Trinity Fields: A Field with No Name

[p. 7]

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A Field with no Name (1852-1882)

You have to know the past to understand the present.
Carl Sagan (1934–96)

Early Days

Early accounts of the Field’s location within the manor of Wandsworth are enshrined in history. Before the Conquest of 1066, it is likely that firstly Edward the Confessor and then Harold II appear to have been landlords. In 1086, Wandsworth Common is referred to in the Domesday Book as the common land of the Manor of Battersea and Wandsworth and perhaps unsurprisingly, as Battersea West Heath and Wandsworth East Heath with the Field in the latter.

Sometime later, ownership of this area passed to Westminster Abbey. This ended with the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1540 when the lands reverted to the Crown. In 1627, Sir Oliver St John (a cousin of Sir Walter St John) whose ancestors had come over with the Conqueror, bought the manor of Wandsworth and Battersea from the Crown for £4,050.

Upon his death, the estate passed to Sir Walter St John’s cousin William Villiers, but essentially remained in the St John family until 1763, when in order to settle debts, it was sold and bought in Trust for John Viscount Spencer. Although nowadays the present Earl Spencer as ‘Lord of the Manor’ has only nominal powers – he is only responsible for authorising and appointing the Vicar of Battersea – in those days, and for at least a further hundred years after he acquired Wandsworth Common, he imposed, it could be said, an almost feudal grip on the area for his own benefit.

Originally the area known as Wandsworth Common was far larger than it is today and consisted of heathland, gorse bushes and scrub interspersed with the occasional isolated manor house, villa, or farm, with views towards and in some cases across the Thames to the north.

It was essentially open countryside, and by all accounts it was a windswept and ‘wild’ place extending from East Hill in the north, and southwards to and beyond Burntwood Lane and Bellevue Road, which runs west to east across the Common. Although Burntwood Lane predates the Field by more than a century, as it is mentioned on a John Rocque map of 1746, it was not until 1832 that maps begin to show the Field in essentially its present form shortly after Burntwood Lane, which links Wandsworth Common with Garratt Lane, had been consolidated into a proper, and using the word loosely, ‘thoroughfare’, between the latter and, via Nightingale Lane, effectively linking it with Clapham Common.

At that stage the Field was still essentially part of Wandsworth Common. Some reports of Burntwood Lane describe it as a ‘drove’ road used principally for the movement of cattle and sheep between Wandsworth Common and Garratt Green. On the other sides, the Field was delineated by what is now Trinity Road and Beechcroft Road, the latter hardly not much more than a track, and in its early days to the south, separated by fields from Wandsworth Lodge.

Wandsworth Common itself however was regarded less favourably than Clapham Common and between 1794 and 1866 there were no fewer than fifty-three enclosures depriving it of around 50% of its original area. For a brief period from 1839, Wandsworth Common was managed on a similar basis to Clapham Common with five lessees, including Henry McKellar at Wandsworth Lodge, nearby.

However, these arrangements were terminated in 1851 and by the mid-1860s the improvements made during that time were no longer evident. A combination of enclosures and [p. 8] excessive gravel digging had drastically reduced the Common’s size and the quality of the surviving land, which was often waterlogged during the winter.

The Common by then, as a result, was little used for grazing. All but one of the public footpaths had been stopped up and an area formerly used as a cricket ground (not the Field it seems) had become useless. On the southern edge, and technically beyond the Common was Wandsworth Lodge, which had been home to Henry McKellar since around 1836.

The main access to this building was directly off Trinity Road in the vicinity of where Crockerton Road is today. It was a large estate with Wandsworth Lodge as its centrepiece, a luxurious residence with extensive grounds, lawns, outdoor pool, a fountain and a driveway, with the estate itself consisting principally of fields and orchards.

Its area was expanded over time (sometimes allegedly without proper authority) by enclosing sections of the Common into the estate. McKellar claimed that his ‘enclosures’ as they were called, were necessary because gypsies on the Common endangered his property but according to an opponent ‘he rather encouraged these encampments by giving the gypsies beer, and then made it an excuse for his enclosures.’ By the time of McKellar’s death in 1862, the Wandsworth Lodge Estate extended to around 143 acres, straddling the parish boundaries of Wandsworth and Streatham.

Indeed, the old parish boundary effectively ran along the route of the dividing garden fence between Crockerton Road and, for the most part, Brenda Road as it is today.

During this time Henry McKellar had also been steadily and assiduously increasing his influence by enclosing an area between 1848 and 1856 that became known as ‘McKellar’s Triangle’ which was neatly bounded by what is now Bellevue Road, Trinity Road and St. James Drive. However, during this period, McKellar had turned his attention to another ‘piece of land’ he wished to enclose, which was the Field itself.

At the time, although Burntwood Lane and Trinity Road effectively limited its extent, it was still open common but on 20 September 1852 it was conveyed to him by Earl Spencer for the sum of £180 subject to the following covenants that;

i) The said land should be forthwith enclosed and be used as arable pasture or market garden only, and that

ii) In the meantime, no building whatsoever shall be erected or built on the said premises by Henry McKellar his heirs or assigns to use the land otherwise.

If buildings were erected without such licence or permission, a right of re-entry was given to Earl Spencer. These covenants made between Earl Spencer and Henry McKellar at that time, have since formed the cornerstone for maintaining the status of ground over the generations. From now on, in this document, the ‘ground’ will be generally referred to as the ‘Field’ to reflect the fact that from 1852 it was now enclosed, and by doing so, its status had changed from common land to ‘field’ forever.

