The Huguenot burial ground at Mount Nod, East Hill, Wandsworth. The Wandsworth Museum. Unknown date and artist. Could it be by a teenage Arthur Rackham?
Build 12 — 12 August 2026
The Huguenot burial ground at Mount Nod, East Hill, Wandsworth. The Wandsworth Museum. Unknown date and artist. Could it be by a teenage Arthur Rackham?
Here are three close-up views of Mount Nod in successive centuries cropped from an experimental interactive map I'm working on, John Corris's map of Wandsworth, surveyed for the new Lord of the Manor, Earl Spencer in 1787. The complete map covers a much wider area and can be freely zoomed and panned. Do try it.
The Huguenot Burial Ground at Mount Nod.
View the 1787 map without the pin
(Sources: Wandsworth Heritage Service; Ordnance Survey; Google Earth.)
For a larger map and further information about the numbered plots, see John Corris's map of Wandsworth, 1787, which includes the Book of Reference, and Dorian Gerhold's commentary (2002). Mount Nod occupies Corris's plots 225 and 226. The house next door is 227. The triangle to the west of Mount Nod, on which Book House now stands, was then part of the Common, and included a pond. Trinity Road enters from the south. Plot 237 (right, will become Spencer Park).
In this month's Chronicles we'll be looking in some detail at part of a tiny triangle top left of the Common - and not even all of that. I'll leave Book House (west) and the new Wandsworth Common Care Home (east) for another time.
Last month’s research into the extension of Trinity Road led me to reflect on the Huguenot Burial Ground at Mount Nod, which in the late 1960s only narrowly escaped being bulldozed for a slip road.
This probably isn't the time and place to discuss in any detail about the arrival of Huguenots, and their significance for Wandsworth. But it is worth knowing that after 1685 about a quarter of France's population of Calvinist Protestants emigrated. And of these, about a thirds - perhaps 60,000 to 80,000 - came to Britain, mainly to London. Most famously, the refugees settled in Spitalfields, on the eastern edge of the City, but many also settled five or so miles west, in the small town of Wandsworth.
Why Wandsworth? Ah, an interesting question. Partly because there was already a tradition of religious non-conformism here. A number of foreign Protestants are known to have been living here in the 16th century, mainly from the Low Countries (today's Netherlands and Belgium). And partly because it was near - but not too near - London, which it was easy to reach by boat on the Thames, or by horse, or even on foot.
A key factor must have been the power, constancy and purity of the River Wandle, which was ideal for textile mills, hat-making, dyeing, and metallurgy (notably the manufacture of copper goods such as kettles). Huguenots may also have applied themselves to market gardening and horticulture for Westminster and the City. [Would somebody care to elaborate?]
Drag the slider, or press Play, to watch the burial ground change across nearly decades — including the years of restoration work between 2019 and 2022 described on the interpretation panels. The most obvious change occurs in January 2021.
Mount Nod, East of Eden/Wandsworth
As I remarked last month, a number of Wandsworth Huguenots were economically very successful, and when they died had great tombs erected to house their remains and demonstrate their achievements. The graveyard around the parish church in the centre of Wandsworth having already filled with bodies, a new burial ground had been created around 1680 on the hill to the east of the church so it was here that many of the grand memorials were placed. (Doubtless many Huguenots and their descendants remained poor, hence even if they are buried at Mount Nod, they left little or no trace of their former life.) The land is likely to have been enclosed from the Common. [doesn't one of ? transcriptions of churchwardens' accounts say the land had been gifted by Lord Midleton?
I don't know when exactly people started calling it Mount Nod, but the earliest known written reference is from Judith Grolleau's will dated 1750:
["Will of Mrs. Judith Grolleau, of Knightsbridge, in the county of Middlesex, Spinster, dated 20 August 1750, proved 6 Novr. 1750, by David Royd (qu. Lloyd), the exor. therein named. She directed her body to be buried in Wandsworth burial-ground commonly called Mount Nod. " Squire, n.111]
https://www.historyofwandsworthcommon.org/cemeteries/huguenot-burial-ground/squire-wills.html ]
Notice it says "commonly"...]
