Sands End is an area of the ancient parish of Fulham, formerly in the County of Middlesex, which is now the southernmost part of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, England. In a deep loop of the River Thames, between the tidal Chelsea Creek and the old Peterborough estate, west of Wandsworth Bridge, its northern edge is New King's Road. While wharves, industrial acres and workers' cottages gave way to intensive re-development such as Chelsea Harbour and Imperial Wharf in the last quarter of the 20th-century, it still contains some 300-year-old cottages and 19th century streets.

For centuries, this swampy place was a rural backwater, cut off from other villages and the main thoroughfares into the City of London. Its earliest recorded landowner was John de Saundeford in the reign of Edward I. Barbara Denny, a contemporary historian, wrote that King Henry VIII granted the manor of Sandford to the Abbot of Westminster, but that in 1549 it returned to the Crown.

Ten years later, Queen Mary sold it to a mercer from London, William Maynard. Although the estate had a manor house, for centuries the land was used mainly for pasture. Singing nightingales in the 17th-century are said to have arrested the attention of essayist and politician, Joseph Addison (1672–1719), who came to live in his 'retreat' hereabouts, but probably not in Sandford Manor House, which is in present-day Rewell Street, and Grade II* listed. Another reputed resident was Nell Gwyn.

The historian of Fulham, Charles Féret (1852–1921), devotes several chapters of his three-volume work to the origins of Sands End. As distinct from ownership, settlement of the area did not begin till the Elizabethan era, as can be inferred from this extract from Féret:

A small volume might, indeed, be filled by citations of similar entries referring to lands which had belonged to Goldhawk 'at the Sand.' In the earlier Court Rolls one or two other persons are described as 'atte Sonde'. In 1454 we hear of a 'John Burton atte Sonde.' In a presentment of 1569 there is mentioned a 'Thomas Burton of Sandes.' It is not till the time of the Virgin Queen that we hear of the 'End,' from which we may infer that the nucleus of a tiny village was only then in course of formation. The earliest instance of the name is in 1566, when mention is made of the 'bridge at Sandeande.' In 1575 John Powell, gent, was required to make his fence between 'Gill Hale' and the premises of John Burton at 'Sands Ende.' Two years later this John Burton was ordered to scour his ditches (foveas) at 'Sand End', between 'Gilhalle' and 'Peasecroft' (see vol. ii. p. 83)

In spite of its rural charms, the area was affected by flooding, dampness and the effluent descending from Counter's Creek, sometimes referred to as a sewer, so by the early 19th-century, the estate was in decline. Dr Barton MD, author of 'the Lost Rivers of London', quotes a colleague from the West London Medical Journal, who had observed that rheumatism was unusually common on both sides of Counter's Creek from Shepherd's Bush to Chelsea.

In 1824, twenty acres of the estate were bought by the Imperial Gas Light and Coke Company, the first public utility enterprise in the world. So began almost two centuries of industrialisation and manufacturing. Craftsmen and artists were still attracted to its fringes, most notably, William De Morgan, a friend of William Morris and a member of the Arts and Crafts movement.

The growth of the Temperance movement produced yet another brewery in Fulham, only without any alcohol content. On an eight-acre site in Sands End, just east of Wandsworth Bridge, the Polish-born entrepreneur, Henry Lowenfeld built the Kops Brewery that started production in 1890. It lasted to the dawn of World War I when it was turned into a margarine factory and later turned to food logistics.