Build 2 — 6 August 2026

History of Wandsworth Common

A House by Mount Nod, 1813

The corner house adjoining the Huguenot Burial Ground, as sketched by the architect Charles Ferdinand Porden in August 1813 — identified here for the first time as the same building later illustrated (from different angles) in a modern published account of Wandsworth's old houses.

IN PROGRESS — NOT FOR PUBLICATION

Porden's Watercolour, 1813

Charles Ferdinand Porden's 1813 watercolour of a house adjoining the burial ground of Wandsworth on the road to Clapham
Porden's watercolour, sketched 23 August 1813. (Museum of London Picture Library — the same image reproduced, at lower resolution and without its inscriptions, as Fig. 2 in a modern published account; see below.)

The sketch is inscribed, top centre, in Porden's own hand:

Wandsworth

Along the bottom, two further inscriptions. The first is a rejected identification, partly struck through:

Parsonage [struck through] or Manor House

This word is faint and the reading uncertain — "Manor House" is fairly clear, but the crossed-out word before it, though probably "Parsonage," has not been confirmed with certainty.

Porden then settled on a plainer, more reliable caption:

adjoining the burial ground of Wandsworth on the road to Clapham
Sketched 23d Augt 1813. Porden

Identification

Philip Boys has confirmed that this is the corner house immediately by Mount Nod, the Huguenot Burial Ground — identifiable from the Venetian window on the side of the house, which matches the same feature in a later illustration of the same building (see below). Porden's own guess at the building's identity, weighing up "Parsonage" against "Manor House," was mistaken on both counts: there was a separate house about a hundred yards away that was confusingly also known locally as "the Manor House," despite not being the historic manor house itself (which was in Battersea, not Wandsworth). Porden appears to have known the building was significant, but not what it actually was.

The sketch is signed simply "Porden," which initially suggested the elder, more famous William Porden — architect of the stables and riding house at the Brighton Pavilion. Philip Boys has since confirmed it is in fact the work of William's nephew, Charles Ferdinand Porden (1790–1863), who trained under his uncle before going on to design St Matthew's Church, Brixton (1822–24) — itself the subject of some Chronicles research this year.

Porden's caption describes the house as adjoining "the burial ground of Wandsworth" — not specifically the Huguenot section of it. Since the Wandsworth parish burial ground and the Huguenot Burial Ground (Mount Nod) were, at this date, effectively one and the same site, this is consistent with — rather than in conflict with — the identification as the house by Mount Nod, but it's worth noting Porden did not single out the Huguenot association himself.

A Later Illustration — Source Not Yet Identified

Editorial note: A modern published account of the old houses of Wandsworth reproduces the same building from two further angles: a lower-resolution, uncaptioned version of Porden's own 1813 watercolour (credited "Museum of London Picture Library, negative no. 7067"), and a second illustration from a different viewpoint, showing the house from within the burial ground itself, in trees, among headstones (credited "Wandsworth Museum"). The accompanying text notes the house's high roof and large chimneys as suggestive of a 17th-century date, its first documentary record in an 1718 fire insurance policy (when it belonged to John Bindon of London, citizen and haberdasher), fixtures recorded in 1746 (six wainscotted rooms, five marble chimneypieces, one Portland stone chimneypiece), a description from 1793 as "a genteel red brick house" belonging to a Mr Walker, and that it was still standing in 1894 but gone soon after. A note in the original directs readers to "the author's Wandsworth Past at pp. 50–57" for more on Wandsworth's old houses — Wandsworth Past is Dorian Gerhold's 1998 history of Wandsworth, which suggests (but does not yet confirm) that this excerpt is also Gerhold's work, published separately from that book.

Not yet reproduced here. Given this looks like a modern, possibly still-in-copyright publication, the page scans and full transcription Philip supplied of this excerpt have deliberately not been included on this page pending confirmation of what the source actually is and whether reproducing it is appropriate — the same caution applied earlier in this project to Kathleen Chater's 2017 article. Once the source is identified, this section can be completed properly, either with full reproduction (if permissible) or a summary and citation (if not).

Porden's watercolour: Museum of London Picture Library, negative no. 7067; sketched 1813, long out of copyright. Identification and research, August 2026.