A History of Wandsworth Common
IN PROGRESS — COMMENTS WELCOME
Beating Battersea's Bounds
The Parish Dial, 7 June 1862
"Beating the Bounds in Battersea", The Parish Dial, 7 June 1862.
I've highlighted the perambulation on Stanford's 6-inch Library Map of London 1862. The walk proceeds clockwise, in customary fashion, beginning and ending near the parish church of St Mary's.
(Click on image to enlarge)
Some years ago, Sean Creighton and Roger Logan sent me a treasure trove of newspaper cuttings featuring John Buckmaster, among which was this gem — a "perambulation" or "beating of the bounds" that Buckmaster and others made around Battersea in 1862. I am very grateful to Sean and Roger for passing the articles on.
The Parish Dial, 7 June 1862
(Click on image to enlarge)
BEATING THE BOUNDS IN BATTERSEA, May 1862.
Here's a transcript. To make it easier to read, I've broken the text up into shorter paragraphs.
I've also added numbers to help show where the action is taking place on the map. If you click on these numbers you should be taken to the related notes and commentary.
This is a work in progress, so if you can add (or subtract) anything, please do.
On Holy Thursday, according to triennial custom, the parochial officers of Battersea, accompanied by a large number of boys taken from the various schools, perambulated the bounds of the parish [Start . . . ]
The muster took place in Battersea-square [1], about nine o'clock in the morning; and after the boys were formed in procession, with white wands, the parochial officers and others proceeded along the water's edge to Battersea-bridge [2], and from thence along the river to the Railway Dock, at Nine Elms [5].
We may here remark that half the new Suspension and Railway-bridges were included in the journey [3], and an old foot-path leading past the Waterworks was re-opened [4]. Some doubt exists as to whether this path, which was a great convenience and a pleasant walk, could be legally closed without the consent or knowledge of the parochial authorities. This was one of the many things put down in the memoranda to be enquired into.
From the Dock the party (which had now considerably increased) proceeded through the Railway works [5] across the line to the edge of a very black, dirty-looking ditch, which divides the parish of Battersea from Lambeth [6].
Pursuing this open sewer along the low meadow-land you arrive at a place called "Pays bas," or the low country, which consists of a few houses, about a stone's throw from the Wandsworth-road, which we now enter through a white gate, cross the road, and ascend Wicke's-lane [7], and this forms the eastern boundary of the parish.
From the top of Wicke's-lane you bear in a south-easterly direction across Clapham Common [8] nearly to the corner of the Balham-road, and in a wall which divides the front gardens of two large gentlemen's homes you find a stone, almost hidden with ivy, with the significant initials, "B.P."
From this point you pass along the front gardens of all the houses on the south side of Nightingale-lane [9]. A row of old pollard oaks forms, in fact, the boundary lines at the road and about half of all the front gardens are in Battersea parish, and the houses in Streatham.
The journey across Clapham Common was rather difficult; the old boundary posts have either been removed or perished, but some knowing fellows who accompanied the expedition enabled the parochial officers to decide on those points, where good and substantial marks should be placed. This went down in the book, with the footpath.
At the Wandsworth Common end of Nightingale-lane you see a respectable white-looking house, just painted inside and out [10]. Part of this house is in Battersea parish, and when the army collected in a confused heap before the front door, the servant, in her own expressive language, "wondered what was up."
The Churchwarden and Vestry Clerk were admitted, and the boys, who like seeing the inside of strange houses, were rather disappointed.
The conspicuous white post at the corner was impressed on the memory by the usual bumping, which, at various points, had distinguished the day's proceedings; and it is worthy of remark that twenty-five years ago the present Bishop of Bath and Wells cheerfully underwent the proper bumping at this spot. But in these degenerate days no clergyman accompanied the parish officers and little boys on this festive occasion, or gave by their presence that friendly counsel which all expect but few receive.
From this post the journey proceeds to the south of the St. James's Industrial School [11], and in a delightful green lane, not like the one in Battersea, the boys and men seated themselves on the grass, and were plentifully supplied with cold ham and beef and bread and cheese, with a little wholesome beer.
This was the great event of the day; how the little fellows did eat! it really gives a good-natured man a great deal of pleasure to see such a sight. The Churchwarden was laughing and saying good-natured things to the boys, and telling them to eat away.
But how rapidly the party increases at such a time. Suddenly you find great numbers of persons ready to join in the eating. Where do they come from? Surely a common cannot produce them? but there they are all declaring most solemnly they had been with the party all day, although it is the first time you ever saw them.
The rural dinner over, the churchwarden's health was drank in good spirit. This was not the time or the audience for speechifying, so Mr. Walton just thanked them for their kindness, and the party then proceeded just to the side of Mr. McKellar's front gate [12]
Here they sung "God save the Queen," and then proceeded across the common [13], to about two hundred yards below the Clapham Common station [14]; here they crossed the line, and continued along the black fence into the road, and from there to the west side of the Union workhouse [15]. The wall dividing the Union from the Fishmongers Almshouses forms part of the western boundary of the parish.
