The History of Wandsworth Common

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Last modified: 16 October 2026

Wandsworth, Wandsworth Common and Clapham Junction in the 1860s
The Ordnance Survey five-foot town plan

Six sheets of the Ordnance Survey’s town plan of London at five feet to the mile (1:1056), surveyed in the 1860s, joined into one map. At this scale a single house is drawn with its bay windows, steps and garden paths, and every tree is shown. The map runs from the Thames and the mouth of the Wandle, through Wandsworth High Street, to the northern half of Wandsworth Common and the Black Sea, East Hill and St John’s Hill, Clapham Junction, Lavender Hill, Battersea Rise and the new streets off Bolingbroke Grove. Zoom right in: the detail is extraordinary.

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Drag to move; scroll, pinch or double-click to zoom; the buttons at the top right zoom in and out, return to the whole map, fill the screen, and (the arrow) take you back to the top of this page; the small map at the bottom left shows where you are.

The sheets. London sheets X.58 (the Thames, the mouth of the Wandle, Lower Mill and the Wandsworth & Putney Gas Works), X.68 (Wandsworth High Street, All Saints Church, the Brewery, Upper Mill and South Field), X.59 (Bridge Field, York Road and St John’s Hill), X.60 (Clapham Junction, Lavender Hill and Battersea Rise), X.69 (East Hill, the north-west of Wandsworth Common and the Black Sea) and X.70 (Bolingbroke Grove, Chatham Road and the north-east of the Common), surveyed in the 1860s. Each sheet has been squared up to its printed border and the six joined edge to edge; the margins and titles have been removed.

The colouring. The paper has been evened out to a warm cream and the engraved lines sharpened. The original sheets show buildings by fine stippling; these have been given a soft rose tint so that streets and houses stand out. A few buildings may have been missed, or a garden tinted by mistake: please tell us if you spot one.

See also. The 25-inch map of the same years, which covers a much wider area at a smaller scale.

Ordnance Survey maps of this age are out of copyright. Joined and prepared by Philip Boys, with Claude, from scans of the original sheets.

Build 3.