It is only speculation as to why Earl Spencer imposed a covenant on the Field. However, with McKellar’s unreliable record of not entirely keeping his promises on land that he had unilaterally enclosed, perhaps Spencer had grown wary of the way the Common had been managed and maintained over the last few years by his lessees, or maybe he used the sale to supplement his income, or to preserve the area in an acceptable condition to demonstrate that he did care in some way about the wellbeing of the Common.

Whilst we shall never know, as users of the Field, we can only be grateful that the 1852 covenant has been the foundation to its survival and that sometime later the phrase ‘arable pasture or market garden’ enabled it to became the sports field that it is today.

After its enclosure, the Field would have invariably been, in some way, fenced off and cleared of gorse and scrub, but one thing was now clear- it would now be distinctly different to the Common nearby. Effectively, it would become Henry McKellar’s paddock or perhaps his back garden!

[p. 9]

By consulting an 1864 map it is easier to understand exactly why Henry McKellar purchased the ‘piece of land’. Perhaps he was influenced by having already enclosed the land to the south from where Brodrick Road is now situated down towards Wandsworth Lodge on the westside of Trinity Road, although, apart from the Field, this particular area was actually strictly outside the demise of Wandsworth Common.

More likely he was eager to prevent the owners of Burntwood Lodge or Burntwood Grange on the other side of Burntwood Lane encroaching on what he regarded to be his domain. At the time, trees were beginning to be introduced onto the Common and the area from Wandsworth Lodge up to and including the Field would be tree lined around its whole perimeter with Trinity Road to the east, Burntwood Lane to the north and Beechcroft Road to the west and, of course, Wandsworth Lodge to the south.

This all made for an agreeable environment in which Wandsworth Lodge was situated. However, it was perhaps fortunate for the Field that McKellar’s priorities appeared to lay elsewhere.

Henry McKellar was most likely of Scottish descent and seemingly quite an entrepreneur in his time. He was the son of Duncan McKellar who ran his own tailoring business in Old Burlington Street nearby to Bond Street in London. In 1827 in India, he married Ann Gibson (nee Moir) who was born in Madras in 1801 probably also of Scottish extraction, and had lost her previous husband George Thomas Gibson in Calcutta in 1826.

Ann’s father-in-law Robert Gibson who had died four years previously, was born in Slains, Aberdeenshire. As was often the custom in those days George Thomas Gibson and his wife Ann had a daughter who was also, rather confusingly, named Ann. She was to return with McKellar to Wandsworth Lodge having been adopted by Henry McKellar at the age of five after his marriage to Ann in 1827.

The records are incomplete, but suggest that George Thomas Gibson had been married to Margaret Moir, who was probably either Ann’s elder sister (or even mother!), before her death in 1813 and his marriage to Ann in 1816. It would seem that there had been a connection between Henry McKellar and Ann’s previous husband because, at least initially, McKellar carried on with his father’s tailoring business but by the time of his own death in 1862, one of his interests was with tailors Gibson & Co. However, McKellar was first and foremost a businessman in his own right involved in local projects as well as other interests further afield although not always did his involvement bring the dividends it might have done.

In 1845, McKellar became involved in the project to erect the original Chelsea Bridge. For various reasons construction of the bridge was delayed. Initially called the Victoria Bridge it did not open until 1858. However, concerns were soon raised about its safety and the tolls imposed to cross the bridge were unpopular.

By 1861, the bridge had been strengthened but with concerns by the government that it did not want to risk a potential collapse to be associated with the monarch, the name of the bridge was changed to Chelsea Bridge. Another project McKellar was involved with by 1860 was The Westminster Chambers Co, which was a building in Victoria Street.

However, despite these projects it appears that Henry McKellar’s main interest was to be involved with mining in North Wales, so it is quite likely that he spent much of his time there. One of these interests was the Sygun Copper Mine. This was a serious business.

In 1836 the annual production of ore from the mine was valued at £2,800. In 1840, David White Griffith, the owner of the whole Sygun Estate which accounted for over 1,300 acres (just over 2 square miles) of land, situated near Beddgelert, had raised a loan of £3,000 from Lord Redesdale, a liberal peer and parliamentarian on the security of the land and a further £1,000 from Charles Wing, who was then joint lessee of the Sygun Copper Mine.

In 1841, always the opportunist, McKellar bought out his partner, Charles Wing, and became manager of the mine taking over the £1,000 loan from Charles Wing and advancing it with a further £250 loan from his own money. By 1848, Griffith owed McKellar £1,890, so in 1849, McKellar took over all the profits from the Estate, with which he paid the interest due to Lord Redesdale each year, adding any or keeping the balance remaining.

Griffith was loath to lose his property but in 1853 he [p. 10] was forced to make a deed of conveyance for the whole of the Sygun Estate to Henry McKellar, subject to the existing first mortgage, for a purchase price of £2,403, the sum by which Griffith was now indebted to him.

McKellar continued to pay interest to Lord Redesdale until 1859, but in 1860, McKellar’s brother redeemed the mortgage for him. Looking at records it would appear that the buildings at Sygun Fawr urgently needed repairing and extending, but perhaps Henry McKellar’s local interests in London had left him vulnerable.

Could this have been a reason for his brother paying off his debt, and in so doing, securing the mine for the family? However, in 1861 with McKellar apparently living at ‘Sygun Fawr’ farm, he was made High Sheriff of Caernarvonshire; not bad for someone that was also listed as a member of the Upper Tooting gentry at that time!

When McKellar died at Wandsworth Lodge a year later, around two to three thousand tons of ore had already been extracted from the mine. He left the entire estate to his wife Ann who inherited around £60,000, a fortune in those days, and worth over £7 million in today’s money.

