The History of Wandsworth Common

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[HOWC DRAFT 1, 7 April 2026, based on KB’s original manuscript, May 2023]


Bridge Field, Wandsworth,
from Medieval Open-Field strips to Victorian suburb

Part Two, 1841–1914

A Building history

Keith Bailey


Contents

Part I: 1600–1841

Part II: 1841–1914

– The Coming of the Railway 1845–1846
– Housing Development in Bridge Field 1845–1900
– House Building in Bridge Field 1845–1870
– Building Estates in Bridge Field 1840–1914
– Bridge Field Builders 1857–1870
– Bridge Field Builders 1871–1902
– The Social Structure of Bridge Field in 1900
– Education & Religion
– Conclusion

Notes


[Part II: Bridge Field Transformed 1841–1914]

Part II: Bridge Field Transformed 1841–1914


The Coming of the Railway 1845–1846

The medieval strips and furlongs of Bridge Field were not fully enclosed until after the arrival of the railway in 1845–6. The tide of suburban development began to reach the area in the 1850s, although it took fifty years for the process to be completed. The railway acted as a catalyst for change in land ownership. It also had a significant impact on the local landscape, providing few links between north and south. There was, however, no direct relationship between the provision of the new mode of transport and the building of new streets. Relatively few new residents are likely to have worked in London. Wandsworth Town station was never busy with “commuter” traffic until the 1980s.

As early as 1836, there had been an unsuccessful scheme for a railway from Southwark Bridge to Richmond, crossing the northern end of Bridge Field. In 1844, a scheme for a line from the London & Southampton Railway at Falcon Bridge (later the site of Clapham Junction), opened in 1838 from its original terminus at Nine Elms. The Richmond & West End Junction Railway received the Royal Assent in July 1845.4 The route posed few civil engineering challenges and was opened only one year later on 27th July 1846. The line crossed Windmill Shot and the northern part of Swandon Shot on a low embankment, with a skew bridge over York Road. The first Wandsworth Station was located on the east side of North Street.

[Fig. 7: Richmond Railway Deposited Plan 1845]

York Road, which cut across fifteen strips in Swandon Shot, is no.30a on the Deposited Plan. Two other tracks (5a and 14a) also cut across strips, while no.35 ran along the east side of the seven recently-enclosed strips (TA 93).

Table 10: Concordance Between Tithe Map & Richmond Railway Deposited Plan

TA No.UseAc.OwnerOccupierDep. Pl.
137Garden0.73Benjamin GostlingJoseph Wood Pavitt52
138Ho/Gdn0.64Wandsworth Parishna50/51
139Mkt Gdn0.77Thomas PhillipsRaynor55–60
140/143Houses0.45nana44–49
142Ho/GdnDaniel LangtonB.C. Luttley53/54
Little Swandon Shot
TA No.UseAc.OwnerOccupierDep. Pl.
217Mkt Gdn2.26Benjamin GostlingJohn Marter1
Swandon Shot
TA No.UseAc.OwnerOccupierDep. Pl.
218/37Mkt Gdn0.74John MarterJohn Marter3
218/36Arable1.37Mrs WalkerJohn Carter4
218/35Mkt Gdn0.72John MarterJohn Marter5
–Path5a
218/34Mkt Gdn0.34John MarterJohn Marter6
218/33Mkt Gdn0.31John MarterJohn Marter7
218/32Mkt Gdn0.68Charles MorrisGeorge Carter8
218/31Mkt Gdn0.36Edward PainGeorge Carter9
218/30Mkt Gdn0.69Benjamin GostlingWilliam Carter10
218/29Mkt Gdn0.68Moses Getting execsJohn Carter11
218/28Mkt Gdn0.31C. MorrisJohn Carter12
218/27Mkt Gdn2.02Moses Getting execsJohn Carter13
218/26Mkt Gdn0.61James ArnoldJohn Carter15
218/25Mkt Gdn0.36Daniel Watney ex-AttleeWm. Carter/Forsyth17
218/24Mkt Gdn0.33Benjamin GostlingWilliam Carter18
218/230.66Benjamin GostlingJohn Marter19
218/22Mkt Gdn0.39Daniel Watney ex-AttleeW Forsyth20
218/21Mkt Gdn0.71John CarterJohn Carter21
218/20Mkt Gdn0.31Moses Getting execsJohn Marter22
218/19Mkt Gdn0.31Moses Getting execsJohn Marter23
218/18Mkt Gdn0.36Moses Getting execsJohn Marter24
218/17Mkt Gdn1.38Daniel Watney ex-AttleeW Forsyth25
218/16Mkt Gdn0.75John CarterJohn Carter26
218/15Mkt Gdn1.36John CarterJohn Carter27
218/14Mkt Gdn0.80Benjamin GostlingWilliam Carter28
218/13Mkt Gdn0.76Benjamin GostlingThomas Phillips29
218/12Mkt Gdn0.58Benjamin GostlingJohn Carter30
York Rd30a
218/11Mkt Gdn0.34Benjamin GostlingMrs Plumridge31
218/10Mkt Gdn0.31Benjamin GostlingJohn Marter32
218/9Mkt Gdn0.57Benjamin GostlingJohn Marter33
218/8Mkt Gdn0.68Benjamin GostlingJohn Marter34
Paths34a/35
93**Pasture3.32Gostling/E. BlackmoreM. Blackmore/T. Phillips36–38