Continuing this line across the Richmond Railway [16], into the Wandsworth-road, and from there down a lane on the east side of the Distillery [17] to the Thames, into Battersea-square [18], forms a general descriptive outline of the home bounds of the parish of Battersea.
The day was everything that could be wished, and there was no disagreeableness during the whole time.
After about eight hours the party arrived at the spot from which they started [18]. Mrs. Walton provided cake and tea for a number of the boys in the evening.
Among the party we noticed Mr. Perry, the churchwarden of St. George's, the school-master, Messrs. Poupart, Juer, W. Griffin, Buckmaster, and others.
Notes and commentary
What is a "perambulation" or "beating of the bounds"?
There are many accounts of perambulations online. One of the most informative is "Beating the Cholesbury Bounds" — Cholesbury-cum-St Leonards is a village in the Chilterns in Buckinghamshire, ten miles from John Buckmaster's birthplace of Slapton).
Here is an extract:
The custom of 'beating the bounds' has existed in Britain for well over 2000 years. Precise origins are unclear although it can be found as part of ritual celebration within many different cultures across Europe and beyond. In simple terms it involves people in the locality perambulating their farm, manorial, church or civil boundaries pausing as they pass certain trees, walls and hedges that denote the extent of the boundary to exclaim, pray and ritually 'beat' particular landmarks with sticks.
These sticks would originally have been of birch or willow, both being of significance to pre-Christian tribes. Birch has connection with besoms, which have ancient connections with pagan festivals however the willow possessing a close association with water appears to have predominated in medieval times. The sticks were known as rods or wands. The bark was removed exposing the white wood beneath. The English folk-song "Stripping The Willow" is a relatively modern record of these practices.
Such processions would typically occur every seven or ten years. Apart from any religious significance in a time when literacy or map-reading were not widespread skills these inspections served to ensure boundaries remained intact, were known by local people and had not been sequestrated by neighbouring landowners.
Other activities associated with these processional, religious or secular rituals have also survived. Most frequently, at certain points on the boundary, young boys were held upside down and had their heads bumped on a marker stone.
In past times adolescent boys might also be 'switched' (i.e. hit with the willow wands), thrown over hedges, into brambles or ponds or required to climb up chimneys or over roofs. These actions may have originally had a darker antecedents but in more recent times ensured the imprinting of the exact location of a boundary by successive generations of that community.
[Cholesbury.com Beating the Chosebury Bounds (accessed 3 May 2023).]
The perambulation of Battersea . . .
This perambulation or beating of the bounds was intended to define the boundaries of the parish of St Mary's Battersea, in order to assert the scale and integrity of Battersea not just as a religious entity, but (probably mainly) as a social and political one at a time of great change. Your parish was an important source of local identity.
Battersea parish is very ancient — probably Anglo-Saxon in origin, so perhaps more than 1300 years old. Today there are numerous parishes in southwest London, each with its own parish church. But it appears that before the Norman Conquest there was just one large manor stretching from today's Vauxhall in the east to Wimbledon Common in the west (perhaps as far as Beverley Brook).
Battersea at that time included today's Wandsworth. Let's call it, "Battersea-cum-Wandsworth".
[There have been several attempts to map Battersea-cum-Wandsworth's Anglo-Saxon bounds (as described in perambulations of 693 CE and another of c.957 CE), for example by Keith Bailey, Graham Gower, and Nick Fuentes. You can see these, and the spirited arguments they engendered, in a number of editions of the indispensable The Wandsworth Historian (e.g. nos. 3, 43, 58, 59, 60, 65, 69, 74, 87). Fascinating, if sometimes breathtakingly obscure.
Keith has recently revisited the debate and proposed two possible boundaries (as yet unpublished paper, personal correspondence). More on these another time.]
From then until early in the nineteenth century the larger manor itself was subdivided (for example, "Allfarthing", "Doune", and other small manors were carved out too) but there were still only two parishes: St Mary's in Battersea and All Saints in Wandsworth.
Battersea and Wandsworth in 1862. I find this map/diagram makes it more comprehensible how the two areas (at times distinct boroughs) might once have been a single entity (as they are again today — so surely it should be called the Borough of Battersea and Wandsworth?).
The boundaries around and between them may not have corresponded exactly with Anglo-Saxon ones, but they're probably a useful guide.
The mostly straight boundary across Wandsworth Common down to the Thames is intriguing. I'll have more to say about this later.
(Click on image to enlarge)
St Mary's, Battersea's "mother" church, c.2010. As the population grew in the nineteenth century, new churches were built and the parent parish was divided to create a number of new parishes.
[LayersofLondon.org: Link.]
The parish had been mapped (by John Corris) in extraordinary detail for principal landowner Earl Spencer in 1787, and surveyed again in 1838 to meet the obligations of the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836.