In 1863, when the Wandsworth Lodge Estate was put up for sale, it was divided into nineteen lots of which one was the house itself, and another would have been the Field. However, interestingly only six lots were originally sold at auction with the others being left unsold.

It was recorded in The Times, in terms of acreage that, only 59 of the original 143 acres were sold at that stage. Further adjacent lots it appears were sold privately and indeed development of the surrounding area was rapid, enabling Ann McKellar to downsize to Richmond Lodge, a more modest property in Telford Avenue, Streatham Hill, to live out her days in comfortable retirement.

However, she kept the Sygun Estate in North Wales and perhaps also the Field. The mine in particular would have been quite an undertaking for a woman to administer, and it must be assumed that she would have maintained a staff to carry on locally working the ore.

She retained the Sygun Estate until her death in 1886 at the age of 85. Ann’s daughter, Ann Gibson, by her mother’s first marriage to George Thomas Gibson had sadly died in 1875, and as Ann McKellar’s marriage to Henry McKellar, had apparently not produced any heirs, she willed the Sygun Estate to her son in law, Samuel Wix, who was already at an advanced age of 71.

However, was this the same Samuel Wix who had sent a letter of support on the death of his father, Charles, to the Vicar of Battersea in 1845, who was by default in those days, also the headmaster of the Sir Walter St. John’s School, with the following directions? ‘It is the wish of my late Father’s Exors that the annual Income arising from this sum should be applied towards the clothing and fitting out of such poor boys as may from time to time be apprenticed from the Battersea School out of the Fund bequeathed and in accordance with the provisions contained in the Will of the late Sir Walter and that the application of such income be in every respect under the control of the same parties as for the time being may have the management and control of the Funds bequeathed by the late Sir Walter St John.’ This was known by the School as ‘The Wix Benefaction’.

It seems quite plausible that although Ann McKellar had little use for the Field after her retirement it perhaps remained unsold within her ownership because without being able to be developed, it was regarded more as a liability than an asset - a problem that would surface from time to time during the course of the Field’s history.

Assuming Samuel Wix did inherit the Field at the time of her death, although there is no actual specific mention of it in Ann McKellar’s will, he lived some way distant in Tonbridge and it would have been unrealistic for him to keep the Field anyway, even if it was in his power to do so.

In 1889 he started selling off the farms and the mine he had inherited on the Sygun Estate in Wales, a good source of income for a man of his age. Samuel Wix died in 1898. Described as a solicitor during his working life, his four sons survived him.

His eldest son Arthur McKellar Wix emigrated to New Zealand where he married and briefly between 1873 and 1875 played ‘first - class’ cricket for Nelson in the formative years of their involvement in cricket. Some years later, with his wife, Arthur McKellar Wix returned to Britain and died in the Holloway Sanitorium, Virginia Water in [p. 11] 1918. However, it was his three younger brothers that had inherited Samuel Wix’s fortune in 1898, worth over £25 million in today’s money.

The story about the Sygun mine does not quite end there. Copper mining continued and by 1898, the Elmore brothers Frank and Stanley who by then owned the mine with their father, invented the ‘Flotation Process’ by which, using oil and water to extract minerals, increased the rate at which copper could be extracted from the ore.

This hastened the end, and the mine was shut down in 1903 when further working of the veins became unprofitable. Some eighty years later, in 1983 the entrance to the mine was reopened and restoration work began in earnest in 1986. Hundreds of tons of rubble were removed and access was improved.

Today the mine is a leading attraction and has since been further upgraded. It is a winner of the Prince of Wales award for tourism, and today is one of the ‘Wonders of Wales’.

Common or Not?

When the Wandsworth Lodge estate was split up in 1863, the lands that Henry McKellar had enclosed in the vicinity of Brodrick Road and the McKellar’s Triangle were acquired either by the National Freehold Land Society or the British Land Company to form a new estate. Although some were a little larger to enhance the local district, the plots were generally quite small and were only as big as was required to give the new owners the right to vote.

The speed and scale of these developments for building on what was previously common land, alarmed local people who were galvanised into action. As one of the campaigners, John Buckmaster, later put it referring to the Common that, ‘land-grabbers and jerry-builders would soon have joined hands on the last square foot of turf’.

Initially, neither a petition to Earl Spencer in 1863 nor appeals to the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1868 were successful; indeed, the latter organisation indicated that if it took over the Common it would sell more of it for building in order to defray the cost of keeping it in its present form!

In 1869, Buckmaster led about two thousand people in breaking down fences on part of the Common where Chivalry Road now stands. His contribution to saving the Common is remembered today in an adjacent road bearing his name. A committee was formed to contest Earl Spencer’s claim to absolute ownership of the Common.

Meetings about Wandsworth Common were held locally and as far afield as the Mansion House in London. Eventually, perhaps influenced by negotiations over Wimbledon Common, which also fell within Earl Spencer’s jurisdiction, he agreed to a meeting with two members of the committee. At that meeting he apparently thought his income from the Common amounted to around £500 a year and that he was entitled to the annual receipt of that sum if he parted with his rights.

The committee maintained it should be less than this, as the Common was wanted for public purposes, and eventually an annual annuity of £250, was agreed with the understanding that Earl Spencer be allowed to reserve for himself the area known as the ‘Black Sea’ (modern day Spencer Park) which included a lake which was subsequently filled in.

The result was that The Wandsworth Common Act passed through Parliament in July 1871 with only minor amendments. Eight conservators were elected, three nominated by official bodies and five by the ratepayers, which safeguarded the area of Common not yet enclosed for future generations. However, the damage was already done.

