My involvement in local politics – by David Williams

I first got involved in local politics at the 1970 general election just over 3 years after we had moved here. Ham had no Liberal Association, it was one of the derelict wards, to use the standard term, and I was asked would I go round and collect a few memberships, which was a gentle way of getting involved, collecting five shillings off this person and five shillings off somebody […]

Ham development held back by poor transport – by David Williams

Because it has poor transport it wasn’t developed very much in the 19th and early 20th century so it is like it is now not just like an over-built London suburb the contrast being the southern half of Ham which was transferred to Kingston in 1933 which is now the Tudor estate, completely covered by housing.  There is nowhere that was transferred to Kingston in 1933 apart from the Hawker […]

The Richmond/Kingston boundary went through people’s flats – by MS

You see we’re a funny mixture, we’re basically in Richmond but part of the flats when we first came here were in Kingston but it took an arrangement in the end between Richmond and Kingston that Parkleys would be Richmond.  But the boundary actually went through people’s flats!  It was a bit awkward.  I think Ham Farm Road, the plots there got sold and settled before Parkleys, now I know […]

House numbering problems in Lock Road – by EB

Well we did have problem on this side of the road in 1969, one house was sold, (Hermiston) and five houses were built in its place.  Lady Dartmouth worked for the London County Council at the time and they decreed that they wanted to call 55A,B,C…  “Oh no” she said “that doesn’t sound nice” she said” no they can have proper numbers and the houses in the rest of the […]

Council house demand – by EB

From Richmond, it’s a Richmond council house, Mead Road.  They’d built Mead Road, Cleves Road and Lovell Road by then.  They were in rooms in Long’s Cottages which had to be demolished and they were told we will give you a council house if you let us but my mother and father had just married when this order came and they were lodging with my aunt and my father’s brother.  […]

Fighting to save Ham Lands – by David Williams

The biggest campaign that I was fighting in the 1970s was stopping building on Ham Lands. What had happened with Ham Lands is they were former gravel pits, disregarded and looked upon as ‘the wasteland’, one of the names for it used on the Wates Estate in the 1960s.  But the planning history of it was that Wates got permission to build on the 70 acres which is the Wates […]