This affluent neighbourhood in the east of family-friendly, middle-class Fulham looks your typical south western suburb, with its leafy Victorian and Edwardian streets, but its south eastern corner contains some of London’s important sporting heritage. Craven Cottage, the historic stadium of Fulham FC, sits right on the picturesque bank of the Thames and attracts some of the country’s most polite football fans to the area for every home game. The neighbourhood is designed to accommodate those who attend the games, so there’s an abundance of attractive riverside pubs and cafes, as well as great transport links in the form of Putney Bridge, Parsons Green, and Fulham Broadway stations, all on the District line. The Grade I-listed Fulham Palace also sits to the south east, and with its medieval origins and exquisite surrounding gardens attracts tourists keen to absorb some local history and sample the riverside views. The highly residential nature of this area leaves convenient retail streets in short supply, but nearby Putney and Fulham town centre can cater to most needs.

The name Fulham is thought to derive from “Fulanhamme”, meaning “of fowls”, referring to the bend in the river on which the town sits. Fulham Palace is the manor of the former parish and was the summer residence of the Bishops of London for around nine centuries. The rural fields, market gardens and quaint medieval villages began to develop properly in the 19th century with the advent of the District Railway and the construction of Craven Cottage football ground by Archibald Leitch on the site of a large former cottage built by William Craven. Into the 20th century Fulham was a predominantly working-class area until the widespread gentrification of the 1960s began to transform the area into the middle-class enclave that it is famous for today.

The Scottish inventor John Logie Baird (1888-1946), lived in the neighbourhood at 57 Ellerby Street for a number of years, before moving to Hastings in the mid-1920s due to ill health. Logie Baird is best known for inventing and demonstrating the first ever television on the 26th January 1926.

In the year 879AD, Vikings from Denmark landed on the banks of the Thames in Fulham while they sheltered from the harsh winter.

Because of the neighbourhood’s quaint, village feel and accommodation of football fans, convenient amenities for locals can be in short supply, with no large supermarkets particularly nearby. The proximity to Craven Cottage can also prove a slight inconvenience during gamedays, when roads are closed, and noise levels are up, however most residents don’t seem to mind and knew of this long before they moved to the area.

In such a sport-focussed neighbourhood, it comes as no surprise that the major developments are coming from the wealthy Fulham FC, who wish to expand the stadium by 8,650 seats. They also wish to provide new local amenities and refurbish parts of the nearby Bishop’s Park, where they also wish to build an 85m long pier out into the river to receive passenger vessels. Fulham FC announced that fans will be able to use the new Riverside Stand at Craven Cottage from next season, and that the project will now be fully completed for the 2023-24 campaign. The new two-tiered stand will increase the venue’s capacity from 25,700 to 29,600, with restaurants overlooking the river, events spaces, a health club complete with roof-top pool, a boutique hotel and a roof terrace also in the original plans.