** Previously strips 1–7 in Swandon Shot

Seventy parcels of land lay within the Richmond Railway’s Limits of Deviation between the Battersea boundary and North Street.5 Relatively few existing roads and tracks were provided with bridges. The embankment needed to gain height to cross the Wandle still forms a largely unbroken barrier.

Despite being conveniently located for the town centre, the first Wandsworth Station on North Street was closed c.1860 and replaced by one on the present site. Wandsworth station was rebuilt in 1885–86 when the line between Clapham Junction and Barnes was quadrupled. It was renamed Wandsworth Town in October 1903. Although taking only 3% of Bridge Field at its maximum, the railway acted as a real barrier.

The largest holding impacted by the railway was that of excise officer Benjamin Gostling, who owned 8.71 acres plus 3.32 acres jointly with E. Blackmore. Dairyman John Marter, the executors of insurance broker Moses Getting, and market gardener John Carter of Battersea owned a similar area between them.

The only existing buildings directly affected lay at the west end of Warple Way and in Warple Road. By 1850 the arrival of the railway and resale of surplus land had transformed the medieval legacy of Swandon and Windmill Shots, leaving only a few field paths which appear on Stanford’s 1862 Library Map and the Ordnance Survey 5ft Plan of 1866.

The Thames at Wandsworth was not bridged until 1873, with an iron toll bridge costing £40,000. Tolls were abolished in 1880. The present bridge opened in 1940. The six-lane dual carriageway Trinity Road extension passes under East Hill in a cutting and effectively destroyed the last area of Bridge Field to be developed before 1900. Equally damaging to the Victorian legacy is the large roundabout at the York Road junction. The only major survivor is the LCC tram depot of 1906–8, now listed Grade II.

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Housing Development in Bridge Field 1845–1900

In Windmill Shot in 1840, there were a few isolated houses on the south side of Church Walk and a terrace of four at the junction of Warple Way and Road. Six Georgian houses stood on the west side of Jews Row. The 1841 Census records fifty houses in Bridge Field with 277 residents, less than 4% of the total for Wandsworth. Along East Hill were around ten houses in 1841, though several plots remained vacant.

There was no building along the entire length of York Road apart from the White House at the west end, and only one house on the east side of North Street. Two large houses had already been built on East Hill by 1787, when they were occupied by local distiller Richard Bush and silk broker Thomas Tatlock. In 1841 the former was owned by Charles Morris and occupied by Lord Duncannon (1793–1844), who also occupied several strips owned by Morris in Hill Side Shot.

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House Building in Bridge Field 1845–1870

Sources systematically recording new houses and their builders commence in the mid-1840s, coinciding with the first significant wave of building. The District Surveyor’s returns survive from 1845–52 and from 1871 onwards. The gap is largely filled by the notices-to-build submitted to the Wandsworth District Board of Works between 1857 and 1870. As would be expected from the complex landownership in the area, there is a multiplicity of building estates, some very small, but others large by contemporary standards.