,
Tithe map of Battersea parish, 1838
[Corris, 1787, and the Tithe map, 1838, to be explored at other times and places.]
(Click on image to enlarge)
On Penge . . .
Graham Jackson has reminded me that Penge (roughly today's Penge/Anerley/Crystal Palace area) was once part of Battersea parish — albeit many miles away.
A Battersea boundary post on Lansdowne Place, south of Crystal Palace.
(Click on image to enlarge)
I can't discuss it in any detail now, but it would make an interesting story. This "exclave" was heavily forested (it was part of the "Great North Wood" that gave its name to Norwood), and therefore of vital economic importance to the main area of Battersea. It ceased to be part of Battersea in 1900 [check — sources vary].
Sources on Penge to follow up include (there are doubtless many more):
— PengePast: "Touching the Comon [sic] of Penge" (probably the best reference).
— Wikipedia: Penge
— Wikipedia: Penge Urban District
— Transpont: Beating Bounds in Penge and Blackheath.
— DiamondGeezer: A Walk around the rim of Penge
— PengePast: Where was Penge?.
— Sydenham.org.uk: Making sense of Penge Common.
— There are a number of photographs of Penge boundary markers bearing the name "Battersea" in Inside Croydon: Eight Walks to encompass Croysdon's Boundaries.]
Battersea parish divided . . .
The parish of St Mary is much smaller today than in 1862 because several new churches and parishes have been created.
Here are two maps from the St Mary's website:
Battersea parishes today.
St Mary's parish.
(Click on image to enlarge)
[The first new parish in Battersea was St George's, Nine Elms (1831 — the church opened in 1828. See NineElmsLondon.com: Boozers, Bombs and Bodies: the forgotten church of Nine Elms (The article was researched and written by The Battersea Society.)
Christ Church, off Battersea Park Road, was another new church and parish. Although it was consecrated in 1849, it not have its own parish until 1861. As it happens, my great-grandparents were married here in 1866, only a few years after the perambulation took place. What brought them to Battersea (from rural Sussex)? I have no idea.
Daughter churches/parishes near Wandsworth Common include St Mark's (consecrated 1872), St Michael's (1883), and St Luke's (1892). On this and much else, see The Survey of London: Battersea — a marvellous resource.]
(Click on image to enlarge)
"On Holy Thursday, according to triennial custom . . . "
BEATING THE BOUNDS IN BATTERSEA.
On Holy Thursday, according to triennial custom, the parochial officers of Battersea, accompanied by a large number of boys taken from the various schools, perambulated the bounds of the parish.
(Click on image to enlarge)
"Holy Thursday" — in 1862, this was Thursday May 29.
[This is not the Thursday before Good Friday (i.e. Maundy Thursday) but "Ascension Day" — the 40th day of Easter (39 days after Easter Sunday). It celebrates the ascension of Jesus to heaven after his resurrection.
But why is this particular day used for perambulations? Do all beatings of parish bounds take place on this day?]
William Blake, "Holy Thursday", from Songs of Innocence. Click on the image or here for a transcription.
William Blake married Catherine Boucher at St Mary's Church, Battersea, on 17 August 1782. See e.g. Tate Gallery: William Blake's London.
"Triennial custom" — three years may have been the case in Battersea, but intervals of seven or ten years were perhaps more usual elsewhere.
[But if "triennial", surely there must be more accounts of perambulations to be found? The only one I know of included John Burns (1858—1943), who beat the bounds as a boy, probably within the next decade.]
The report is not clear who all the "Parochial officers" were at this time. The Church-warden, we learn, was Mr Walton. (Whose wife, at the end of a long day's walk, provides the boys with cakes.) Messrs Juer and [Samuel] Poupart, local market gardeners and nurserymen (as you might expect in this area) appear frequently in local newspapers both as vestrymen and as members of the Wandsworth District Board of Works. The local directory or Metallurgicon of 1867 describes a William Griffin as Registrar of Births and Deaths for the Battersea Vestry.
[Members of the Wandsworth District Board of Works in 1857 are listed in the South London Journal — Tuesday 19 May 1857. They include Messrs Juer, Poupart, Nottidge, Watney and many other notables.
[John Buckmaster did not become Church-warden of St Mary's until later [date?]. However, he may have been an Overseer (possibly of Penge, the exclave of Battersea).]
The absence of the vicar himself, Revd John S Jenkinson (in post 1847–71), is noted rather tartly [" . . . in these degenerate days no clergyman accompanied the parish officers and little boys on this festive occasion, or gave by their presence that friendly counsel which all expect but few receive."]
[The Survey of Battersea describes the Revd J.S. Jenkinson (incumbent 1847–71) as "uncharismatic, as well as ‘a bit of a terror to boys and girls’" [I wonder what that means?], and discuss his ineptness in local politics. John Buckmaster was very pleased indeed when Jenkinson was replaced in 1872 by the phenomenal John Erskine Clarke.]