Apart from part of an area originally leased to the Royal Patriotic Building which was returned to the Common in 1913 as the ‘Wandsworth Common Extension’, eventually providing much needed sports facilities, other enclosures such as the rather confusingly named Allfarthing Piece which had been enclosed around a century earlier were never returned to the Common but were not fully developed until almost thirty years after the Act became law.

Known as the ‘Toast Rack’ because of its grid like structure, one of [p. 12] its residents was David Lloyd George (until 1907), later Prime Minister between 1916 and 1922. In 1887 the freehold of Wandsworth Common was transferred to the Metropolitan Board of Works, the same organisation that had almost twenty years earlier regarded the Common as a liability, and only less than two years later, under the local government reorganisation, Wandsworth was transferred from Surrey, and incorporated into the new London County Council. Although the Common itself was protected, this paved the way for the general expansion of London going forward.

As for the Field, technically, it was not subjected to its protection, because of the original 1852 covenant and so the Act was not crucial to the Field’s survival. A map attached to the Act shows areas in green, yellow and red. The green area effectively showed the protected areas of the common for public use.

The red areas shown had already been enclosed and either were already built upon, or if not, although still open countryside, had been leased for development. The Field fell into neither as it was shaded in yellow. Together with two other areas they were no longer common land but had been enclosed and were now in private hands and as such were not freely available to the public.

Of these three areas, the Field is the only area whose status has essentially remained unchanged, although now used, of course for sport. Of the other two, one area was in front of what is now Wandsworth Prison sandwiched between Heathfield Road and Trinity Road.

This land had been acquired by the Justices of Surrey in 1861, presumably to provide a ‘buffer zone’ between the Prison and what is now Trinity Road. By 1970 owing to the dualling of Trinity Road and the loss of common land to do so, and then owned by the Home Office, it was transferred, apart from other minor areas, to Wandsworth Common as compensation.

It is used as a nursery and claims to be ‘London’s biggest plant nursery in a garden centre’. Apparently, various attempts to build on this area have since been rebuffed. The other area of about twelve acres in total, was land obtained by the railway immediately north east and adjacent to Wandsworth Common station which had been bought from Spencer in 1854.

This was originally used by the railway to dig gravel and ballast. Although after the construction of Wandsworth Common station, most of the area had become surplus to the railway’s requirements, apart from the goods yard, it had been ‘bought by adjoining owners to prevent it being built upon’.

However once local solicitor and conservationist James Anderson Rose had died in 1890, the land came onto the open market and by 1894 it had been acquired by builder-developer Alfred Boon. This meant that the area was eventually lost entirely and most was given over to housing, with a small area immediately next to the station eventually being used for commercial purposes.

However, the Field’s position opened up the question as to whether it was situated in the Wandsworth Common district or Upper Tooting district of London and this has been a source of some debate and confusion ever since. Before it was enclosed in 1852 by McKellar it was undoubtedly part of Wandsworth Common.

In 1857 when London was first subdivided into postal districts the Field fell, just, into the Southern district of London with Upper Tooting, whilst Wandsworth fell into the Southern Western district of London; indeed, it is likely that the original boundary between these two areas ran approximately down Burntwood Lane much as the current postal district boundary does today.

In 1868 when the Southern postal district was abolished, the Field fell comfortably into the South Western postal district of London. Given that the land on the other side of Burntwood Lane is undoubtedly Wandsworth Common, the issue was finally resolved in 1917 when the postal districts of London were numbered.

The Field was allocated to SW17 which is in the postal district of Tooting, whilst the other side of Burntwood Lane was allocated to SW18, the postal district of Wandsworth! However, whilst any postcode is apparently by definition not an absolute indicator of an area in which any land is situated, the debate continued.

So, actually, although some stalwarts would insist that the field is located on Wandsworth Common as indeed it [p. 13] originally was before McKellar bought it, as far as the postman is concerned, technically, it is located in Upper Tooting! Additionally, over the years both the district and the name of the Field itself would be open to further controversy and debate.

As mentioned earlier, it is quite possible that given his public-spirited gesture to the School in 1845, that perhaps Samuel Wix decided in 1886 to hand the Field back to Spencer from whence it had come. Alternatively, perhaps on Ann McKellar’s death, the Field could have reverted to Spencer anyway.

However, by March 1887, reflecting the anxiety over the future of the Field by the Conservators, the Wandsworth & Putney Observer reported ‘Having ascertained from an examination of the Court Rolls that Lord Spencer, as Lord of the Manor, has a right to veto over the erection of buildings on the portion of land formerly part of the Common at the corner of Burntwood Lane and Trinity Road, the Conservators took steps for the acquisition of his lordship’s right.

They have not, at present been successful in this respect, but the ratepayers will be glad to learn that his lordship, as at present advised, has no intention of permitting the erection of buildings there’. By then, of course the Field had already been a sports ground for around ten years as we shall learn later.

On 30 December 1890, it was Earl Spencer who conveyed the Field to the London County Council in consideration of a sum of 5/- and a covenant by which the Council would observe the conditions by which Henry McKellar had accepted the purchase in 1852.

The Council, presumably backed by the former Conservators at the time, stated that it would ‘throw’ the Field into Wandsworth Common when in control, something that the Wandsworth Common Preservation Society had suggested the year before when the manorial rights had lapsed to the Council.

This appeared to have never happened, perhaps because the Field had been previously enclosed and effectively excluded from the Wandsworth Common Act of 1871, and that to do so would have needed a further Act of Parliament for the purpose. Although today, as previously noted, Lord Spencer’s rights as ‘Lord of the Manor’ are nominal, there have been recent incidents where he has chosen to remind various organisations of the original intention of the land he had formerly gifted, particularly if a change of use from a charitable to a commercial use of such land was contemplated.

