The site Richmond Ice Rink in a sense replaced a
roller-skating rink at a very similar location. This had been built before the
First World War on Cambridge Road, East Twickenham, part of the lands of the historic
Cambridge House owned by the poet
Richard Owen Cambridge and his son Archdeacon George Cambridge. The disused rink was bought in 1914 by the French industrialist Charles Pelabon for use as a munitions factory. He built four or five more workshops over the extensive site, and one of the last was the red-brick riverside building of 1915 which later became Richmond Ice Rink. From 1914 to 1919 up to 6,000
Belgian refugees, some of them injured soldiers, settled and established
a community in the Twickenham and Richmond area after the Germans invaded their country, many of which became workers at the factory.
The new rink After the war almost all the Belgian refugees returned home, but Charles Pelabon continued to use the site for general engineering until 1924. He then sold it to Charles Langdon, who had developed the ice rink at
Hammersmith. then chaired by
John Beckwith and his brother Peter, who intended to develop the site for luxury housing. The planning consent stipulated that the company had to construct a new rink on an alternative site in the borough. In 1989,
Richmond upon Thames Council accepted £2.5 million as compensation and withdrew this condition. In 1992, the rink closed and the building was demolished. No replacement rink has been built. ==See also==