Black Lion Lane

Black Lion Lane runs north through Hammersmith from the River Thames to King Street, passing a cluster of early nineteenth-century listed terraces that have survived the twentieth century almost intact. The Regency elegance of St Peter’s Square opens immediately to the west, and the Anglican St Peter’s Church stands on the lane itself. The Great West Road, driven through in the 1930s, severed the lane’s southern end—what lies below is now known as South Black Lion Lane.

2013

Black Lion Lane, Hammersmith

Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0

2018

26 and 28 Black Lion Lane

Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

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Historical image not found

Today

Hammersmith — near Black Lion Lane

Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0

The southern stub still leads down to the Thames towpath and to the pub that gave the entire street its identity. That name did not fall on the lane by accident.

The lane takes its name directly from the Black Lion public house, a riverside inn on what is now South Black Lion Lane. As documented by British History Online in the Survey of London (Vol. 6), the old river stairs at the foot of the lane were themselves named after the inn, confirming how completely the tavern defined the locality. The pub is believed to date from around 1754, in the reign of George II. Earlier maps—specifically Salway’s plan—recorded the route under a different designation before the inn’s identity became dominant.

The “black lion” was a common heraldic inn sign in early modern England, derived from the arms of various noble families. Which blazon the original landlord chose to display is not recorded. What is recorded is that by the late eighteenth century the sign had given its name to the stairs, the lane and the surrounding neighbourhood—a topographical identity confirmed by the Survey of London.

The Black Lion pub anchored the riverfront well before the lane acquired its present character. The inn is believed to have originated around 1754, and by 1804 it was infamous across London as the scene of the “Hammersmith Ghost” affair. Sightings of a white-clad figure haunting the lanes and churchyard had terrified the neighbourhood for months. On 3 January 1804, excise officer Francis Smith, having spent the evening at the Black Lion, confronted an innocent bricklayer named Thomas Millwood—dressed in the white work clothes of his trade—and shot him dead. The inquest into Millwood’s death was held at the Black Lion itself. Smith was convicted of murder, though his sentence was commuted to a year’s hard labour.

The lane’s domestic fabric took shape in the early nineteenth century. Most of the houses date from this period, many surviving as listed buildings. The 1820s saw St Peter’s Square—one of west London’s finest Regency set-pieces—laid out directly to the west. St Peter’s Church followed in 1829, anchoring the street’s northern character. The Great West Road bisected the lane in the 1930s, permanently altering its geography but leaving both surviving sections largely unchanged.

The Black Lion pub is a Grade II listed building, and as noted by Historic England, it dates from the late eighteenth century. A separate Historic England listing covers the 1842 terrace at Nos. 36–46—brown brick, slate roofs, two storeys with arched entrances and gauged heads—as a coherent Regency-to-early-Victorian streetscape. The pub’s beer garden contains a 400-year-old sweet chestnut tree, one of the oldest in inner London. Its famous skittle alley, though no longer in operation, was once celebrated as one of the finest in the country.

The lane’s literary dimension is quieter but real. A. P. Herbert—novelist, playwright, MP and campaigner for Thames waterway rights—made the Black Lion his local during the early twentieth century. A painting of Herbert still presides over what is remembered as “his” corner table inside the pub.

Philip James de Loutherbourg—painter of battles and landscapes, stage designer for Garrick at Drury Lane, and Fellow of the Royal Academy—settled at Hammersmith Terrace, which runs eastward off Black Lion Lane, around 1783. As recorded by British History Online, he remained there until his death on 11 March 1812, spending his later years in mystical pursuits and claims of healing powers that drew large and unruly crowds to the terrace.

Stephen Milligan—Conservative MP for Eastleigh, journalist, and Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Defence Minister—lived at No. 64 Black Lion Lane. He was found dead there by his secretary Vera Taggart on 7 February 1994, having failed to appear in the House of Commons. The coroner’s inquest, held on 22 March 1994, returned a verdict of death by misadventure.

The death of Stephen Milligan on 7 February 1994 made Black Lion Lane one of the most reported addresses in Britain that year. Milligan’s death became entangled with John Major’s “Back to Basics” policy, widely seen as an appeal to social conservatism—a context that sharpened the political damage. The Eastleigh by-election triggered by his death was won by the Liberal Democrats, a seat the Conservatives had held since 1922. Milligan left £500 to St Peter’s Church, Hammersmith, a short walk from his home.

His death later inspired the character of Julian Fawcett—a half-naked ghostly MP—in the BBC sitcom Ghosts (2019–2023), extending the lane’s inadvertent cultural presence into the twenty-first century.

Black Lion Lane today is a quiet residential street in Hammersmith, its Georgian and early Victorian terraces sheltered from major development by their listed status. St Peter’s Church remains active, and Westcroft Square lies just north across King Street. The Cross Keys pub occupies the lane’s northern section. At the southern end, the Black Lion continues to serve the riverside community it has anchored for more than two centuries.