Wandsworth Common

The Battersea Local Committee recommended that a vehicular bridge be constructed over the railways on the site of the present footbridge connecting Wandsworth Common with Strath Terrace, and that application be made to the Metropolitan Board of Works to contribute half the cost. Mr W. Andrews was to prepare plans and specification at a cost not exceeding £2,000. These recommendations were adopted.

The Reindeer Harriers, with 134 members and rapidly growing, had their headquarters at the Freemasons' Tavern, Wandsworth Common, with a capital club and concert-room and good dressing accommodation. Their ordinary course: from headquarters east as far as the cemetery, then southwards along the side of the Common as far as the railway bridge, westwards to the Surrey Tavern, then sharp right along Trinity Road, over the railway, past the Mill at the Royal Victoria Patriotic Asylum, and home — about five miles. The club was selecting a team of twenty for the South of Thames Second-class Inter-Club Competition.

It was resolved that the board do adopt the licences issued by the late Conservators of Wandsworth Common to various persons for the use of foot-gates or doorways opening on to the Common from their premises, and do instruct the accountant to collect the rents mentioned in such licences.

A correspondence in the London Evening Standard, prompted by a savage assault by a cab-driver nearby, turned to the condition of Wandsworth Common. Correspondent "C" wrote: "Numbers of the most disreputable characters are allowed to lurk about both Clapham and Wandsworth Commons. Exposures of the most indecent kind are frequent; so that children sent from Wandsworth Common to Clapham Schools are obliged in the daytime to take the long route by road instead of crossing the Commons. Contractors' carts continue to plough a roadway across Wandsworth Common into the most disgraceful condition, in order to cultivate twenty acres of land which a few years ago were open common; scores of people grope their way at night with no friendly lamp along the footpaths."

A balloon voyage from Crystal Palace, recorded in a passenger's log: "6.00 p.m., 1,800 ft., passing over Wandsworth Common." The balloon subsequently crossed the Thames at Battersea Bridge, drifted north and south over London, passing over Kew Gardens, and eventually descended at a meadow near Uxbridge after one hour and 40 minutes in the air, the balloon containing 30,000 cubic feet of gas when it ascended.