A "large number of boys taken from the various schools". This may have been before the explosion in educational provision after the creation of the School Board for London (1870), but there were already a number of schools in the area. Not that even a majority was in school — according to contemporary studies, just one in three school-age children attended.
["In a report for the Society of Arts at the end of the 1860s T. Paynter Allen wrote of a "pre-eminently poor parish" under population pressure. Twenty-four voluntary schools offered 4,160 places, yet Allen computed the school-age population of Battersea as roughly 12,600. 'Where were the remaining 8,000?' Apart from a supposed 600 'in the streets', his answer was that they were at dame schools or 'private adventure' establishments." (The Survey of London for Battersea.]
A number of schools are marked in the next map, which shows the area around St Mary's in 1862. In addition, the National Society's Teachers Training College (St John's College, where Buckmaster had been a student, and later a teacher) was just a stone's throw away. This would have given access to other sources of usable small boys.
(Click on image to enlarge)
Why young boys? There were several reasons. In times before accurate surveying and printed maps, it was necessary to impress the position of landmarks on the minds of children, who could carry that knowledge with them for perhaps another seventy or eighty years. As we see in the passage describing the journey across Clapham Common, the old boundary posts having either been removed or perished, the boundary was obscure. But thanks to the tradition, "some knowing fellows who accompanied the expedition enabled the parochial officers to decide on those points."
The importance of memory, and of "time immemorial", was a constant feature of the struggle to save Wandsworth Common. Where developers wanted to enclose areas and stop paths across the Common, old people could be called upon to testify in support of "traditional right" — that they remembered that in childhood they enjoyed free access to these places.
But perhaps more important was not the knowledge or memory that was being stored away but their present physical skills — their innate ability to clamber over fences and over walls, to get through small holes, to climb trees, and so on. This allowed the perambulators to check what was happening in concealed places and to assert rights of access.
What about girls? There is no mention of girls on the perambulation, though elsewhere (and later) girls certainly did participate. Is this an "oversight", or did girls really not participate at this time?
Girls beating the bounds in Hertfordshire, 1913
(Click on image to enlarge)
[1]
"The muster took place in Battersea-square . . . "
Are you ready, boots?
Start walking.
The muster took place in Battersea-square [1], about nine o'clock in the morning; and after the boys were formed in procession, with white wands, the parochial officers and others proceeded along the water's edge to Battersea-bridge [2], and from thence along the river to the Railway Dock, at Nine Elms [5].
(Click on image to enlarge)
On "white wands", typically birch or willow rods stripped of their bark. Both would have been common in this low-lying area of Battersea, given the proximity to the Thames and the many small streams and drainage ditches across the landscape.
Battersea Park to the reservoirs . . .
Battersea Park was constructed 1854 to 1870 on marshland reclaimed from the Thames by the building of a massive embankment infilled behind partly by earth (chiefly excavated from the Royal Victoria Dock) brought in on barges, but also by digging out a great lake and shifting the spoil to form local mounds.
(Click on image to enlarge)
[3, 4]
"Half the new Suspension and Railway-bridges were included in the journey . . . "
"We may here remark that half the new Suspension and Railway-bridges were included in the journey [3], and an old foot-path leading past the Waterworks was re-opened [4]. Some doubt exists as to whether this path, which was a great convenience and a pleasant walk, could be legally closed without the consent or knowledge of the parochial authorities. This was one of the many things put down in the memoranda to be enquired into.
"Half the bridges" because the parish boundary was in the middle of the Thames, not the river bank.
[I hope eventually to add notes on the Waterworks (later the site of Battersea Power Station). It was notorious at the time because, as John Snow had recently demonstrated in a series of dazzling maps of Battersea and Lambeth, the water it supplied to local houses was laden with cholera, causing many deaths.]
Parish boundary marker, Battersea Bridge.
[The best source of images and general information is Mike Horne's Metadyne website: How the boundaries between London's parishes were marked — a photographic survey. On Battersea and nearby download this pdf. I am not sure whether he continues to maintain the site. I do hope so.]
(Click on image to enlarge)
Battersea's bridges, 1862
— Battersea Railway Bridge (not opened until 2 March 1863, but must have been in construction when the perambulation took place.)
— Battersea Bridge (1771, rebuilt 1885)
— Grosvenor Railway Bridge (1859).
— Chelsea Suspension Bridge (1858, rebuilt 1937).
[Note: Albert Bridge was not built until 1873, although its exact position is clearly marked (notice "Cadogan Pier" on the far side), and the Vauxhall Bridge was (just) outside the parish. Up-river, the first Wandsworth Bridge was also built in 1873.]
[5, 6]
From the Dock, the party (which had now considerably increased) proceeded through the Railway works [5] across the line to the edge of a very black, dirty-looking ditch, which divides the parish of Battersea from Lambeth [6].