The first significant building activity took the form of imposing almshouses called St Peter’s Hospital, built for the Fishmongers’ Company in 1849–51. There were forty-two three-roomed houses in the Tudor style with a Gothic chapel, ranged on three sides of a landscaped quadrangle. The architect was Richard Sutor and the cost £25,000. In the early 1920s the site was sold to the LCC and replaced by municipal flats, with only the ornate gates surviving.

[Fig. 8: St Peter’s Hospital c.1850]

The first wave of new housing in Bridge Field after 1841 was in Windmill Shot, south of the long-established Waterside community. Table 11 summarises the dramatic transformation of Bridge Field, accomplished in a little over six decades.

Table 11: House Building & Population in Bridge Field & Wandsworth 1841–1901

YearBridge Field Houses*Bridge Field Pop’nWandsworth Houses*Wandsworth Pop’nBridge Field % HousesBridge Field % Pop’n
184150277131576143.803.64
185177507152296115.065.28
18611126391909133465.875.87
1871277183224331978311.3914.00
1881847523042492800419.9318.67
1891964550272564671714.0211.78
1901181810643107996840316.8315.56

* Occupied houses

In 1841, less than 4% of Wandsworth’s population lived in Bridge Field, which only increased to 6% by 1861. There was a sharp peak in the building cycle across London in the mid- to late-1860s, during which the population of Wandsworth increased by almost 50%. Bridge Field, however, experienced nearly threefold growth in that decade, mostly along and north of York Road.

[Fig. 9: Bridge Field 1866 (1st ed. OS 25-inch plan)]

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Building Estates in Bridge Field 1840–1914

Given Bridge Field’s complex history, involving several manors and a persistent open-field system, it is not surprising that house-building was both protracted and piecemeal. In 1840, prosperous local horticulture meant that the incentive to “modernise” the medieval landscape was weak. The general thrust of building was from west to east, suggesting that early demand came from the growing local population, rather than “proto-commuting” by the newly-arrived railway.

In the sixty years after 1840, Bridge Field was transformed out of all recognition. The number of houses and population increased almost fortyfold, compared with less than tenfold for Wandsworth as a whole. From the equivalent of a small village, Bridge Field grew to the size of a small town.

Brief summaries for each street or group of streets follow.

1. Alma Road c.1857

This marks the beginning of what became the only direct link between Wandsworth Station and East Hill. Alma Road is one of the few former field-tracks directly incorporated in the new street layout, retaining two shallow curves in the central section. The name and that of the Alma Tavern in York Road commemorate the Crimean War battle of 20th September 1854. The first recorded building is a single house by a Thomas Smith in late-1857. Alma Road was progressively extended southwards in stages, eventually reaching East Hill in the late-1870s.

[Fig. 10: Alma Road looking south c.1910]

2. Tonsley Hill/Place/Road c.1861

Although known nowadays as The Tonsleys, the development of this group of streets was complex and protracted.6 They take their name from Tonsley Hall in North Street. This development included some old enclosures and parts of Hill Shot, and connected North Street to East Hill rather circuitously. Tonsley Hill was not extended to York Road until 1880.

The earliest documentary reference to the nascent “Tonsleys” is a lease of October 1852.7 The parties were (1) Thomas Baxter of Wandsworth, gentleman, (2) John Sims builder and (3) John Bellchambers tailor. A likely developer is local builder David Nicholson senior (1797–1860) and David Nicholson junior (1824–79), who in 1851 had 260 employees between them. The first cartographic evidence for the Tonsleys is Stanford’s Library Map of London, surveyed 1860/61.

3. Marl Street 1866

Edward Robins’ application for a street connecting Jews Row and Warple Way was approved in August 1866. Samuel Churchill’s application for the thirteen houses on the west side was approved in December 1866.