But why Mount Nod?
This is still a puzzle, but it almost certainly refers to a passage in Genesis, concerning the fate of Adam and Eve's son Cain. Having murdered his brother Able in a fit of envious rage, Cain is banished by God to the "Land of Nod, East of Eden".It also contains a pun - the word "Nod" had largely independently beccome associated with sleep, as "to nod off".
So Mount Nod, a cemetery, is a place of endless sleep, as well as a place of banishment from life in the east (of Wandsworth).
— https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Land_of_Nod
— Oddly, there are a number of places called Mount Nod" around the country, for example a tumulus in Streatham, and a Mount Nod Road in Lambeth (there's also an area of Coventry with a "Mount Nod School"), but few are found outside of the southeast of England (e.g.s).
I'm collecting notes on Mount Nods. See Further notes on Mount Nod.
In July 2026, to pass the time while waiting for a 170 bus at the Huguenot Place stop, I nipped across the road to have a quick look at the restored burial ground, now in effect a pocket park. I'm so glad I did. I stayed quite a while, missing a succession of buses, but took snaps of the marvellously wrought interpretation plaques.
I also located the Black Mulberry (Morus nigra) tree planted in 1985 by the Wandsworth Society to commemorate the three-hundredth anniversary of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes that brought Huguenots to Wandsworth.
It was good to see that it's alive and well in the top left corner of the burial ground. (I intend to write about mulberry trees in August 2026's Chronicles.)
Recently I went to Mount Nod to look round and take photographs. I had read that the small cemetery, having been closed for many years, had fairly recently been restored and made into a rather lovely pocket park.
It isn't always easy to read the inscriptions on the original original tombs so I was thrilled when I learned that J. Traviss Squire, a local historian who had lived at the end of the 19th-century on nearby Birdhurst Road, had meticulously transcribed all the extant tombs.
I came across an interesting article about the renovation of Mount Nod in 2022
The Huguenot Society of England and Wales, The renovation of Mount Nod burial ground, East Hill, Wandsworth (18 Oct, 2022).
In this was a reference the J. Traviss Squire, a historian of Wandsworth, of copy of which I tracked down in a US ... I made images of all the pages and transcribed them, using Claude AI
[Another of his careful transcriptions is ??, . Invaluable.]
... The Wandsworth Society's plaque at the Huguenot Burial Ground, Mount Nod, East Hill, placed there in October 1985. Here is the image again:
The Wandsworth Society plaque at the Huguenot Burial Ground, Mount Nod, East Hill, October 1985. Photo: Peter Farrow.
IN THE NATION THAT IS NOT
NOTHING STANDS THAT STOOD BEFORE;
THERE REVENGE ARE FORGOT,
AND THE HATER HATES NO MORE
To mark
the 300th anniversary of
the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes
(23 October 1685)
which was followed by the arrival in Wandsworth
of Huguenot refugees seeking peace and toleration
WANDSWORTH SOCIETY OCTOBER 1985
[The opening lines are from AE Housman's supremely grim A Shropshire Lad, XII (1896).
When I watch the living meet,
And the moving pageant file
Warm and breathing through the street
Where I lodge a little while,If the heats of hate and lust
In the house of flesh are strong,
Let me mind the house of dust
Where my sojourn shall be long.In the nation that is not
Nothing stands that stood before;
There revenges are forgot,
And the hater hates no more;Lovers lying two and two
Ask not whom they sleep beside,
And the bridegroom all night through
Never turns him to the bride.
The "nation that is not" is the nation of the dead — a very Housman theme. The succeeding lines ("Lovers lying two and two" aRE [spooky]. .. A remarkable choice on the part of the Wandsworth Society.
>[PB: Opening paragraph to be written. Possible entry point: the corner of East Hill and Old York Road, and what you’d see if you stopped there today — or Bruce St Julian-Bown’s mention of the Huguenot cemetery at his Wandsworth Society talk in June 2026.]
