There is evidence of occupation of some riverside areas around Hammersmith as far back as Roman and Saxon times, and the area was referred to in the Domesday Book. The name may possibly be a shortening of "Hamoder's Hythe", i.e. the landing-place of a man named Hamoder.
However it was not until the arrival of the railways that the present day district of Hammersmith began to develop. The extension of the Metropolitan Railway to Hammersmith from Paddington in 1864, followed by the District Line in 1874, began a period of considerable expansion and the second half of the 19th century saw a huge increase in population from 10,000 in 1801 to 250,000 in 1901.
Consequently, house construction and industrial development flourished. Major industrial sites included the Osram lamp factory at Brook Green, the J. Lyons factory (which at one time employed 30,000 people) and the largest municipal power station in Britain, built near the gasworks in Sands End.
All these have subsequently been closed and redeveloped as the area has moved from an industrial base to a greater focus on commerce and services.
Hammersmith is a natural centre of activity, located at the confluence of a key arterial route out of central London (the A4) with several local feeder roads and a bridge over the Thames. The focal point of the district is the commercial centre (the Broadway Centre) located at this confluence, which houses a shopping centre, bus station, an Underground station and an office complex.
Stretching about 750m westwards from this centre is King Street, Hammersmith's main shopping street which contains its second shopping centre (King's Mall), many small shops, the Town Hall, the Lyric Theatre, a cinema and two hotels. King Street is supplemented by other shops along Shepherd's Bush Road to the north, Fulham Palace Road to the south and Hammersmith Road to the east.
Hammersmith's office activity takes place mainly to the eastern side of its centre, along Hammersmith Road and in the Ark, an architecturally-unique office complex to the south of the flyover which traverses the area. The offices of Bechtel, Coca-Cola, Disney, EMI, L'Oreal, Sony Ericsson, World Wrestling Entertainment, AOL UK, and Accor UK are all found in Hammersmith. Two NHS hospitals provide jobs in Hammersmith - Charing Cross Hospital to the south of the centre on Fulham Palace Road, and Ravenscourt Park Hospital to the west by Ravenscourt Park. Charing Cross Hospital is a large multi-disciplinary hospital with an accident & emergency department and teaching department run by Imperial College London, whilst Ravenscourt Park Hospital specialises in orthopaedics and related surgery.
In addition to the cinema and pubs of King Street, leisure activity also takes place along Hammersmith's pedestrianised riverside, home to a number of pubs, rowing clubs and the riverside park of Furnivall Gardens. Hammersmith also has a large municipal park called Ravenscourt Park located to the west of the centre. Its facilities include ponds, tennis courts, a basketball court and creche. The whole area is covered by the same W6 postcode as Hammersmith town centre.