4. Rymer Road & Smardale Road 1867

The application by surveyors Richardson & Waghorn of Charing Cross was approved in February 1867. These two roads were short cul-de-sacs off Alma Road: Rymer Road with six houses on each side, Smardale Road with three on the north and four on the south. There were a further fifteen houses in Alma Road.

5. Podmore Road/Ballantine Street/Dalby Road 1868

These streets were approved in January 1868. The applicant was distiller Daniel Watney, whose family connection with Bridge Field long-predated the railway. The east side of Ballantine Street was built in 1868 by a J.H. Mason. The west side stood vacant until 1880, when it was built by John Boss of Chiswick, who also built Dalby Road (west side 1878; east side 1880).

6. The Fairfield Estate 1869

This was much the largest scheme of the 1860s building boom. In 1841 and into the 1880s, most of the land belonged to the Gostling family. The plans of architect and surveyor George Lewis Hunt (1839–81) of Harleyford Road, Kennington, were approved on 26th February 1869. The estate included strips 1–17 in Swandon Shot and a series of old enclosures south of the main road. The new streets were Ferrier Street, Morie Street, Edgel Street and Balfe Street. This densely-packed neighbourhood contained 236 houses when complete, including many shops lining York Road.

7. Bridgend Road (1873)

There appears to have been no formal approval for this road, which provided the essential link between Wandsworth Bridge and York Road. The gestation period of the bridge had been protracted, with Acts in 1864, 1867 and finally 1870.8 A terrace of twenty-one houses was built on the west side.

[Fig. 11: York Road looking west from Wandsworth Station c.1910]

8. Coleford Road & Fullerton Road 1875

These streets were approved in April 1875, along with an extension of Alma Road south of St Faith’s.

9. French Horn Fields 1876

A proposal for three new streets at French Horn Fields and an extension of Fullerton Road was made by H.G. Hills on behalf of the Wandsworth District Board of Works in August 1876. The land in question had been strips 6–14 in Hill Shot in 1841. The French Horn & Half Moon on the south side of East Hill dated from the early 19th century. The impetus for this development apparently came from the Lands Allotment Company. Also in July 1876, Messrs. Podmore and Martin gave notice for four new streets: Dighton, Dempster, Birdhurst and Fullerton Roads.

[Fig. 12: Dighton Road c.1910]

10. Eltringham Street 1877/1879

This street originated as a medieval track, part of the boundary between Windmill and Swandon Shots. On 30th November 1877, the MBW approved an application by Lee Brothers & Pain for an extension to Bramford Road and Eltringham Street. Much of the York Road frontage was soon lined with shops. Progress thereafter was fitful and culminated with the building of the Board School in 1884.

11. Ebner & Handel Streets 1879 (Fairfield Estate)

These streets had already been approved as part of the Fairfield Estate development in 1868. Together with the northern leg of Tonsley Hill, they represent the portion of this estate south of York Road. The applicant was Richmond auctioneer, surveyor and estate agent Albert Chancellor, acting on behalf of Colonel Gostling-Murray.

12. Birdhurst Road 1883

On 10th August 1883, the application of solicitor Christopher Page Deane (1851–1900) was approved by the MBW. The forty-two houses in Bramford Road south of the railway were probably built by J.W. Barwell of Peckham in 1877–8.

13. Elmsleigh Road 1883

The two large houses next to the Fishmongers’ Almshouses survived until the early 1880s. The application for Elmsleigh Road was made by William Stanbury in August 1883. Stanbury (1840–1925) was one of the area’s largest builders, with an output of 184 houses 1879–98.

14. Coligny Street 1884

This cul-de-sac off Eltringham Street was approved in May 1884. The applicant was architect and surveyor Charles Herbert Shoppee of Bedford Row (1852–1915). It was named after leading French Huguenot, Gaspard de Coligny (d.1572).

15. Flavell Road 1886

The application for the last of five streets between Podmore Road and Dighton Road was made by C.P. Deane in May 1886. The west side was built in 1887 by J.T. Boss of Birdhurst Road. The east side followed in 1896 with thirteen houses by Sidney Grist of Streatham and eight by Turtle & Appleton of Battersea.

16. Cotman Street 1887

Formerly part of Eltringham Street.

