Friends of Wandsworth Common — Heritage Talk · Wandsworth Heritage Festival
Graham Jackson · Author and local historian
Welcome everybody to this Friends of Wandsworth Common event, which is our second contribution to the Wandsworth Heritage Festival this year. Tonight’s talk is on the history of Trinity Fields, written by Graham Jackson. Graham’s talk will last about 45 minutes, with an opportunity for questions afterwards, and we are aiming to finish around 8.30.
A few words about Graham himself. He is the author of the very large tome which deals with the history of Trinity Fields. He was born in Balham and was educated at Swaffield Primary School, which was subsequently attended by boxing legend Frank Bruno. He then went on to St John’s Grammar School in Battersea. He has been a cricket umpire for over 50 years and a member of the Surrey Championship umpires panel since its inception. He is currently chairman of the Ground and Facilities Subcommittee of the Surrey Championship, and in 2020 he was made an Honorary Vice President of the Club Cricket Conference for his contribution to amateur cricket. He is a former president of the Sinjuns Old Boys Association, and served as a trustee of the Trinity Fields Trust from 1997 until 2014. There is nobody better qualified to tell us about the field. Graham — thank you.
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Good evening, everyone. Just a word to say that I wrote this book during lockdown — it was part of my research, and it took me three years to research and write. Lockdown came at a good time for me, because it gave me a chance to lock myself away and concentrate on writing. It is a self-published book, so if anyone wants to buy a copy afterwards, you can only get one from me — but I will be very glad to sell you one.
We are starting at the ground at Trinity Fields, but you have to remember that before 1852 it was still part of Wandsworth Common. The lane, we think, was at that stage a drove road, and the Common was full of sheep and cattle — nothing like it is today.
What happened was that Earl Spencer had basic control of the Common, and he had six tenants operating a fuel system of sorts. One of them was a chap called Henry McKellar. Henry McKellar had an interesting past: he had been married in India to Anne McKellar, his wife, and he came back and took over Wandsworth Lodge in 1838.
Just so we are aware of where these buildings are: this is one of the lodges, and you can see the field we are talking about — Trinity Fields — and over here we have Bumper Grange and Burntwood Lodge. This is Michael’s Triangle here. And once the Common is established — this is the 1868 map — the station of course did not come until the following year, 1869.
McKellar was, quite honestly, a bit of a rogue. He would enclose bits and pieces of the field almost without permission from Earl Spencer. I think Spencer got a bit tired of his tenants just doing things as they wanted, because Spencer had a massive amount of property right through the countryside — not only here but in Northamptonshire and various other places as well.
You can see here that Burntwood Lodge is a lot closer to the field than Wandsworth Lodge down here. It is quite clear that McKellar was trying, by actually buying this plot off Earl Spencer, to get that land into his own sphere of influence, because you can see that it naturally adjoined his land. He paid Earl Spencer £180 for it, and that was when Spencer decided that McKellar could have the land but would put a covenant on it saying it could not be built on. In other words, Spencer was saying: you can have that land — it is part of my common — but you cannot build on it. Bear in mind this was before the 1871 Act.
McKellar was quite a busy man with interests elsewhere. His wife Anne had a daughter by a previous marriage, who unfortunately died around 1850. Unusually for that period, Anne and Henry McKellar did not have any children of their own. So when Henry McKellar died in 1862, his interests in the ground were taken over by Emma and [Michaela?]. He also had a son-in-law by the name of Samuel Wicks, who was the beneficiary of Henry McKellar’s copper mines in Wales. When Anne McKellar died in 1886, Samuel Wicks — who was about 71 by that time — was busy selling off those copper mines in Wales for his own benefit.
I want to note that as late as 1868–69, the field was still a field in the old sense. There is a story about someone leaving a horse there, going off for a drink, and coming out to find the horse gone. We do not know whether it was found or stolen, but that gives you an idea of what the place was like in 1869.
Things changed, we think, for two reasons. In those days there was no land registry — land ownership was established by word of mouth, and that system did not really change until about 1910. What happened was that in 1877, Wandsworth Lodge was put up for sale as Lot One, with the field as Lot Two — they were together. I am not going to make any assumptions, but it is possible that nobody really wanted the field because they could not build on it. The upkeep of a sports ground has always been a challenge, and that was obviously an issue.
