John Buckmaster lived for more than thirty years in a small "jerry-built... compo. thing called a villa" in New (now Prested) Rd, off St John's Hill. When he moved there, the surroundings were still fairly rural, though the London-Southampton train line had recently cut through the area. Within a short time his road became one of the entrances to the new Clapham Junction railway station, though (perhaps strangely?) he stayed there for [30+ years].
[PB: Buckmaster hated "compo." — "stucco or lime-cement mortar, also known as composition or 'compo' mortar" — that in his view was used to disguise poor workmanship and "rotten bricks". Exact dates he lived there?]
[Earlier map? The Tithe Redemption map shows things in the early 1840s, not longer before he arrived. See e.g. HistoryWandsworthCommon: Tithe map.]
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Notice that "St John's Hill" is called "Wandsworth Road".
New Rd became Prested Rd well before 1912
"Before we got married we had to find a house."
[JCB plans to marry, and finds a house off St John's Hill — then an area rather different from now.]
"Before we got married we had to find a house. Our income was small, and we had to be modest in our rent. After going about within a mile radius of my work, we settled on a compo. thing called a villa. I hated it, but my future wife thought it would do very nicely, as all future wives do. I was only reconciled to it because it was in a muddy lane, surrounded by cabbage gardens and orchards, and on a spring evening I could sit in a little garden, not much larger than the house, and scent the hawthorn and lilac and hear the cuckoo. The house was a wretched, jerrybuilt affair , and gave us no end of trouble and expense." [A Village Politician, p281]
In the absence of a garden, his children played on the Common — which at that time (though not for long) stretched conveniently close to their house. Many of Buckmaster's battlegrounds involve the enclosure of the Common and the stoppage of paths within a few hundred yards of his home.
"...very recently the Brighton Railway Company has enclosed with a well-tarred fence 6ft. high several acres of the very best part of the common, without, so far as I can learn, any authority, and without any apparent necessity.
"The place where my children used to play for hours is now a sort of potato garden, and as I have very little space attached to my house the children I must shortly either tramp the dusty roads or be made uncomfortable all day in a small playroom."
[From a letter to The Times, 3 September 1863]
John Buckmaster's address is usually recorded as "New Rd, St John's Hill" (or just "St John's Hill"). [I'm sure I've seen reference to a house number somewhere — no 2?]
You can see it here. You will also see how many tree and gardens there were nearby.
This is 1895-ish:
(Click on image to enlarge)
This is a 1930s map (from https://maps.wandsworth.gov.uk/)
(Click on image to enlarge)
Prested Road is still (just about) there
(Click on image to enlarge)
Dismal, isn't it.