17. Elmsleigh Road & Terrace 1883/1891; Huntsmoor Road and Geddes Road 1891/1900; & Podmore Road extension 1900

The last piece of the development jigsaw of Bridge Field was finally put in place at the very end of the Victorian era, forty years after building began in earnest. In December 1900 builders Turtle & Appleton received approval for extensions of Geddes Road and Podmore Road.

One novel feature of the final phase of building was several groups of half-houses or maisonettes. Each ‘house’ had two front doors leading to self-contained flats. There were twenty-four half-houses in Elmsleigh Road, fifteen in Huntsmoor Road and thirteen in Flavell Road, a total of 104 flats.

Huntsmoor and Geddes/Elmsleigh Roads marked the culmination of six decades of piecemeal development in Bridge Field. They suffered considerable bomb damage 1939–45, after which many Victorian houses were replaced by prefabs. Much worse was to follow, as this area lay on the route of the road linking Trinity Road and Wandsworth Bridge.

Table 12: Bridge Field — Houses Notified & Built 1857–1913

StreetActualDSRDateStreetActualDSRDate
Alma Road891251857–88Ferrier Street63701878–1900
Ballantine Street50531868/80Flavell Road41491887/96
Birdhurst Road561071877–84Fullerton Road66871876–86
Bramford Rd N rly22Handel Street19211881/82
Bramford Rd S rly43Huntsmoor Road92901891–1902
Bridgefield Grove22Jews Row44351867–84
Bridgend Road21John Street [W]32
Coleford Road25281876/77Marl Street24131866
Coligny Street20191884/85Morie Street1771879
Cotman Street26North Street [E]40361859–83
Dalby Road46451878–80Rymer Road12151868/79
Dempster Road49501877/78Smardale Road741887
Dighton Road30271877–81Tonsley Hill75951862–88
East Hill51Tonsley Place771863/78
Ebner Street29291882/83Tonsley Road41411863–81
Edgel Street771879/80Warple Road30211863–85
Elmsleigh Road*901081884–1902Warple Way78531859–84
Elmsleigh Terrace551884York Road1532061859–84
Eltringham Street55671878–87Total15771537

* Earlier Geddes Road

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Bridge Field Builders 1857–1870

Between 1857 and 1870, the information is provided by the minutes of Wandsworth District Board of Works, which record 336 houses (including two public houses and ten shops), built by forty builders. Few were responsible for more than ten houses, and many appear only once in the records.

Table 13: Bridge Field — Principal Builders 1857–1870

FromToStreetNo.Applicant
59/02York Rd14+PHNiblett, Joseph
63/0269/05Tonsley Hill/Place30East, Wm Edward
63/0368/01Tonsley Hill/Place/Rd26Atkinson, William
65/01Wandsworth Stn [nr]29Mason & Goodman
66/12Marl St13Churchill, Samuel
67/0768/02Alma Rd/Ballantine St17Mason, J H
68/12York Rd, Mr Perrin’s land20Wallis, F

Source: Wandsworth District Board of Works Minutes

William Atkinson (1817–83), a carpenter, was born at Tonbridge, Kent and living at Wandsworth by 1841. Fourteen of his houses were in Tonsley Hill and ten in Tonsley Road. In 1871 Atkinson lived at one of his houses, 34 Tonsley Road, describing himself as a ‘master builder, employing eight’.

Samuel Churchill, who gave notice of thirteen houses in Marl Street in 1866, has so far eluded identification.

William Edward East (1799–1886) gave notice for thirty houses between 1863 and 1869, four in Tonsley Place and the rest in Tonsley Hill. East lived in Wandsworth for many years, describing himself as a ‘landed proprietor’. He moved from Duntshill to Tonsley Hill in the 1860s, where he died, leaving an estate of £7,861.

J H Mason made a significant contribution to Bridge Field in 1867–68 and was probably responsible for 29 houses ‘near Wandsworth Station’ in 1865. He was in partnership with a Mr Goodman, probably bricklayer James Goodman.

Joseph Niblett gave notice for fourteen houses and a public house in York Road in 1859. He was a surveyor and “Inspector of Nuisances” who lived for many years in Putney before retiring to Peckham.