But we think what happened was that in 1877 the field was advertised on a short lease, and that John Bonner of the Surrey Tavern, who was the landlord, said he would have it. John was quite an interesting character — he enjoyed his cricket; there is a reference to a match played there with him on one side against the justices of the peace, or something of that sort. He was keen to keep in with the landowners of the area. We think it was Bonner who in 1877 opened the ground for sport.
Going back a little: when Henry McKellar bought that plot of land in 1852, it ceased to be common land and became a field. Technically it was one of three areas on Wandsworth Common shaded in yellow on the map — privately bought, but not for development. As you may know from Philip’s research, there are red areas on Wandsworth Common which were earmarked for development but were never developed — one near the Wandsworth [conservation area?], another near Wandsworth Prison — given to various people in a kind of private sale but on which they could not effectively build, except that eventually they did build on the Wandsworth Common site.
We know that in December 1883 there was a meeting about the ground which openly discussed what might be done with it. There was a proposal that it be given over to education, but that was rejected. The local people were very adamant that the covenant be respected and that the land be kept as a field. Bonner’s intervention was interesting: he decided he would keep it as a field but use it for sport — and why not? He was a publican right next to it and would naturally want something to draw people in. There were no changing rooms on the ground at the time, but he was quite happy for the tavern to be used as a changing area for people using the ground.
We know that in 1883 two things happened: the Heathfield Club enjoyed their first season there; and there was this meeting with the residents. The meeting ran on a little longer because, when McKellar died, Samuel Wicks — who lived in Tonbridge, we think — decided he would do the right thing and give the field back to Spencer. He had some involvement with a [John Scorley?] in the High Street, and he gave what was called the Wicks Benefaction to the school — the proceeds of his father-in-law’s estate. There was a little tradition of giving things back, and we think he gave the field back to Spencer, because in 1887 the residents were asking what Earl Spencer was going to do with it and were very keen to make sure it remained a sports field.
Also in 1883, the Casuals were founded and probably used the Hope Tavern for changing facilities. We also think — and I remember that at this stage we are working with some uncertainty — that another club that played up there was Clapham Rovers, who in 1880 won the FA Cup. And I mean the FA Cup proper — not some old cup, but the competition contested by professional sides. They were very lucky to win it in 1880, because from 1884 all the winning sides were professional. We think they were a hybrid club: some weeks they played rugby, some weeks football. We are pretty sure they came from their old ground at Bedford Hill, and in 1877 at the field — before the football club certainly — we think they moved on to the Old Spencer ground, which is just where we are now, in [Oakley Road?]. When Harlequins came up before 1900, they made a point of the fact that the ground was a full enclosure. We think it is possible that Clapham Rovers Rugby Club — actually an older organisation than the football club — perhaps used the field while the football side played elsewhere, but we are not entirely sure.
Heathfield were quite an enterprising club. They had played previously on this ground. Heathfield were formed in 1875, and there is evidence that before that they had actually played as Heathfield [elsewhere?] — a kind of precursor. They had a falling out with the Clarence Club. It is interesting to note that the Clarence Club was eventually sponsored by John Blundell of Maples, the biggest furniture manufacturers in the world at the time. A group of them did not like the idea of presenting a cricket ball to the winners of a cricket match — they thought this was professionalism. So they broke away, and one of two things may have happened: it might have been a completely new club in 1875, or perhaps the old club was almost defunct and this was a welcome injection of new players. Anyway, Heathfield started playing here.
You might recognise this area: these are the houses in Windmill Road, running down by the railway, and Trinity Road runs here. So if you go down the dual carriageway to the traffic lights and look on the left-hand side, that is where the ground was — this is where the wall with the gardens and Heathfield Cottages is. One of the reasons Heathfield moved was that they went beyond the County Arms — if you go straight down towards Wandsworth Bridge and reach the pair of traffic lights where Wimbledon Road crosses, it is literally on the left-hand side of the road. It is much smaller now because the dual carriageway went through in the 1970s and cut the ground, but this is where they were playing.