(Click on image to enlarge)
"The Dock" — various docks are marked, including ones serving the flour mills and whiting and lime works, at the mouth of the Mill Pond, and the cement works and railway goods depot at Nine Elms.
The "Railway works" — a number are shown. Presumably this refers to the Nine Elms station (top right of map).
[Notice it includes a rather intriguingly named "Government Emigration Depot". According to the LayersofLondon website, this was "where Government-sponsored emigrants to Australia were housed before being taken by train to Southampton for disembarkation."]
"Proceeded . . . across the line" — how interesting! Obviously there was no electrification at this time, and far fewer trains — and of course noisy steamy smoky trains gave plenty of advance warning. The perambulators will cross quite a number of lines that day.
[A little later, for example around 1890, Emanuel schoolboys routinely crossed the lines directly from their school on to the east (Battersea) side of the Common. Reasons included to play soccer (rather than the rugby that was being forced on them in the school grounds), or to defend their fellow-pupils when they observed them being attacked by local "Boardyblags — boys from local Board Schools, such as Belleville and Honeywell.
The poet Edward Thomas, who grew up on Wakehurst and Shelgate Roads, and went to Belleville, writes entertainingly about these conflicts (from the point of view of a "boardyblag").]
[6]
"Pursuing this open sewer along the low meadow-land you arrive at a place called "Pays bas," or the low country . . . "
The "very black, dirty-looking ditch, which divides the parish of Battersea from Lambeth" is the curious, almost semi-circular Heathwall Sluice between Nine Elms and Battersea Creek that in effect made an island of Battersea.
The Stanford map of e.g. 1862 marks the Heathwall as a "Watercourse", but also as "York Sewer". However, this later term may not be quite as disparaging as it seems because at this time the word "sewer" still generally meant a seasonal open waterway draining away heavy rainfall, rather than the underground conduit for the disposal of human waste.
Here is the course of the Battersea/Clapham boundary running along the Heathwall:
(Click on image to enlarge)
The best source of information is Jon Newman's splendid The Heathwall: Battersea's Buried River (2019). It includes this helpful and attractive map of the area by David Western.
(Click on image to enlarge)
Pursuing this open sewer along the low meadow-land you arrive at a place called "Pays bas," or the low country, which consists of a few houses, about a stone's throw from the Wandsworth-road, which we now enter through a white gate, cross the road, and ascend Wicke's-lane [7], and this forms the eastern boundary of the parish.
"'Pays bas' or the low country"
Robert Westall's watercolour of 1848, painted only a few years before this perambulation, shows a rich alluvial plain being used for highly productive market gardens. It could be Holland.
Robert Westall, "Battersea Fields looking north to Chelsea in 1848" (Museum of London). The artist may have positioned himself on the raised London-Southampton railway line that crosses this low country to its then-terminus at Nine Elms.
In the foreground we see a fertile plain, with numerous agricultural workers tending long straight lines of crops (some of which may be lavender, or asparagus, both of which were famously produced in abundance in Battersea).
Beyond, a lower lying area with the reservoirs of the Southwark and Vauxhall Water Company. In the distance, across the Thames, the Royal Hospital, Chelsea (left of centre); the Battersea Windmill (centre), Battersea Pumping Station (right of centre); Westminster Abbey and central London (extreme right).
Jon Newman comments:
Pays Bas, the French for 'low country', [is] apt enough but phonetically beyond the locals who pronounced it 'Pay Bar' (a misnomer that made it into print on Stanford's 1862 map).
Pays Bas is also the French name for Holland, which feels equally fitting, seamed as this area was with "curious marshy ditches in which horse leeches were found". The artist Turner, living in Chelsea riverside in the late 1840s, used to refer to the prospect south from his window over Battersea as "my Dutch view".
[8]
"From the top of Wicke's Lane . . . "
From the top of Wicke's-lane you bear in a south-easterly direction across Clapham Common [8] nearly to the corner of the Balham-road, and in a wall which divides the front gardens of two large gentlemen's homes you find a stone, almost hidden with ivy, with the significant initials, "B.P."]
"B.P" — boundary post.
"Pay Bar" (a acetic acid/vinegar factory owned by the Beaufoy family) and Wicke's (also known as Wix) Lane. Notice that the boundary is down the narrow (and probably ancient) Lane, not the more recent, wider, straighter Cedars Road.
(Click on image to enlarge)
"The journey across Clapham Common was rather difficult . . . "
The journey across Clapham Common was rather difficult; the old boundary posts have either been removed or perished, but some knowing fellows who accompanied the expedition enabled the parochial officers to decide on those points, where good and substantial marks should be placed. This went down in the book, with the footpath.
Perhaps significantly, the boundary across Clapham Common is not dead straight, which would have put an end to any confusion. It veers slightly eastward and westward. Why?