F. Wallis applied for twenty houses ‘on Mr. Perrin’s land’ in December 1868. Unfortunately, neither Wallis nor Perrin seems to have left a documentary trail.

Joseph Plumridge (1817–87), a local master baker, provides a rare link with the past. He was responsible for some houses in Warple Way 1859–67.

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Bridge Field Builders 1871–1902

The attrition of former open-field strips, enclosed fields, meadows, and the private grounds of the few 18th- and early-19th century houses continued for another three decades. After the late-1860s output fell dramatically. It was not until the late-1870s that activity picked up, leading to an all-time peak in the early to mid-1880s.

Between 1871 and 1906, sixty-four builders worked at Bridge Field, producing between them 1,282 houses and two small tenement blocks. Activity was especially intense between 1876 and 1884, when 994 houses were built, about three-quarters of the total. The seven builders of more than fifty houses contributed half of the total.

Table 13: Principal Builders in Bridge Field 1871–1906

BuilderActiveTotal
Barwell, John William1876–80200
Boss, John Thomas1879–87109
Turtle & Appleton1896–190481
Field, Leonard1877–8071
Gibson, John Thomas1877–8369
Parr, J1892–9359
Verran, Joseph1879–8154
Mulliner, William1881–8445
Lyons, Cornelius1878/8143
Hobbs, John Enston1877–7838
Ray, Alfred1876–7733
Young, William1879–8332
Martin, Arthur187730
Stanbury, William1884–8725
Glegg, W [Plaistow]189121

John William Barwell (1839–1904) was born at Wilbarston, Northamptonshire. Originally a plasterer and slater, Barwell became a publican at the Greyhound Hotel in Croydon. He first appeared in Bridge Field in February 1876 with twelve houses in Fullerton Road, and over the following four years built around 200 houses across many streets including Coleford Road, Birdhurst Road, Dempster Road, Fullerton Road and York Road. By 1891 he had retired to Woodford in his native Northamptonshire as a farmer.

John Thomas Boss (1854–1927) was born at Clerkenwell. He built 109 houses in Bridge Field between 1879 and 1887, beginning with seven in Dalby Road, then twenty-three more in 1880. In 1882 came eight houses in Tonsley Hill. His focus moved east in 1883, with twenty houses in Birdhurst Road, followed by twenty-one more in 1884. His final contribution, in early-1887, was twenty-eight houses in Flavell Road and two in Podmore Road. He left an estate of £9,153.

[Fig. 13: John Boss]

Benjamin Turtle & George Appleton were responsible for eighty-one houses in Bridge Field between 1896 and 1904. Turtle (1852–1928) was the son of a local miller and lived for many years at no.148 St John’s Hill. George Appleton (b.1859) returned to his native Essex in the 1900s.

Leonard Field was born at Kelling, Norfolk. His first local building consisted of three houses between York Road and the railway in 1868. In January 1877 Field gave notice of 19 houses in York Road, followed in October 1878 by 25 in Eltringham Street. Field died at 465 York Road in 1886, leaving £6,502.

John Thomas Gibson (1844–1917) was born at Crowland, Lincolnshire. His main sphere of activity was in Dighton Road, Ballantine Street and York Road. In 1878 he built twenty houses in Dighton Road including four shops, and twenty-one in Ballantine Street. He left an estate of £4,627.

Joseph Verran (1845–1934) was born at Lanlivery, Cornwall. He built exclusively in the north-east corner of Bridge Field, starting with nine houses in John Street and eighteen in York Road in November 1879. He retired to Streatham Hill, dying there at the age of eighty-nine and leaving £33,433. He is commemorated in Verran Road, Balham.

William Mulliner (1825–90) was born at Mellis in Suffolk. His busiest year was 1883, with six houses on the north side of Eltringham Street and eleven with shops in York Road. Despite his apparently successful career, Mulliner left only £5 in his will.