As regards to the Field, by 1887, it appeared that Spencer had already acquiesced to its use for sport and the rights to adjudicate on these matters (since 1889) were vested with the Council, so when the time came the Council would use its discretion as to the erection of changing facilities and other temporary structures on the Field to improve its lot for amateur sport.

In an interesting twist, the Wandsworth Common Conservators, to an extent, got their wish to a degree, albeit almost a hundred years later! In September 1986 the London Gazette gave notice that Wandsworth Borough Council ‘in pursuance of its powers under section 277 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971’ had extended the Wandsworth Common Conservation Area to include the then ‘Sir Walter St John’s Playing Fields and pavilions’.

Perhaps the answer about the status of the Field came in 1898. It was then, in an acknowledgement that the Field was to be treated separately to the Common, that the London County Council sold it through auction to John Mills Thorne. The South London Press observed at the time that ‘another greensward had been snatched from the ‘octopus’ grip of the enterprising builder’.

Perhaps they should have added the London County Council to that list, who obviously found the expense of maintaining the ground prohibitive, but fortunately, although John Mills Thorne had interests in developments elsewhere, his interests regarding the Field were benign. From then on, the Field has remained in private hands.

[p. 14]

The Scope & Burntwood Lodge

Returning to Wandsworth Common, other enclosures had for some time been gradually diminishing the area of the Common. The construction of the railways in 1836 and then again between 1854 and 1862 had effectively separated the Common into three parts. Additionally, and also rather strangely, an area of about two acres of Common adjacent to Lyford Road was enclosed for the Craig Telescope which was supported by Earl Spencer.

On it was built apparently, the largest refracting telescope in the world from which, it was said, it was possible to read a quarter-inch letter at a distance of half a mile! The fact was that during its lifetime it was beset by problems and doubts about its performance were raised.

The erection of the telescope would have been clearly visible from the Field which McKellar had purchased about the same time as its construction. Given that the land was open heathland the contraption was even visible, apparently, to passing passengers on the railway. The telescope remained operational in one form or another from 1852 until 1855 by which time the project had effectively been abandoned owing to the telescope’s poor performance and subsequently it was dismantled owing to a combination of Craig’s personal problems and bankruptcy.

A plethora of famous people at that time, apparently, had an interest in the project; these even included the celebrated engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Strangely, the telescope cut an odd sight. It was shaped like an elongated cigar hung from a tower and the telescope itself was run on a circular azimuth trackway around the tower, but exposed to the elements.

The completed telescope weighed 220 tons! Whilst it was suggested the tower and possibly astronomer’s accommodation was built with bricks from the nearby Frying Pan Brickworks, other reports suggested it might have been constructed partially with bricks left over from what is now Wandsworth Prison which had been constructed on the periphery of the Common in 1851.

Furthermore, when the central tower was demolished some years later, the surviving distinctive red bricks, it was alleged, were incorporated into helping to build part of the Surrey Tavern the pub and coaching inn on the corner of Bellevue Road and Trinity Road which opened its doors in 1865.

However, this claim is unlikely because if there were red bricks, it is not immediately apparent from a cursory inspection of the elevations how or where the bricks were incorporated into the building. Demolition of the telescope tower was apparently not completed until around 1870.

Today the demarcation visible on the Trinity Road flank of the building, although coincidently built of bricks which are redder in colour from the rest, is part of a far more modern improvement carried out sympathetically to extend the upper floors within the last twenty years.

Intriguingly, when the former owner of the Field John Mills Thorne died in 1913 in Burntwood Lodge, mention was made in its sale prospectus (and of the adjacent property of Collamore which he also owned) as to its prominent position looking towards Wimbledon, which was true, but also to the allegation that ‘in front of Burntwood Lodge’, sometime earlier, was the site of Ross’s Telescope ‘previous to its being sent to Ireland’.

No mention of Craig here, and indeed to remember the fiasco of his telescope would have surely detracted from any sale rather than added to its value. Was this simply just part of a sales pitch-a myth to claim some sort of credit for something that had gone so badly wrong sixty years earlier, or might it really be that parts of the Ross Telescope had been constructed in front of Burntwood Lodge to ensure its viability before shipping to Ireland?

This seems hardly likely. What we do know is that on his estate at Birr Castle in County Offaly in 1845, William Parsons as the 3rd Earl of Rosse had constructed the largest telescope of its time. This had a six-foot mirror and would hold that title until 1917.

It is known in 1852, Craig’s Telescope’s site had been visited by Rosse, who gave suggestions to Craig about correcting its optics. So, when the telescope on Wandsworth Common was eventually abandoned, what happened next? Accounts suggest that by the time the fencing to the compound was removed by around 1874 no remnants of the telescope, or buildings remained.

A Time Team survey of the area in 2003 largely corroborates [p. 15] this and tends to support the idea that the telescope tower was carefully removed rather than simply and crudely demolished as very little evidence – including that of any foundations were found.

Maybe the bricks were required for a nearby building elsewhere after all. It seems as various eye witness reports suggested at the time, that all 220 tons of the telescope itself was cut up for scrap or, in an early example of recycling, ended up as horseshoes!

In this sense the Craig Telescope could be considered as a folly. Perhaps Earl Spencer had generously donated the land on which the Craig Telescope was built to, in some way, rival Rosse’s Telescope in Ireland? The fact is we shall never know, and we shall also never know what really happened to the demolished bricks that were so carefully removed.