This picture is probably from around 1900, by which time Heathfield had actually left the ground, but you can see all sorts of things going on — a cricket match, plenty of people around. It was a public ground from that point of view, and Heathfield obviously wanted something a little better. So they spent two years at the Half Moon ground in Putney, and then came back and were lucky to rent the ground at Trinity Fields. For many years, and even today, the name Heathfield has endured. Even though the Heathfield Club left the ground in 1924, the name is still mentioned and has not really gone away.
In 1890, Earl Spencer conveyed the ground to the London County Council, and they held the field again on the condition that the council agreed to the original 1852 covenant. But they obviously got a bit tired of it. The London County Council Cricket Club played there from time to time when Heathfield were not using it, and the council did not quite know what to do with themselves. They quite generously built the Heathfield Pavilion, which I will come on to shortly, and a later pavilion down the other end of the ground.
This is an early Heathfield Cricket Club side, and this man here we now know is T.J. Faulkner. The reason we know this is that I had an email from a man who had bought one of my books — his name was Peter Faulkner — and he said: “That was my grandfather. He played for Heathfield from about 1880 until 1900.” And the reason he left Heathfield in 1900 was — I am sorry, ladies — that he objected to the club expanding into a lawn tennis club where women were allowed to play. He apparently had what they called a men’s smoking room in his house in Wandsworth, and he was not having any of that, so in 1900 he left. Which is rather sad, but that is what happened.
In 1898 the London County Council decided to sell the ground, and they sold it rather strangely by auction. The Heathfield Cricket Club obviously felt they had to be in there to try to buy it outright rather than continuing to lease it, but unfortunately they missed out. It is a shame they did, because in the end it ultimately decided their fate — though they did not know that at the time. It was sold to John Mills Thorne, owner of the Nine Elms Brewery, who lived in Burntwood Lodge. He was a bit of a developer but had clearly bought the house for benign purposes; his son played cricket for the Upper Tooting Cricket Club. Because of his love of sport, he was not there to try to bust the covenant — he decided he would just encourage Heathfield to play there, paying him a rent. He was happy for them to maintain the ground because he ultimately wanted the Heathfield Club to use it for the whole year, not just half of it. In a way he was quite a philanthropist.
When Thorne bought the ground he was well into his seventies. Heathfield had to decide what to do. There was one football club up there called Wandsworth Football Club, which had come from Frontier Court Road at the bottom of Burntwood Lane. They were in a complete mess, financially and otherwise; the results were not very good; they left the ground in poor condition; and eventually they were asked to leave in March of that year because Heathfield wanted to prepare the ground for cricket. Having dual sports on a ground is unfortunately not always straightforward.
In 1901 Heathfield came to an agreement with Harlequins FC — the actual Harlequins as we know them today, known as Harlequins FC because they were formed before the two codes split in 1871 into football and rugby. They had always kept the name Football Club even though they only ever played rugby. They took over effectively as sub-tenants, and Heathfield came to an agreement that Harlequins could use the ground. This is a picture of their match with Richmond — you can see it is a bit rough and tumble, but the important thing is that you can see it is certainly the Heathfield ground because there is the turret I showed you on the previous picture. This is the match Harlequins played there in 1902 — I think they actually lost that one against Richmond.
At the same time, one of the Harlequins players was to become famous: that was Adrian Stoop. He was a leader in rugby thinking at the time — in practices, strategy and so on. Today, of course, the Harlequins ground at Twickenham is known as the Twickenham Stoop. So famously, Adrian Stoop started playing his rugby up here, and quite a few players from this Harlequins side in that period went on to play international rugby.
In the meantime, despite Mr Faulkner’s disapproval, Heathfield was going on apace. This is a picture of ladies playing tennis on the ground. By the time the schools took over, the ground had eight lawn tennis courts and a full-size bowling green. Heathfield had introduced bowling around 1902, shortly after the lawn tennis, and they also apparently played croquet up there — so yet another sport has been played on Wandsworth Common.
Things started to go wrong for the Heathfield Club around 1909–1911, when Harlequins moved from the ground to Twickenham — which was of course a new stadium in those days — and Adrian Stoop was instrumental in agreeing a deal with the rugby authorities there. In their place came London Welsh Rugby Football Club, and in 1911 John Mills Thorne — well into his eighties by then — conveyed the field to London Welsh Athletic Club for the sum of £3,800, subject to the 1852 covenant. The problem now was that whereas up to that point Heathfield had been receiving money from Harlequins and then London Welsh, the whole process was reversed: London Welsh had bought the ground and were effectively the owners. That caused Heathfield a problem, because it meant they were now paying money out rather than receiving it.