Cornelius Lyons (1835–1921) was born at Blarney in County Cork. His contribution at Bridge Field was an impressive terrace of forty-three houses on the north side of Ferrier Street in 1878, wedged between the road and the railway embankment. In 1911, Lyons was an inmate at the Tooting Home for the Aged & Infirm, where he died aged eighty-six.

John Enston Hobbs (1860–1919) was born at Folkestone. His contribution to Bridge Field consisted of thirty-eight houses in 1877–78: eleven in French Horn Fields and East Hill, sixteen in Dempster Road and eleven on the east side of Alma Road.

William Young (1820–85), a lifelong resident of Clapham, was originally a cooper by trade and turned to bricklaying in the 1850s. He was active in Bridge Field 1879–83, first in North Street, then in Ferrier Street and Ebner Street. Young died at Park Hill, leaving a modest £1,244.

Alfred Ray (1836–1913) was born at Portsmouth. He built thirty-three houses in Alma Road in 1877–78.

William Stanbury (1845–1925) was born at Okehampton. He and his son John (1863–1937) rank high amongst the hundreds of builders who worked in Victorian Wandsworth, with a combined output of 555 houses. William worked at Bridge Field in 1884–85, building eleven houses in Elmsleigh Road and thirteen houses and shops on East Hill.

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The Social Structure of Bridge Field in 1900

By coincidence, the updating of Charles Booth’s social survey coincided locally with the 1901 Census, enabling us to take stock of six decades of momentous change in Bridge Field. Booth’s famous colour-coded maps depict a generalised social classification.9 His scheme employed eight colours: Yellow (wealthy); Red (well-to-do); Pink (fairly comfortable); Purple (poverty & comfort mixed); Light Blue (moderate poverty); Dark Blue (very poor) and Black (lowest class).

[Fig. 14: Charles Booth’s Poverty Map of Bridge Field 1900]

The Bridge Field survey was updated in September 1900 by Booth’s collaborator, barrister Arthur Baxter (1860–1923), accompanied by Constable Stanley Pilfold. In his general comments Baxter writes: ‘This walk is divided into two very distinct districts by the railway. To the south it is a good and respectable working-class district with a few middle-class as one mounts the hill; little or no poverty. North of the railway, if correctly coloured, it has greatly deteriorated. Apart from Bridgend Road there is not a street that is not rough, poor and troublesome. Eltringham Street is now no worse than nearby streets, with some slight impact on the lowest strata through the civilizing influence of school, police and religion. Throughout all these streets, especially Warple Way, are a good many prostitutes of the lowest class.’

Table 14: Bridge Field 1901 — Social Class of Household Heads (%)

Classification after Armstrong: II = Lower middle-class; IIINM = Skilled non-manual; IIIM = Skilled manual; IV = Semi-skilled; V = Unskilled.

StreetIIIIINMIIIMIVV
Warple Way050.025.08.316.7
York Road3.755.618.518.53.7
John Street18.762.512.56.3
Eltringham Street11.111.133.344.4
Marl Street40.040.020.0
Bridgend Road12.525.050.012.5
Bridgefield Gdns33.333.333.3
Warple Road11.155.533.3
Jews Row4.545.518.131.8
Coligny Street75.025.0
Cotman Street22.233.311.133.3
Bramford Road16.738.938.95.5
Tonsley Hill5.025.045.020.05.0
Tonsley Place25.050.025.0
Tonsley Road25.012.562.5
Handel Street37.537.525.0
North Street100.0
Rymer Road33.366.7
Smardale Road50.050.0
Coleford Road12.537.537.512.5
Ebner Street27.863.69.1
Fullerton Road35.035.020.010.0
East Hill35.742.921.4
Ballantine Road31.237.518.812.5
Dalby Road7.135.728.021.47.1
Dighton Road18.218.254.59.1
Dempster Road17.664.717.6
Birdhurst Road17.623.535.311.811.8
Elmsleigh Road100.0
Flavell Road15.446.123.115.4
Geddes Road13.754.522.79.1
Huntsmoor Road16.744.427.811.1
Total7.332.534.516.09.7

Lower middle-class households in 1901 were concentrated in the southern half of Bridge Field, east of Alma Road. Class III accounts for two-thirds of the households, evenly divided between the skilled manual and non-manual groups. The remaining quarter of household heads were semi-skilled or unskilled. York Road marks a clear dividing-line between the industrialised north and the almost exclusively residential south of Bridge Field.