The two acres of land which included the redundant telescope was returned to the Common when it was included in the 1871 Act. It seems that whoever demolished the buildings and tower associated with the telescope was however determined to do a good job.

The taming of Wandsworth Common

Whilst the Wandsworth Common Act had saved the Common from certain oblivion, the nature of what was left was changing. In 1872, Earl Spencer permitted the founders of the Spencer Cricket Club to ‘drain and enclose by posts and chains a portion of Wandsworth Common’.

Whist the club would only remain there for around five or six years’ the ground was thought to be adjacent to The Hope close to Wandsworth Common station. The ground’s construction, whilst retaining the land as Common, was to set a precedent for clearing areas of gorse bush and scrub for sport and recreation -and it has to be said for cricket in particular.

In early 1877 a further cricket ground was proposed for the same transformation, or spoliation, as opponents of the scheme called it. This time the area was nearest to Bolingbroke Grove and also running parallel with the railway. The area proposed for the actual cricket ground was to be on the common opposite Mr Du Buisson’s residence.

Under an influential body of residents, the Conservators, subject to certain conditions, granted the use of this portion of Wandsworth Common, which was to be levelled and kept in order at the expense of a newly formed club. The club would be known as the Wandsworth Cricket Club which, as a newspaper article boldly pronounced ‘is intended shall rank as the leading club in the neighbourhood’.

Their headquarters were based at the Freemasons Hotel on the northernmost extent of Wandsworth Common. This must have been met by some disquiet by both Spencer and other clubs at the time, such as Heathfield, who having only been recently established would have seen this as an intrusion.

In order to allay fears that the proposal was by some regarded, effectively, as a private cricket ground on Common land, it was stated that the Wandsworth Club did not intend to monopolise the ground, but that they should have common usage with any other recognised clubs whom the Conservators may deem of sufficient standing in either Wandsworth or Battersea.

The club had sufficient financial backing for levelling works and by March 1877 the construction of the ground on the Common had been placed in the hands of a local contractor and was already proceeding. From the playing perspective the whole project was doomed to failure and was a good illustration of a club trying to run before it could walk.

In the two fixtures arranged with the Battersea club, an established club with a reputation for turning out strong sides, the Wandsworth Club were soundly beaten in the return match by more than two hundred runs. Unbelievably, worse was to follow, when Kingston Cricket Club scored a massive 285 and bowled Wandsworth out for only 11!!

So, in that respect, the secret was out as the Club was of insufficient strength to cause much of a threat to anyone in club cricket circles.

Although the Wandsworth Cricket Club played on and indeed may have survived the Great War, it never was never able to regularly call upon real quality players to turn out for them. As a result, it never really challenged the Spencer or Heathfield clubs nearby, but together with the Spencer cricket [p. 16] ground just up the road, it had changed the aspect of Wandsworth Common forever from a place where walking and rambling amongst attractive heathland was enjoyed, to a place for sport and recreation.

Today although the formal cricket pitches are long gone, the area is still occasionally used for organised football, and up until the 1960s, speaking from personal experience, the local council was not adverse in cutting a pitch on the common for casual cricket matches. On long, hot summer days, in a reminder of times gone by, the area adjacent to Bellevue Road is a popular location for sunbathing, picnicking or just enjoying the delights of Wandsworth Common after a day’s work.

We know that when Wandsworth Lodge was sold in 1863 the land to the north, being Brodrick Road and Wandle Road, was also sold for development. It should be noted that subsequently, apart from the Field, and despite the estate’s sale, Wandsworth Lodge itself remained intact.

However, as the eight acres of the Field could not be developed and probably remained in Ann McKellar’s hands, this would explain why only the intervening area between the Lodge and Field was subsequently developed before Wandsworth Lodge was sold on again. The buyer of Wandsworth Lodge in 1863 could possibly have been Richard Henry Wyatt, Clerk of the Peace for the County of Surrey from 1871.

His name is mentioned in the prosecution of two of his servants for petty theft at Wandsworth Lodge. They were both sentenced to two months of hard labour about the same time that the Lodge was sold again in 1877, this time to the de Selincourt family.

An 1878 map shows Wandsworth Lodge as a private residence and the Field, although unmarked as to its purpose, was obviously distinct from the Common. However, by 1894, although a map shows the Field as a ‘Cricket Ground’, already having two pavilions and a shed, or possibly a stable for a horse, Wandsworth Lodge had disappeared, sold for development and demolished around ten years previously.

The de Selincourt family perhaps, were better known through the marriage of Dorothy (always known as Daphne) de Selincourt to the author A.A. Milne. Their son Christopher Robin Milne is of course well known for his fictional adventures in the Winnie the Pooh books. The literary connection runs through the family as Hugh de Selincourt, the youngest brother of eleven siblings, was born at Wandsworth Lodge in 1878, and was the author of the celebrated 1924 book, The Cricket Match which is a timeless tale of village cricket.

‘Lot 2’

Sport was becoming a popular pastime. Wisden records that as early as 1700, Clapham Common had been used for cricket. Although it was not until 1828 that cricket was officially recorded on Wandsworth Common it should be remembered that a Wandsworth XI actually defeated a side representing the MCC on that occasion and were praised for their "science and thorough knowledge of the game", so its actual origins on Wandsworth Common probably went back some years previously.

In 1855, remarkably, a cricket match had actually been convened on top of the frozen ornamental lake known as the Black Sea on the northern side of the Common – although perhaps comparisons with the annual cricket match played on a similar surface in St. Moritz, Switzerland, ends there!