This carried on for two or three years until 1914. We know that the last match played at the ground was against [Wandsworth Park?], played in a hailstorm and a whirlwind — you can read the reports if you like. The match was actually called off shortly after half-time. By that stage London Welsh had entered into a partnership agreement with London Irish, and London Welsh had surprisingly beaten them early in the season. The return match was due to be played the weekend after the match with [Wandsworth Park?], but apparently the ground was still far too wet to consider it, and there was an abject apology in the papers saying that people had turned up for nothing. Little did anyone know that would be the very last time an organised club rugby side would ever play at the ground.
The war changed everything. The Heathfield Club struggled on, playing a few matches in winter and summer, barely able to get one side out — a mixture of very young players and old veterans who kept their careers going. One was an international cricketer called Charles Mills who, by the time he retired, was in his early fifties; he had played one Test match for South Africa, though he was born here.
There were difficulties maintaining the ground. They let sheep onto the outfield in the winter to cut the grass while London Welsh were not using it, since there was no rugby — the men were away in the trenches. London Welsh had to make a decision. They had three or four seasons without any revenue at all. There were disputes with Heathfield regarding storage of equipment, and at one stage there was an issue with the selling of timber from a temporary pavilion that had been erected. And so eventually they sold the ground.
The man who bought it was a chap called Samuel Creswell. You can see the picture here, and the magnificent [lazer? layser?]; there were also nets here, because that table was very close — that is where the tennis was and the bowls club down there. Some of you will know that the opportunity to buy this ground came on the market in 1918, while the war was still going on. Creswell bought it and put down a deposit initially on behalf of [the associated St John’s Schools Trust?]. In those days the school consisted of Battersea Grammar School, which was based where Transformation House> is now, at the top of Plough Road — yes, where the Granada cinema was. Before that it was originally where Battersea [?] and also St John’s in Battersea High Street. He bought both schools.
But the relationship between the two schools was not cordial, really. When Battersea Grammar School was set up in 1875, it was intended to be the upper school and St John'’'s the lower school. Over the years the Taylor dynasty — who had been headmasters at St John’s — had made the school almost as viable as Battersea Grammar. So what could they do about the field? They decided to divide it. Here is Taylor’s signature, and this is Ellis, the headmaster at Battersea Grammar, who signed on the first of April — which was a bit of an April Fool on Ellis, I think, but it was the only practical way of coming to a solution about who should use what.
The buildings shown here are both in the Battersea Grammar sector, and this rough area here is where the changing rooms were going to be put in the St John’s sector. This section is about ten percent bigger but more regular in shape, so football pitches could be laid out more easily. The ground tapers away at the other end, which makes it more difficult to use.
In 1925 the Heathfield Club left the ground; their lease expired in 1924. The Heathfield Bowling Club in Heathfield Road is a direct descendant of the Heathfield Cricket Club that started up there in 1883. When they moved, they took the bowls with them. The tennis eventually got dropped because of further works in the 1960s, so just the bowls club remains.
You can see from this there is what is called the Accession Stone, which is still there today if you wander down Burntwood Lane — very understated. It was put there in 1927. It is still there to this day, though apparently in the 1960s it was attacked by a drunk wielding a cricket bat — I imagine the cricket bat came off second best, because the stone is still there. There was also some controversy about the wording on it, with claims that the respective sections reflected different amounts raised by each school.
This is a cadets presentation by Battersea Grammar School at their end of the ground, with a rather alarming sword. And this fellow is not W.G. Grace — who actually did play there in 1902, London County against Heathfield — but do you know who this is? This is Buster Merryfield? Merrifield — “Uncle Albert” from Only Fools and Horses. Uncle Albert played football up there, played cricket up there, and also boxed — he was an amateur Navy boxing champion. You may remember the picture in the special where he is on the Thames at the wheel, which is authentic: he did actually serve in the Navy during the war. You can see it says [“Up St John’s”?] on there.