The slightly meandering north-south line of the Battersea-Clapham boundary as it crosses Clapham Common.
It is said that violent confrontations between the commoners of Battersea and Clapham (over grazing and other rights) led to the boundary line being dug out as a great dividing ditch, separating the rivals' domains. Is this true?
(Click on image to enlarge)
It is worth reminding ourselves that commons such as Clapham, Wandsworth, and Wimbledon were all divided between adjacent manors and parishes, neither party being able to claim exclusive rights. In each case, "copyholders" and "commoners" — those with rights to use the resources of the common as a resource (for example, for grazing animals, or to provide firewood, or gravel) — had roughly equal access.
"Good and substantial marks" were indeed eventually placed along the entire route — see e.g. Parish Boundaries: List of Stones and Marks, 1886 (copy in hand), which I also hope to write about sometime soon. Some of these markers are known to survive, and there may be others (perhaps concealed in gardens) that it would be good to locate.]
"The south side of Nightingale Lane . . . "
From this point you pass along the front gardens of all the houses on the south side of Nightingale-lane [9]. A row of old pollard oaks forms, in fact, the boundary lines at the road and about half of all the front gardens are in Battersea parish, and the houses in Streatham.
[Actually, not (mainly) in Streatham but a "detached" part of Clapham. Notice how much of this section of the Clapham/Streatham border is defined by the "York Sewer" — the Falcon Brook.]
The Battersea boundary is on the south side of Nightingale Lane, abutting a detached part of Clapham parish.
(Click on image to enlarge)
Some Boundary Posts along Nightingale Lane . . .
Today (12 May 2023) I took some quick snaps of boundary posts on Nightingale Lane. I probably didn't find all, but there were quite a few. It would be wonderful to locate and photograph all of the boundary markers around Battersea parish.
Here is a selection:
On Clapham Common, near Clapham South tube station.
Under the hedge, in front of [Clapham Mansions?]
[Nearby]
North side of Alderbrook Road.
The other side of Alderbrook Road.
Outside no.67 — the corner of Ramsden Road.
(Photos: PB.)
(Click on images to enlarge)
[10]
"A respectable white-looking house . . . "
At the Wandsworth Common end of Nightingale-lane you see a respectable white-looking house, just painted inside and out [10]. Part of this house is in Battersea parish, and when the army collected in a confused heap before the front door, the servant, in her own expressive language, "wondered what was up."
This must be "Nightingale Cottage", seen here on an Ordnance Survey map of 1868:
Nightingale Lane — Nightingale Cottage — the "green lane" to Fernside and beyond. Although Fernside and neighbouring houses are on the very edge of Wandsworth Common, they are in Streatham (not Battersea) parish.
Wandsworth Common Station opened nearby in 1869.
(Click on image to enlarge)
The Churchwarden and Vestry Clerk were admitted, and the boys, who like seeing the inside of strange houses, were rather disappointed.
"Twenty-five years ago the present Bishop of Bath and Wells cheerfully underwent the proper bumping at this spot..."
The conspicuous white post at the corner was impressed on the memory by the usual bumping, which, at various points, had distinguished the day's proceedings; and it is worthy of remark that twenty-five years ago the present Bishop of Bath and Wells cheerfully underwent the proper bumping at this spot.
This must be a mistake, although a strange one. The Bishop of Bath and Wells at this time was Robert Eden, 3rd Baron Auckland, who has no (known) connection with Battersea. So who was it?
The reference seems more likely to be to local-boy Samuel Wilberforce (1805-1873), son of the famous William (the MP who led the anti-slave trade movement).
Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, by Ape, Vanity Fair, 24 July 1869.
Widely known as "Soapy Sam" (thanks to what Disraeli called his "unctuous, oleaginous, saponaceous" manner), he grew up "between the Commons" in Broomfield House (renamed Broomwood House). But 25 years since the bumping is too soon — he would have been too old. Fifty years is perhaps more like it.
Possible?
But in these degenerate days no clergyman accompanied the parish officers and little boys on this festive occasion, or gave by their presence that friendly counsel which all expect but few receive.
I have already noted the dripping irony above, presumably addressed to the vicar of St Mary's, the Revd J.S. Jenkinson.
"St. James's Industrial School . . . "
From this post the journey proceeds to the south of the St. James's Industrial School [11], and in a delightful green lane, not like the one in Battersea, the boys and men seated themselves on the grass, and were plentifully supplied with cold ham and beef and bread and cheese, with a little wholesome beer.
St James's Industrial School (photo of unknown date), built 1851—2 for pauper children of St James's parish in central London. It gave its name to St James's Road (now Drive).
(Click on image to enlarge)
The sale of this large chunk of Wandsworth Common land for the construction of the school was one of a number of Earl Spencer's "charitable" actions around Wandsworth Common.