[PB: Francis Grose's Mulberry Cottage! https://www.historyofwandsworthcommon.org/chronicles/11/11-2022.html]
[PB: History of the burial ground — enclosed from the Common 1680, first burials, last burial 1849, restoration 2003. The Tarrant memorial of 1911. Dorian Gerhold’s note that it “narrowly escaped destruction in the 1960s for a slip road from Trinity Road.”]
Plan of the burial ground at Mount Nod, prepared by A. G. Browning for Squire’s 1886 article. The numbers correspond to the inscription numbers in the Appendix below.
— John Traviss Squire, Mount Nod transcriptions of gravestones and notes on wills
— the-huguenots-in-wandsworth-new-research-k-chater-huguenotsocjnl-30-5-2017.jpg. I have not been able to see this essay, which is really frustrating sinc e`i ams re it will contain
— Philip Evison — John Downman's portrait of Henry Fourdrinier and his family, Wandsworth Historian, No.108, Autumn 2019.
— Neil Robson — Fund-raising for Mount Nod, Wandsworth Historian, No.119, 2024
https://spitalfieldslife.com/2021/11/13/so-long-huguenots-of-spitalfields/[PB: John Traviss Squire, “The Huguenots at Wandsworth and their Burial Ground at Mount Nod”, Proceedings of the Huguenot Society of London, Vol. 1 (1886), pp. 229–312. Include link to the transcription page when built. Note that this is believed to be the first complete digital transcription of this document. Squire’s article includes the full Appendix of 145 tomb inscriptions.]
Birdhurst Road, Wandsworth — all 34 houses on the right hand (east) side in this photograph were demolished c.1968 — demolished to make way for the Trinity Road scheme. Elam Collection.
[Probably make what follows into a second page - one devoted to the house next door (later the Presbytery). Then a third page on Trinity Cars/ WC Care Home.
[PB: The possible Rackham engraving of Mount Nod — believed to date from c.1885–88, when Rackham was a teenager (born 1867). Check which institution holds it — Wandsworth Museum collection? Verify date against his biography. If the dating is right, this is almost exactly contemporary with Squire’s 1886 article — a remarkable coincidence.]
I first saw this image in Dorian Gerhold's indispensable Wandsworth Past (1998), p.90, captioned "The Huguenot Cemetery. In the background, facing North Side, is a red-brick house of the seventeenth or eighteenth century." Given the theme and the agitated line in the leafless trees, it struck me that it might be by a young Arthur Rackham, who moved to 3 St Ann's Park Road, off Allfarthing Lane, in 1885 and was studying at the Lambeth School of Art. (Perhaps the Museum's records, which are currently being transcribed and updated, could say more?)
Later, I'll look at the original house (and what's happened on the site since it was demolished in the early 20th-century) but first I'd like to visit the Huguenot Burial Ground itself.
The Huguenot burial ground at Mount Nod, East Hill, Wandsworth. The Wandsworth Museum. Unknown date and artist. But could it be by a teenage Arthur Rackham? If so, it is exactly contemporary with Squire's study.
Here's an example of Arthur's treatment of branches and twigs from a much later work:
Illustration by Arthur Rackham of The Goose Girl, by the Brothers Grimm.
Let's have another look at the house. You can tell it's the same one because of the Palladian (aka Venetian) window on the side elevation (right), and the glimpses of headstones (left).
A house immediately by Mount Nod, sketched by the architect Charles Ferdinand Porden (1790–1863), 23 August 1813. Porden was the nephew of the more famous William Porden, architect of the Brighton Pavilion's stables and riding house — Charles trained under his uncle, which is presumably why this sketch, signed simply "Porden," was at first taken to be William's own work.
Porden's inked caption reads “adjoining the burial ground of Wandsworth on the road to Clapham” I can't be certain from this reproduction but it seems to say in pencil “Parsonage or Manor House” — as if Porden wasn't sure what the building was. I'll try to check whether it was the parsonage, but it certainly wasn't the Manor House. True, there was a large house nearby often called at this time “The Manor House” but Wandsworth's actual historic manor house stood in Battersea. (London Museum)
Palladian or Venetian window - de rigueur on Georgian houses.