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Education & Religion: A Summary

A long-established school in Warple Way was replaced by a Board School in 1880 with accommodation for 1,297. Eltringham Street Board School dated from 1886 and could accommodate 1,502. St Faith’s National School was much more modest, with room for 372.

By 1900, a variety of churches, chapels and mission rooms was available across Bridge Field. The Anglican “district” church of St Faith, built in 1882, was centrally located in Ebner Street. By 1900, there was a Baptist Church and Sunday School and a Unitarian Chapel on East Hill, together with a Wesleyan Mission on North Street.

[Fig. 15: Unitarian Church, East Hill, c.1900]

Charles Booth’s Religious Influences (1902) describes St Faith’s parish as ‘having a fairly settled population and position’, but then contradicts this by noting ‘there is a very shifting element that continually passes through — here one day and gone the next’. The secular entertainments offered by the mission hall were described as ‘crowded’, while ‘semi-social, semi-religious meetings’ for men ‘which conclude with coffee and tobacco are not more than semi-successful’.

Table 15: Religious Attendance Bridge Field 1902–3

Church &cMorning: M / W / Ch / TotalEvening: M / W / Ch / TotalTotal
St. Faith3751152240438568196436
Baptist184190244618158249384451063
Unitarian445338135505016116251
264 York Rd*71032020
344 York Rd**41392626
Total2652944549932624071348031796

* ‘Eltringham’; ** London City Mission. M = Men; W = Women; Ch = Children.

Given a local residential population of c.11,000 by 1900, these figures show how limited the reach of organised religion was in the 1900s.

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Conclusion

The survival of medieval strips and furlongs or shots in large parts of Wandsworth and Battersea until the 1830s reflected the compatibility of the system with market gardening. Having been auctioned off by Earl Spencer in 1836, Bridge Field was never formally enclosed. The medieval landscape gradually faded away after 1840, along with old enclosures. The arrival of the railway in 1845–46 affected scores of strips in the northern half of Bridge Field and acted as a catalyst for a process of informal enclosure. It was not until the late-1850s, however, that the unstoppable expansion of South London began to engulf the remaining strips and enclosures.

As we have seen, the process of covering Bridge Field with bricks and mortar was both piecemeal and protracted. The ups and downs of the building cycle saw the availability of capital alternating between feast and famine, directly impacting the spread of housing. Locally, there were peaks in the building cycle in the 1840s, the mid to late-1860s and the 1880s to early 1890s.

By 1900, as Arthur Baxter’s first-hand account showed, every aspect of suburban life was to be found in north-east Wandsworth: with drunkenness and prostitution in close proximity to working- and middle-class respectability. There was plenty of manual employment close at hand in the gasworks, Price’s Candles, the distillery and other local industries, including of course construction. Both York Road and East Hill provided a wide range of shops and drink outlets, as well as easy access to central London. York Road was served by horse-trams from 1881, East Hill from 1882. After seven decades, the railway which provided this corner of Wandsworth with easy access to central London was electrified in 1915–16.

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Notes

1 D. Gerhold, Wandsworth’s Lost Fishing Village, Wandsworth Paper 25 (2012).

2 J.G. Taylor, Our Lady of Batersey, (London, 1925) Appendix A, 310–311.

3 Surrey History Centre 3991/1.

4 8 & 9 Vict., cap. cxxi.

5 Surrey Heritage Centre.

6 Bizarrely, Tonsley has given its name to a suburb of Adelaide in South Australia; see https://tonsley.com.au.

7 WA Deeds/3265.

8 Wandsworth Bridge Act, 33 & 35 Vict. c.cxxv (1870).

9 The complete sheets were published by the London Topographical Society as Charles Booth’s Map of London Poverty in 1889, Publication No.130 (1984). Wandsworth is in the Third Series: Religious Influences, Vol.5, pp.197–207.

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Draft version, May 2023. © Keith Bailey. All rights reserved.

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