Boxing played quite a big role in the school, which produced a number of amateur boxing champions. Battersea Grammar School moved to [Elvis? Elves?] Road in 1936.
This is a picture from 1947 — probably the best one I can find from that period. You can see it is not very clear; there are little breaks in the hedge where you can go and collect balls that have been hit over. At least this end is a sports ground: this end during the war was a barrage balloon site, and the school moved down to Godalming. The ground was very badly damaged during the Second World War, misused by the military, and virtually everything had to be rebuilt almost from scratch.
It was not until 1950 that the hedge was taken down, on the occasion of the 250th anniversary celebrations of the school. The schools came together again; old resentments were put behind them; headmasters had changed. The reason I mention boxing is that one of the features of the celebration was an open-air boxing match, which is on YouTube — I cannot tell you exactly where, but there is a picture of people around a boxing ring with two people boxing, apparently one from St John’s versus one from Battersea Grammar, and there are hundreds of people watching. Add it to the list of sports played on Wandsworth Common: open-air boxing. It happened — it really happened.
These are more post-war pictures. That is me over here, very casual, before a [Sorrento? Coming?] Ground match. By then a lot of these lads — in that eleven there are only about three or four who are genuine St John’s old boys, and one is a master — so you could see what was happening: the old boys’ connection was fading away. Since then it is no longer the Old Johnnians or the Old Grammarians; they became the [St John’s Grammarians?], because by that time both schools had been closed for about twenty years and there were very few players who even remembered either school.
Battersea Grammar School were very lucky: they produced two [chess? test?] players within ninety-nine years of each other, Mike [Salvia?] and David M. Smith, who both played ten matches for England. That is David Smith there. There are other people — Neil Radford is in here too. This one was at the end of the season when he [Radford?] took a side down there. David Waters was well known here too.
Nowadays the ground is used a lot for corporate events when the private schools are not using it — a typical scene in the sunshine. A couple of years ago, [Sarfraz Nawaz? Saqlain Mushtaq? Waqar Younis?], the Pakistani Test player, was invited — well, he came under his own steam, because his cousin was something to do with the ground — and he would occasionally come up and coach the players a little bit informally. I put his picture in the book. Someone said: “Go over here,” and I thought I could have put a picture in of me sitting down with him, but I said to Ashley — who Sarah knows — I said: “I do not think I am going to bother him.” And I am right at the back here, look — there I am.
That was in 2019, the summer when the drains collapsed up at the ground. The Trust put in £150,000. They discovered eventually that the main drain going through between the gardens and the field had actually collapsed — it was a wet winter anyway, but it was extraordinarily soggy. The groundsman was trying to make adjustments to rectify the problem but never succeeded — he should have made it worse, in my view, but there you are.
Bringing it right up to date: the nets, which were next to the Accession Stone, have been moved. The artificial pitch has been completely replaced — I managed to get that through the Surrey Cricket Association in 1993 and it was almost thirty years old, so it was due for replacement. Someone has done a very good job. The Colts use it nowadays. And that is where the nets are now, and the pavilion. The second squares start about here, and when the grass is high it can be quite a short boundary. There are rugby posts in one of the older pictures; I think that was because private schools used them occasionally, and I know that in 1970 there was an experimental session to reintroduce rugby, but it never came to anything.
I just want to mention one thing before I finish. Dickie Butler was a really excellent player at the school. This is his cricket [bat? cap?], which he won in July 1937 — I will pass it around if you want to have a look. He ran the [Jackdaws?] Bet. Interestingly, Jack Hobbs actually played at the field around 1904 when he was qualifying for Surrey. I do not think Dickie Butler realised that; Hobbs got that [bat? cap?] for a century against Southern Grammar School all those years ago. If it were not for the war, Butler would probably have played first-class cricket — but we will never know.
So there you are. That is, if you like, a very short history — with bits unfortunately left out because time and photography both have their limitations. But that really is the history of the ground, which is now known as Trinity Fields, having been known also as St John’s Playing Fields, the Creswell Ground, the Heathfield Ground, Wicks’ Field — all these names and more relate to the same perpetual playing field. I am sure I could talk all night, actually, but I am aware that some people may want to leave, so thank you very much.
[Applause]
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A talk given as part of the Wandsworth Heritage Festival, for the Friends of Wandsworth Common.