Charles Porden was the architect of St Matthew's, the great Greek-revival church in the centre of Brixton (built 1822–24), later reincarnated in the 1980s/90s into a late-night restaurant/nightclub venue (home to "Mass", "Babalou" and others) before those closed in 2012. The church itself never closed — it continues today as the parish of St Matthew with St Jude, alongside a community venue-hire operation.
St Matthews, Brixton
— Historic England listing, St Matthew's Church, Brixton
— urban75: Brixton nightclubs and the future of Mass, Babalou and St Matthew's church (2010)
From Dorian Gerhold's article on Two ...houses....]
Parsonage [illeg] Fig. 2 depicts a seventeenth-century house between East Hill and North Side, just east of the Huguenot Cemetery. Drawn in 1813, it shows the house from North Side; whereas fig. 3, an illustration in the Wandsworth Museum collection, shows it from the Cemetery. The high roof and large chimneys suggest seventeenth-century rather than eighteenth-century origins. It is first recorded in a fire insurance policy of 1718, when it belonged to John Bindon of London, citizen and haberdasher. In 1746, it had six wainscotted rooms, five marble chimneypieces and one Portland stone chimneypiece. [Fig. 2 — illustration, with handwritten caption:] "adjoining the Cemetary to Wandsworth Church on the road to Clapham. Sketch'd 23 Aug 1813." Fig. 2. (Museum of London Picture Library, negative no. 7067) The house was described in 1793 as 'a genteel red brick house', belonging to Mr Walker. Its main approach was apparently through its garden from East Hill, since its north façade had a pediment and was more symmetrical. The yard south of the house contained a coach house and stables. The house was still standing in 1894, but must have disappeared soon afterwards. Further information on the old houses of Wandsworth may be found in the author's Wandsworth Past at pp. 50–57. [Fig. 3 — illustration: the house seen from among gravestones in the cemetery] Fig. 3. (Wandsworth Museum) [page 11]A modern published account of Wandsworth's old houses (likely Dorian Gerhold's) reproduces this same house from two more angles, with further detail on its documented history back to 1718 — held back here pending confirmation of the source and whether reproducing it is appropriate. See the fuller note on the Mount Nod Porden house page.
The same corner today, 2026 — North Side by Mount Nod, close to where the vanished seventeenth-century house sketched by Porden in 1813 once stood.
The same view today, taken from roughly the same vantage point across the road as Porden's 1813 sketch. Uncannily, two men happen to be standing in exactly the same spot as the figures in Porden's image of 1813. Explain that.
The same view today, taken from roughly the same vantage point across the road as Porden's 1813 sketch. Uncannily, two men happen to be standing in exactly the same spot as the figures in Porden's image of 1813. Explain that.
* I have not visited but I have seen some fone photographs of the Arts and Crafts intreior, designed by....a pupil of Millias?
It has quite a curious history, particularly given how the area was so much associated with Protestantism.But there is a connection. The Roman Catholics who built their church here were from the Salesian order (who took their name from St ? Sales), who had been themselves ejected from France in the early 20th century during a wave of vicious anti-clericalism.
Their faith drew them to Battersea where they worked with... boys.... For a while, they used the authentic 17th-century house as a school, but the site was too cramped - there was no room to play - and ...
When the parish was established in 1902, the priests originally used an authentic, late-Georgian house on the site. Their church That original building was demolished, and the current presbytery was built in the 1920s [PB: !] to replace it. The Architecture: In England, the 1910s and 1920s saw a massive boom in domestic Neo-Georgian architecture. This movement heavily borrowed from Christopher Wren's domestic style (the "Wren-naissance") to evoke a grand, traditional, and orderly British home. It is an excellent, c alassic example of a 1920s Neo-Georgian presbytery tucked right behind Lawrence Butler's 1905 plain brick church! [If you're interested in church architecture and social life, visit....Frances tcSend me an email if you enjoyed this post / want to comment on something you’ve seen on the site / would like to know more — or just want to be kept in touch.
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Philip Boys (“History Boys”)
July 2026
— Friends of Wandsworth Common