However, in much the same way as today, there was a chronic shortage of grounds on which to play cricket. Battersea Park, was a hotbed for sport as in 1864 it had hosted the first ever football match played under the rules of the recently formed Football Association.

Today cricket and football are still played in Battersea Park but being a public ground, it is very much given over to casual use by various clubs. In 1865 an open letter to the editor of the South London Press by H. Dann recorded that several suitable places to play cricket were ‘swarmed’ and that in Battersea Park, thirty applications had been made for only six spaces on its match ground.

The letter went on to appeal to any philanthropists to came forward who were willing to offer a suitable ground on [p. 17] which to play cricket having ‘good railway connections’. Would this appeal, however, had some resonance with the Field? Perhaps not at the time, given that the current Wandsworth Common railway station would not open in its current position until 1869.

Indeed, one of the first mentions of the Field as distinct from Wandsworth Lodge was as a result of a Bay Horse which disappeared ‘on the night of 28 December 1869 from a field opposite the Surrey Tavern’. To give an idea of its importance a reward was offered for information leading to its recovery which amounted to around £600 in today’s money, but probably worth it, particularly if the horse was employed to pull a carriage.

We do not know whether the appeal for the horse’s return was successful, but what we do know is that the Field was still described as ‘a field’. However, a few years later, matters were about to change.

When Wandsworth Lodge was put on the market in 1877, the Field was simultaneously offered under the same advertisement. Described as ‘Lot 2’, it was offered ‘on a short agreement with a proviso for re-entry if the land be required for building purposes’. There was no suggestion at the time that the Field was anything other than ‘Open Space’.

So, did the new landlord at the Surrey Tavern, John Bonner, act as a catalyst for the Field’s conversion to sport by taking up the ‘short agreement’? This seems quite possible, as he would have seen this as an ideal opportunity to further his business with the view to providing changing facilities before and refreshment after matches.

The pub was also a focal point for the auctions of local property. Quite apart from the sport, in 1886 the Field was also subject to a series of spring meetings in connection with ‘Fox terrier rabbit coursing!’, more commonly known today as hare coursing.

Apparently, the events were attended by large crowds so the Sporting Life claimed. The final meeting was ‘brought to a satisfactory conclusion… in the cricket field adjoining the Surrey Tavern Hotel’, by which time the season for coursing was almost over and in any event the organisers had run out of rabbits!

Obviously, the reception prior to these meetings, and probably after, was in John Bonner’s Tavern. It may seem strange that a ‘country pursuit’ should take place at the Field at all, but, of course in those days, it was just open countryside! The reference to the Surrey Tavern Hotel is also interesting.

As a coaching inn it obviously had accommodation and this is confirmed by the early advertisements for the Tavern although confusion still reigned (as with the Field) as regards to where it actually was. George Ferris the first landlord had done nothing to help things when in 1867 he advertised the pub as a ‘Wonderful Discovery on Wandsworth Common’ only then to say in the same advert that the address was ‘Trinity Road Tooting (on the borders of Wandsworth Common)’, which was perhaps a better description of the area.

The pub, the advert said, also included ‘Stabling Accommodation’- in the event that you could find the pub with your horse, that is. After only two and a half years George Ferris had moved on, so the pub’s life was off to an uncertain start; perhaps not everyone had ‘discovered’ the pub after all.

However, during John Bonner’s tenure, calling the premises the Surrey Hotel rather than a Tavern, was probably John Bonner’s idea of upgrading the attractiveness of his pub next to Wandsworth Common. So apart from running the Surrey Tavern / Hotel did John Bonner enjoy his sport?

If we take a cricket match at the field on 18 September 1889 and accept that the scorecard spelling of his name is incorrect (given as ‘Bonnor’), then although 56 years old by then, he participated in a match for a Mr Lett’s XI against the Royal Courts of Justice.

Perhaps the latter were of a certain vintage, because despite batting with fourteen they were dismissed for a paltry 38. In reply with John Bonner making five, his team ran out comfortable winners. Also, one of the umpires was Martin and given this was the surname of the groundsman at the Field at the time, perhaps he umpired the match as well!

John Bonner was not a local man, being born in Queenborough, Kent in 1833. It seems that he ran the Surrey Tavern with his family for over twenty years before returning to the Isle of Sheppey. When he died at Sheerness in 1903, he was described as being ‘of the Goat Hotel’, so it seemed that [p. 18] working in the wine licensed trade remained with him throughout his working life.

Bonner has not been forgotten, because in a nod to the past, a recently built block of apartments adjacent to where the Surrey Tavern stands today, is called the ‘Bonner Building’.

As regards to the Field, its days as ‘Open Space’ and pasture land were over, but confusion still remained as to where the location of the Field really was. On 5 January 1878, Clapham Rovers took on the Gipsies in a rugby match. However, even the club were of the same confusion as George Ferris had been some years earlier, when they described the Field as their ‘new private ground at Wandsworth – so called, but which is in reality much more adjacent to Tooting’.

The match was played in a ‘regular Scotch mist’. A reporter, from The Referee, noted on that day that having ‘…wended our dreary way from Waterloo to Wandsworth.’ that the ‘scene of the action was about three miles off in the direction of Tooting, where after much suffering from the effects of misty rain which only a true born Highlander can thoroughly appreciate, we landed in an obscure field’.

In truth the clue lies that he had travelled from Waterloo and would have landed up at Wandsworth Town station, whilst had he travelled from Victoria, he could have got off at Wandsworth Common station and at least largely saved his walk through the mist and drizzle!

Neither side could achieve a breakthrough in a match where both sides obviously lost their way. The contest finished, unusually for a rugby match, with neither side scoring. However, such reports of the Field’s location have conspired to shield its true location until this day.

