- The name Shepherds Bush is thought to have originated from the use of the common land here as a resting point for shepherds on their way to Smithfield Market in the City of London. An alternative theory is that it could have been named after someone in the area, because in 1635 the area was recorded as "Sheppards Bush Green”
- Evidence of human habitation can be traced back to the Iron Age. Shepherd's Bush enters the written record in the year 704 when it was bought by Waldhere, Bishop of London as a part of the "Fulanham" estate.
- During World War I a pioneering orthopaedic hospital, the Shepherd's Bush Military Hospital (now known as the Hammersmith Hospital), was built in Shepherd's Bush to care for wounded soldiers, largely thanks to the efforts of the noted surgeon Robert Jones. In 1916 the Joint War Committee awarded the hospital the sum of £1,000 to begin its work, soon followed in 1918 by a further grant of £10,000. The hospital was also supported by donations from the public. Part of the rehabilitation process involved putting the recovering patients to work in local shops, a policy which does not appear to have been entirely popular among the soldiers themselves.
- Like other parts of London, Shepherd's Bush suffered from bomb damage during WWII, especially from V-1 flying bomb attacks (known as "doodlebugs" or "buzzbombs"), which struck randomly and with little warning.
- On the 13th of April 1963 The Beatles recorded their first ever BBC broadcast at Lime Grove Studios in Shepherd's Bush. The group returned in 1964 for a further recording. Lime Grove Studios was demolished in 1994 to make way for residential accommodation.[12]
- More recently, the Shepherd's Bush bus station is housed in the redeveloped Dimco Buildings (1898), Grade II listed red brick buildings which were originally built in 1898 as a shed for a London Underground power station.[13][14] The Dimco buildings were used as a filming location for the ‘Acme Factory’ in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and later served as the interior of the British Museum in The Mummy Returns.[15]
- Significant communities of travellers from Australia and New Zealand exist in Shepherds Bush
- Shepherds Bush was one of the original stations, opening with the West London Line on 27th May 1844…. At the time the station opened Shepherds Bush was little more than a village and although the area was described by a surveyor as "unpaved and full of rats, the surface strewn with refuse of almost every conceivable description, offensive and disgusting, emitting effluvia of the most nauseous character". Despite this damning report the company still hoped to generate passenger revenue and a substantial brick station house was provided backing on to the existing coal depot…. The station did not live up to expectations and closed with the line on 1st December 1844.” (http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/u/uxbridge_road/index4.shtml)