Close at hand stands the Fulham Free Public Library. It came into existence in 1886, when an old building, standing a few feet back from the main Fulham Road, was adapted for offices, lending and reference rooms, and a new reading-room of magnificent dimensions--70 by 30 feet, and 22 feet in height--was added at a cost of £6,000. This was opened by the then Bishop of London, October 20, 1888.
Further westward, at the entrance of Chesilton Place, stands Munster Park Wesleyan Chapel, with a square tower surmounted by four high pinnacles. It was opened in 1882.
At the west entrance of the Munster Road stood Munster House, demolished in 1895. Faulkner spells it Mustow or Munster, and in John Rocque's Survey of 1741-45 it is "Muster." Lysons says: "Mustow (commonly called Munster) House on the north side of the road to London between Fulham and Purses Cross was during the greater part of the last century the property of the Powells, from whom it came to Sir John Williams of Pengethly, Monmouthshire, Baronet. It is now the property of Arthur Annesley Powell, Esq., and is occupied as a school." Faulkner mentions the tradition of its having been a hunting-seat of King Charles II. Croker says it is supposed to owe its name to Melesina Schulenberg, created by George II. Duchess of Munster. For some time before it was pulled down it was used as a lunatic asylum.
From Munster Road onwards the houses on the south side of the Fulham Road are not aggressively new. In the grounds of one of them--Eridge House--there is a fine cedar, which shows that the grounds must have belonged to some building older than that standing at present, probably that of Fulham Lodge. On the east of the High Street stand All Saints' National Schools. In the continuation of the High Street is an old house on the left-hand side called Fulham House. It stands back on the east side of the road behind a wall. Some of the carving on the fireplaces and doors is very elaborate. In a large room upstairs a sumptuously carved wooden mantel encloses a coloured marble block with a white marble centre. The door of this room is also very fine. The cellars are extraordinarily large and massively built. This used to be called Stourton House. Faulkner mentions that in 1449 John Sherbourn and others sold a house and garden at Fulham, then valued at 3s. 4d. per annum, to John, first Lord Stourton, and it remained in possession of the family many years. The Fulham Pottery and Cheavin Filter Company stands just at the corner of the New King's Road and Burlington Street. The business was established here by John Dwight in 1671. Specimens of his stone-ware are to be seen in the British Museum, which in 1887 acquired twelve new examples. It is said that John Dwight, M.A., of Christ Church College, Oxford, was the inventor of porcelain in England. He also discovered the mystery of the Cologne ware, and successfully competed with it in England. Doulton himself, the founder of the great Doulton ware, was an apprentice at Fulham. In 1840 the buildings were greatly enlarged and improved, and again in 1864. The ornamental pottery which is still made--though in a small quantity--resembles Doulton ware, but the great development of the industry has been in the direction of glazed ware of great resisting power. Cheavin's patent filters are sent all over the world, and a speciality is made of the chemical trade, immense baths for the electro-plating acids being supplied to Government.