I've rotated the map so that Trinity Road runs East-West to show more clearly the pattern in our streets, and how the layout is almost symmetrical, left and right. There are also patterns in the streetnames.
Last week I wrote about the remarkable pattern in the streets and buildings around us - the rough rectangle between Trinity Road and Garratt Lane, Burntwood Lane and Magdalen Road. I began to think about it while we walked around and around as part of our daily exercise.
There's also a pattern in the road names - nearly all have associations with Oxford.
But first, here's a short piece about Sophia Sheppard, regarded (by the college itself) as "Magdalen's Fairy Godmother".
I've rotated the map so that Trinity Road runs East-West to show more clearly the pattern in our streets, and how the layout is almost symmetrical, left and right. There are also patterns in the streetnames.
How and why did these overall patterns come about?
Because once upon a time nearly the whole area was owned by one person - a very rich widow, Sophia Sheppard (1769/70 - 1848). She inherited most of it from her husband the Reverend Thomas Sheppard, a former Magdalen Fellow and close friend of her brother, Martin Routh (1755-1854), President of Magdalen College.
When her husband died c.1814, Sophia bought and sold various plots round Wandsworth to consolidate her holdings. (She also had land elsewhere in the country, for example Tilehurst in Berkshire.) In the long term, this allowed the development of the area to be planned as a whole (more or less), and not piecemeal - much the more usual, rather chaotic way.
If you want to see the difference having one owner rather than many makes to the subsequent development of an area compare Sophia Sheppard's relatively unified holding with the crazily patched and re-patched "Bridge Field", at the top of the map near the river. This had numerous owners with one or more strips (or "shotts") each, seemingly at random. Over time, Bridge Field became the higgledy-piggledy "Tonsleys" and neighbouring streets.
Click on the map a few times to see Sophia Sheppard's land holdings in relation to today's streets. Loxley Road is marked in pink on the modern map.
At the time of her death in 1848 Sophia Sheppard owned even more of Wandsworth east of the Wandle than Earl Spencer. Everything then went to Magdalen College, which was controlled by Sophia's brother, its long-lived President Martin Routh.
After about 1890, the area was gradually developed in phases (and fits and starts) - first, the area near the more industrialised Garrett Lane, and also the "Toast Rack" - originally called "College Park".
It's a fascinating story, but perhaps not one for today.
My next little piece will be on how the Magdalen-connection influenced the choice of our street names.
Note: I am indebted to Dr Charlotte Berry, Archivist at Magdalen College, for corresponding with me about Sophia Sheppard, even though the lockdown has closed the Archive and she has very little time available to her to respond to the flood of other people's enquiries.
<< Index: The Hidden History of Our Streets
Please contact me, Philip Boys / 14 Loxley Road, if you have any comments, queries or information to add. And if you want any more of this kind of thing...