. The ‘valley of giants’ is undergoing an urban renaissance that will secure London’s status as a global city. The old power station on Lots Road is being redeveloped, and Old Oak Common has been earmarked as a prime site for a high-speed super station connecting Heathrow with the rest of Britain.

The Earls Court Project offers an historic opportunity to create a new neighbourhood that would be an integral part of one of the best parts of one of the world’s greatest cities. It could transform an urban backland that’s strategically located near Heathrow at the end of the M4 corridor into a front door to Central London.

Tell us about the history of the area

We’d like to record the heritage of the local area and reference its legacy in The Earls Court Project. Tell us about its famous local residents and landmarks by registering and posting comments.