Charles James Freake  came from a poor background. The son of a publican, he began life as a carpenter, but his entrepreneurial skill and forceful personality soon raised him to be a major player in the great building boom during Queen Victoria’s reign.

Freake’s father, Charles Freake, was originally a coal merchant.In the 1820s, he took a lease of the Royal Oak public house in Elizabeth Street, Belgravia (a mainstay of the blossoming Grosvenor Estate), Westminster. Being a publican apparently became his main business but he speculated in building projects.

In 1837, he granted his son (who was described as a carpenter) a sub-lease of a small mews house by the Royal Oak. In 1838, Charles James Freake (now described as a builder) acquired some house plots in Elizabeth Street. Over a five-year period he built forty houses in South Eaton Place and Chester Row, and on the south side of Eaton Square.

“an eminent builder”
Freake as caricatured in Vanity Fair, March 1883

Freake began his upward trajectory in 1838 building a few houses in Belgravia, but soon moved to develop Princes Gate in Kensington with substantial terraces to attract rich leaseholders. During the next fifty years he was the main contractor responsible for the continued expansion of South Kensington. Eaton Square, Onslow Square, Fulham Road, Cromwell Road and their environs were all laid out by him with sewers, communal gardens, mews stables and shops. Altogether Freake built more than five hundred large leasehold houses with elaborate internal fixings; some of these dwellings appear in census returns with up to ten servants . Three neighbourhood churches, not designed by Freake, were constructed by him and every scrap of land was put to good use. In Sydney Mews, behind Onslow Square, there was an awkward triangular space in which the sculptor Marochetti established his foundry: later a range of studios here were used by other famous sculptors and artists, including the sculptors Sir Edgar Boehm and Arthur Gilbert, and the painter John Singer Sargent.

Linley Sambourne’s cartoon of Freake in Punch

Freake became rich and famous but gave generously to philanthropic causes: he especially loved music and at his own expense built the National Training School for Music in 1875 (next to the Albert Hall, later named the Royal College of Organists). Its use was given free for five years and in 1878 Freake made over all his rights in the building to the Prince of Wales. For this generosity he was given a baronetcy in 1882 with formal (seldom used) territorial designation: of Cromwell House and of Fulwell Park and which died out in 1951.

Freake and his wife moved between various houses as each new area was completed, ending up at Cromwell House, 21 Cromwell Road, Chelsea which continued to be his London home for the rest of his life. They enjoyed entertaining, especially musical evenings which were very popular among the couple’s wealthy and well-connected friends. But Freake never became gentrified or lost his down to earth characteristics: it is said that his more genteel wife did not urge him to speak better but adopted his cockney accent for herself.

He married twice; his first wife died in childbirth, and he had three daughters by his second wife. His second wife, Eliza Pudsey, died 26 November 1900 at 11 Cranley Gardens, South Kensington In 1885 and 1900 probate calendars confirm she lived also in one of the couple’s additional homes, Fulwell Lodge in Twickenham. She had earned the title of Dame.

He died in 1884 and is buried in Brompton Cemetery, London. Even after his benefactions he was a shrewd businessman who at death had sworn (the next year) assets of £718,574 12s 1d (equivalent to £95,000,000 in 2023).

Fulwell Lodge

the house in 1871 seen from the north, the garden bordering the Crane River

Fullwell Lodge was a grand house, dating from the early 17th century, located north of the Staines Road, at the western end of what was then Twickenham parish, with Yorke/Fulwell Farm to its north. In 1871 Sir Charles, bought Fulwell Lodge, its grounds and estate worker’s cottages. His estate extended south from the A316 Chertsey Road and River Crane, and included the areas now known as Twickenham Green and Strawberry Hill, encompassing what are now Strawberry Hill Golf Course and Fulwell Golf Course. It extended to Apex Corner where the A312 Uxbridge Road now meets the A316, and was bounded to the South-East by the Shepperton Branch Line. Freake named the area Fulwell Park.

After Freake’s death in 1884, ownership of the estate passed to his wife, Eliza Pudsey. After her death in 1900, the land was held by Freake Estates, who leased some of it to establish Fulwell Golf Course in 1904. In 1910, the exiled last King of Portugal, Manoel/Manuel II, bought Fulwell Lodge as his English home, owning it until his death in 1932.

The lodge and its acres of grounds were then bought by a construction company, Wates, and demolished. The area was redeveloped as housing, with some low-rise, landscaped-grounds flats. Its history is acknowledged through street names: Manoel Road, Lisbon Avenue, Augusta Road and Portugal Gardens.

Fullwell Bus Garage

Fulwell Bus Garage was originally built as a tram depot for London United Tramways in 1902. The site formerly formed the southerly part of the FreakeFulwell Park Estate and came on the market following the death of the Dowager Lady Freake in 1901. London United Tramways acquired a 99-year lease of the site in April 1902 for a new tram depot. This was completed in March 1903, just as new tram routes to Hampton Court Palace started operating.

Further Reading

The Victorian Web
Wikipedia