The specific connection here is that (Spencer House), the good Earl's palatial home, was in St James's parish, Westminster — where local pauper children must have been quite nuisance. (He charged the parish £600 for its 20 acres.) He also sold common land for the Royal Freemasons' School for Girls, for the Royal Victoria Patriotic School for Girls, and the fields in front of Wandsworth Prison. (Earlier, he had sold land cut from the Common to various railway companies.)
Buckmaster was a committed abstentionist — but can we assume that "a little wholesome beer" was such low-alcohol "small beer" that he thought it was acceptable, even for children?
Battersea village's "Green Lane" ran just south of the National Society's Teachers Training College (St John's).
The green lane (shown on Stanford 1862 as "The Drive") that runs from Nightingale Cottage past a row of large houses, including "Fernside", is not today's Ravenslea Road. This was built later as a projection of Bolingbroke Grove.
At this time the lane (and boundary) continued over the new railway line to run along behind the St James's Industrial School.
The passage into the Common from Balham Park Road — all that remains of the "delightful green lane" (cut in two by the railway) that ran from Nightingale Cottage past Fernside.
Notice the small Battersea boundary post at its entrance.
(Click on image to enlarge)
This was the great event of the day; how the little fellows did eat! it really gives a good-natured man a great deal of pleasure to see such a sight. The Churchwarden was laughing and saying good-natured things to the boys, and telling them to eat away.
But how rapidly the party increases at such a time. Suddenly you find great numbers of persons ready to join in the eating. Where do they come from? Surely a common cannot produce them? but there they are all declaring most solemnly they had been with the party all day, although it is the first time you ever saw them.
The rural dinner over, the churchwarden's health was drank in good spirit. This was not the time or the audience for speechifying, so Mr. Walton just thanked them for their kindness, and the party then proceeded just to the side of Mr. McKellar's front gate [12]
This ancient little sting in the tail of the Battersea bee is one of the great enigmas in the history of the area — with manifold effects on the subsequent layout of roads and houses. Battersea, Wandsworth and Streatham parishes meet here, at the corner of "Mr McKellar's front gate".
(Click on image to enlarge)
Wandsworth and Battersea boundary posts opposite the site of Henry McKellar's Wandsworth Lodge. (Photos: PB.)
.(Click on image to enlarge)
"McKellar's front gate" — the entrance to Wandsworth Lodge. This is the southernmost point of the perambulation, and what was then still thought of by many as the furthest extent of Wandsworth Common.
Henry McKellar (or M'Kellar) lived in Wandsworth Lodge. In spite of its name, it was not the entrance to a larger house behind but a very considerable house in its own right — perhaps the largest of any house round the Common — with substantial grounds and many greenhouses etc. Like so many rich villa-owners in the area, McKellar had a passion for horticulture, for which he (or his gardeners) won prizes.
There may have been some animus behind this report because McKellar had recently bought a large part of Wandsworth Common from Earl Spencer. The great wedge between Trinity Road, St James's Drive, and Bellevue was often referred to in the campaign to save the Common as "McKellar's Triangle".
By 1868, "McKellar's Triangle" (tinted pink here), and other land he had bought from Earl Spencer, was being rapidly covered with new roads and houses. "There was still nothing but empty fields here in 1863 when McKellar died and this land was sold along with rest of his estate." (Survey of London: Battersea, vol 50, ch.19 — an excellent account of the building history of Battersea's "Deep South").
(Click on image to enlarge)
"Here they sung "God save the Queen," and then proceeded across the common . . . "
[14]
Here they sung "God save the Queen," and then proceeded across the common [13], to about two hundred yards below the Clapham Common station [14]; here they crossed the line, and continued along the black fence into the road . . .
Nothing is said in this account, but it seems likely that the perambulators were still able to walk uninterrupted in a straight line across McKellar's Triangle to Bellevue Road, then on to the edge of what is now the "Toast Rack" (largely nurseries a this time), directly across the grounds of the Royal Victoria Patriotic Asylum for Girls to the railway line near "Clapham Common Station". (The boys' school — now Emanuel — was built on a little used part of the girls' grounds in 1872.)
Crossing the common
The traditional Wandsworth—Battersea boundary is crossed in a number of places behind today's "Toast Rack" — there are probably more boundary markers in this area than anywhere else around the parish. This reflects a complex history in which, many centuries ago, Allfarthing Manor was given a tiny toehold on the Common — the "Allfarthing Piece" (on which more another time).
(Click on image to enlarge)
Local boundary-post-hunter at work. Marlowe finds one in the passage between the Common and Routh/Baskerville Road.
"About two hundred yards below the Clapham Common station . . . they crossed the line . . . "
"Clapham Common" station (opened 1838, closed 1863), with the Royal Freemasons' School for Girls in the background.
The house, park and "Black Sea" shown botton left in the angle of the red boundary line was leased to the Wilson family, who owned Price's Candle Works. Their Belmont factory was sited where the Falcon Brook entered the Thames.