The mention above of Clapham Rovers is significant. For many years, football historians have debated exactly where the club played on Wandsworth Common. However, from examination of local newspaper reports and maps there is no doubt. Clapham Rovers played at the Field! In the winter it was more commonly known as the Rovers Ground, but this never appeared on local maps.

As there were no changing facilities on the Field at the start, both the football and the cricket clubs would change in the Surrey Tavern. Indeed, changing facilities on the Field did not arrive until probably the early 1890s after the London County Council assumed control.

An 1896 map shows it as a Cricket Ground and by then there were actually two sets of changing facilities on the Field! Later maps refer to it as the Heathfield ground after the cricket club that was the principal user during the summer months as we shall see later. The only thing that perhaps is debatable is whether Clapham Rovers survived long enough as a club to enjoy those new changing facilities.

Start of Play

It is now accepted that 1877 was probably the start of sport on the Field. When the Heathfield Cricket Club arrived in 1883 it was said in their centenary brochure that the club ‘were fortunate in being able to rent a pitch’, which gives a clue to the fact that the field was already in high demand, as indeed was the whole of Wandsworth Common for cricket and sport.

It is not certain which club or clubs were already playing at the Field. However, Brunswick Cricket Club may have been one, because they refer to a ‘private pitch’ in occasional reports for playing some matches on Wandsworth Common but this is really just speculation.

However, in the same centenary brochure although the Heathfield club refers to the Field as ‘Bonners Field’ it was a term never used by the club in press reports with ‘Wandsworth Common’ preferred. ‘Bonners Field’ was probably used on a colloquial basis because of the involvement of John Bonner as we have seen.

However, another side that may have used ‘Bonners Field’ for their matches at that time was the Church Institute club. Formed in 1868, it was the educational, social and sporting arm of the Anglican Church of St Mary Magdalene which is located immediately opposite the Field in Trinity [p. 19] Road.

As both the Institute’s and Heathfield’s fixture lists appeared in the 1890 Cricket newspaper it can be deduced that the Beechcroft Road end of the ground was called ‘Upper Tooting’ by Heathfield whilst the main pitch adjoining Trinity Road was known as ‘Wandsworth Common’. The Church Institute Cricket Club preferred to call the Wandsworth Common end ‘Bonner’s Field Heathfield Pitch’ and the ‘Upper Tooting’ end by elimination, just Bonner’s Field.

This has led to some confusion over the years, but given that when the bowls section of the Heathfield club at the Beechcroft Road end started, it was often referred to as being in Upper Tooting being easily accessible via an entrance in Burntwood Lane, which although nowadays no longer exists, is still marked by the cobbled remains and dropped kerb in the pavement.

However, the fact that the Church Institute Cricket Club promoted temperance as one of their objects, this was probably one of the reasons why they opted to change in their own headquarters in Wiseton Road. Amongst the Church institute’s players was one of cricket’s all-time greats, George Lohmann, who is remembered as the bowler who still holds the lowest bowling average for a player taking over fifteen Test wickets.

He was the second of three cricketing brothers and in only 18 Tests he took a remarkable 112 wickets at an average of 10.75. He was also a useful lower order batsman. His career was cut short by tuberculosis. In 1897 he emigrated to South Africa for health reasons and although he returned as assistant manager of the second South African touring side in 1901, he died shortly after his return there at the young age of 36.

There is speculation that he played at the Field before he was even a teenager, as between 1876 and 1878 he won awards for his batting and bowling with the Church Institute club. It is therefore just conceivable that he played there in the last of those years mentioned.

Before becoming a professional player with Surrey, he switched his allegiance to the Alma Cricket Club. The debate about him ever playing at the Field was eventually settled in 1889 by a reference to another match played at the Field. In that year, on 22 April, as a pre-season friendly, Cricket records a match between ‘Beaumont’s (Surrey) Eleven and Eighteen of Wandsworth & District’.

Many of these local matches were played by the first-class counties to help, foster and promote cricket within the county. The scorecard (no bowling figures recorded) shows that the local side had little talent as they were dismissed for only 52 (only seventeen names are recorded on the scorecard rather than eighteen!).

By close of play Beaumont’s Surrey Eleven had amassed 107-2. Lohmann’s contribution in the match appears to have been rather limited, although he was credited with a catch in the Wandsworth innings. He was due to bat at six, so never got as far as the crease.

As regards to the team only surnames are recorded. Why do we think this really was the great man himself? Later that season, Lohmann played in a similar local match at Richmond and took a hatful of wickets! He was not averse to turning up on these occasions even though he had received his first England cap in 1886.

Three other members of the eleven representing Surrey on that day at the Field were Beaumont himself, plus Bowley and Brockwell. All played for Surrey that season and were essentially team mates of Lohmann. His younger brother, Joshua, ten years junior than George, played against the Heathfield Cricket Club for the Surrey Club & Ground side in 1896, but only went as far as playing Minor County cricket at Shropshire. His older brother Stewart Lohmann became a professional cricketer in Georgetown (British Guiana) and in Philadelphia.

Much has changed since those days. 1889 was actually the year when Wandsworth was transferred from Surrey to London. Richmond would follow in 1965 as part of the reorganisation which helped create the Greater London Authority. However as far as cricket administration is concerned, London has never existed as a county in its own right.

Because the London Borough of Richmond is the only authority that straddles the Thames, the whole of the borough for cricket purposes including that part south of the Thames is regarded, curiously, as being part of Middlesex. So, Richmond being in Middlesex? That would never have been envisaged back in 1889!