Thames Tributary Falcon - Wandsworth Common

Thames Tributary Falcon
The Falcon ran north and west towards the Thames


Post to the north Clapham Junction

Post to the east Clapham South and Balham

Post to the west Wandsworth

Auckland Road
The Invitation pub. Closed

Battersea Rise
Battersea Rise is recorded as this in 1718, and is named from a field called ‘the Ryse’ in 1605. This might be from the Old English for 'brushwood' referring to local plant growth or from the 'rising or sloping ground'.
Wandsworth Station Opened 1st May 1838. Built by the London and Southampton Railway as their first station out of London, it was built on the side of what is now Battersea Rise as the line had curved to avoid the high ground at Clapham Common. Although named ‘Wandsworth’ it was a long way from there and eight years later it was renamed ‘Clapham Common’ - an area only marginally nearer than Wandsworth. Less than twenty years later it was closed.
New Wandsworth Station. Opened on 29th March 1858 by the West End of London and Crystal Palace Railway. Ire was on the south side of Battersea Rise opposite Clapham Common Station and closed in 1869.
New Wandsworth Goods Station. This is shown on maps of the 1890s alongside Chivalry Road plus a coal depot. It was on an elevated area above the main line and was still extant in the 1950s. It is now the site of Arundel Close
Battersea, St.Mary's, Cemetery. Owned by the London Borough of Wandsworth. The cemetery was opened in 1860 and was exhausted in the 1960's. There is a Gothic chapel and lodge plus a variety of memorials and trees. Graves include lots of railway deaths and John Burns, MP.
Emanuel School is a co-educational independent school founded by Lady Dacre and Elizabeth I in 1594. It is one of three schools administered by the United Westminster Schools’ Foundation. With Lady Dacre's benefaction in 1594, Emanuel Hospital was opened and thanks to Elizabeth I, her cousin, the school and almshouses were established at Tothill Fields. In 1883, the school and its boy moved into the current building which had been a boys' orphanage and part of the Royal Patriotic Orphanage. It had been designed by Henry Saxon Snell 1871 in high Victorian style with .lots of stained glass. There is a lodge at the Battersea Rise entrance,

Berber Road
The name alludes to Gordon's expedition of 1884

Bolingbroke Grove
This was called Five Houses Lane when five houses were built along the edge of the common in the late 18th by the landowning Spencer family. The area between Wandsworth and Clapham Common was developed from the 1860s and the road was named for the family of the Viscounts Bolingbroke, lords of the manor of Battersea.
Bolingbroke House. One of the original five houses built in the 1830s. Was purchased for a hospital in 1876 as the Bolingbroke Self Supporting Hospital and House in Sickness. Demolished 1937.
104 South West London Synagogue, opened 1920 closed 2000. Now housing
26 Northcote Lodge on the site of Linden School. Independent boys’ preparatory school.
26 Linden Lodge school for the Indigent Blind School. George Shearing, Jazz pianist, trained there. It is believed to have been designed by London School Board Architect E.R.Robson. The school itself is now in other premises in the Borough.

Broomwood Road
Built on the site of Broomfield House, one of William Wilberforce’s homes. Demolished 1904
111 Plaque to Wilberforce
Thomas Clapham in the old County Grammar School for Girls. Thomas school is a private school founded by a Mrs.Thomas. Built 1904 and listed Grade II. In 1978 it became 'Walsingham School', which changed in 1993 to 'Thomas' Preparatory School'

Chatham Road
Originally this was called Bolingbroke Grove

Cobham Close
Wandsworth estate of the 1970s.
St.Michael. Grade IIl listed church and community centre. Designed by William White in 1881.

Honeywell Road
Smaller terraces, with characteristically elaborate brickwork and barge boarded gables.
Honeywell Junior School

Mallinson Road
Ransom Pentecostal African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Chapel and Sunday School. This was the Methodist Church and School, built 1878, architect James Speed,

Montholme road
Route of the Falcon Brook

Northcote Road
Route of the Falcon Brook which forms a valley in which the road lies. The road has in the past been part of a major flood.Library. Opened in two shops in 1948 and subsequently rebuilt.
LCC Fire Station built 1906, closed 1914b and demolishedb1970.
Baptist Church. Built 1887-9 by E. W. Mountford. It has a tower on the corner.
Cinema in an old assembly room. Initially in 1908 it was the Bio Picture Palace, renamed the Globe, then the Century and closed in 1960s to become a supermarket.
174 Bolingbroke Pub
59 The Holy Drinker pub
94 Pitcher and Piano Pub

Rushham Road
Route of the Falcon Brook
Shelgate Road
61 plaque to Edward Thomas which says 'essayist and poet lived here'.

Wakehurst Road
The Bolingbroke Hospital. Built in stages between 1901 and 1936 on the site of Bolingbroke House, in which it was originally housed. Closed 2008 Central tower with beneath it a plaque about the opening of the Shepherd Wing in 1927. Below the cornice are the words ‘Bolingbroke Hospital’ which commemorates its founding by Canon Erskine Clarke in 1880. There are also ward blocks, out patients (The Victoria Memorial Wing) and an early ex-ray suite. Inside Edwardian fitting survive. The Children’s Ward includes tiles of nursery rhymes and tropical scenes. Another set of tiles by Carter of Pool show animals. In the vestibule there is a war memorial, the lifts have original fittings and there is also a Board Room. Most of the work undertaken throughout by the practice of Young and Hall.

Wandsworth Common
A flattish common of mowed grassland with the usual standard trees. The Spencer family as lords of the manor allowed extensive gravel extraction and by 1877 the Metropolitan Board of Works managed it.

Comments

Bryce said…
Interesting insight (I live in Battersea). Thanks.

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