(Click on image to enlarge)
[This suggests the perambulators crossed the RVPA Girls grounds, then crossed the railway line, before turning left along what is now called North Side. The girls' orphanage opened in 1859, but the boys' school was not built until 1872 — it was sold to Emanuel School in 1881, and the first boys arrived in 1883.
OS 1895, showing the original Battersea-Wandsworth boundary running through the Emanuel School grounds. Emanuel is (almost) entirely in Battersea. The girls' school (almost) entirely within Wandsworth.
(Click on image to enlarge)
Why did/does the long (straight? sightly curved?) boundary across the Common suddenly turn east (along North Side), than north-ish (Spanish Road), then north-east (York Road) than north-west? If the straight/slightly curved boundary line had continued, it would have reached the Thames at the mouth of the Falconbrook. Is this relevant?
(Click on image to enlarge)
[15]
"The wall dividing the Union from the Fishmongers Almshouses . . . "
. . . and from there to the west side of the Union workhouse [15]. The wall dividing the Union from the Fishmongers Almshouses forms part of the western boundary of the parish.
A gorgeous engraving of St Peter's Hospital, also known as the Fishmongers' Almshouses, on East Hill (1849). The original was by Thomas Shotter Boys (1803—1874) — my namesake, but sadly no relation (that I know of).
The gateway can still be seen today, though altered by the London County Council when they knocked St Peter's down and built the East Hill Estate (1923 — this was itself knocked down and rebuilt in 1982.
The heavily wooded area to the right may be artistic licence — invented to conceal the Workhouse next door. The wall between them formed the boundary between Battersea and Wandsworth (so the Workhouse was in Battersea).
Just look at that background!
(Click on image to enlarge)
[16]
Continuing this line across the Richmond Railway [16], into the Wandsworth-road, and from there down a lane on the east side of the Distillery [17] to the Thames, into Battersea-square [1], forms a general descriptive outline of the home bounds of the parish of Battersea.
"After about eight hours the party arrived at the spot from which they started. . . .
The day was everything that could be wished, and there was no disagreeableness during the whole time.
After about eight hours the party arrived at the spot from which they started. Mrs. Walton provided cake and tea for a number of the boys in the evening. Among the party we noticed Mr. Perry, the churchwarden of St. George's, the school-master, Messrs. Poupart, Juer, W. Griffin, Buckmaster, and others.
18
(Click on image to enlarge)
"Eight hours . . . "
If we were to try to walk the same course today, I wonder how long it would take? How close could we get to the original boundary? How much has the boundary been modified? Have more enclosures taken place?
That's it for the perambulation of Battersea parish, 1862. But just for fun I've tacked on a coda about beating the bounds of a Battersea school in the 1920s...
Beating the Bounds of Emanuel School, 1920s
"Iconic Images of Emanuel School no.43: Beating the Bounds"
"Wilfred Scott-Giles* felt that the Emanuel schoolboy of the 1920s knew little of the history of the School and so he created an Emanuel version of the Middle Ages tradition 'Beating the Bounds'. Everyone dressed up and paraded around the most famous spots in the School grounds. The tradition remained popular until the 1950s when it was eventually discontinued."
(Photos: Emanuel School Archive, with thanks to the unfailingly helpful archivist Tony Jones.)
(Click on image to enlarge)
[* Old Emanuel Wilfred Scott-Giles (1893—1982) — an expert on heraldry who served as Fitzalan Pursuivant Extraordinary — is also almost certainly the person ultimately responsible for the rather strange naming of the Fitzhugh Estate, built on what had been part of Wandsworth Common. There's Fitzhugh itself, but also its five eleven-story "point-blocks": Gernigan, Morville, Skipsea, St Quentin, and Woodhall — an oddly medievalist turn for mid-twentieth-century modernist tower blocks. If you want to know more, let me know.]
Fitzhugh estate, RVPA (Girls), and a pitch on the Cricket Field. Trinity Road leading to the County Arms on the right.
(Click on image to enlarge)
The Open Space Society: Village Green: Beating the bounds of your local common or green
Beating the bounds is typically associated with churches and parishes, but any area can be perambulated — a school, farm, manor, borough or indeed a common, such as Wandsworth's.
Click here to read a ‘how-to-do-it’ article, Village Green: Beating the Bounds of your local common or green (or download a pdf) produced by the Open Space Society. (The Open Space Society was first known as the Commons Preservation Society (founded 1865) — they were very active in the campaign to save Wandsworth Common.)
Many thanks to Stephen Midlane for this reference and link — he tells me he's rather looking forward to one day seeing "a theatrical procession complete with willow wands, costumes, music, and singing" crossing the Common.
Hear! Hear!
Back to the top of this page . . .
History of Wandsworth Common — Home page and Chronicles.
Send me an email if you want to comment on anything you've seen or read on the site, or would like to know more about something, or just want to be kept in touch.
Philip Boys (aka "HistoryBoys")