Build 5 — 31 July 2026
House No. 4 of the Five Houses of Wandsworth Common
Name: The Elms — House No. 4
Date Built: 1777
Date Demolished: Between 1874 and 10 November 1880, when a newspaper advertised the fabric of the building for sale as building materials. (The electoral register shows it was occupied by voters in 1881, but this may not have been current.)
Builder / Developer: Designed for Benjamin Cole
Architect: Richard Norris
Location: The Elms was situated where Honeywell Road now meets Bolingbroke Grove, between Darley Road and Broomwood Road.
Ptolemy Dean describes the house as a simple brick-built, three-storey, five-bay house in his book Sir John Soane and London (2006).
The Survey of London describes a relatively grand entrance front, with a tetrastyle portico to the piano nobile, approached by sweeping flights of steps to either side. Internally, space was tight and the planning compact but not entirely satisfactory; an eating room doubled as the entrance hall, with the main stairs in a compartment to the side. The principal reception space was a large drawing room with a canted bay, offering views over the grounds and the widened Falcon Brook and the valley in which it sat, but the two flanking reception rooms did not have easterly-facing windows, and the children’s nursery appears to have been accessible only from the basement via a back staircase. The basement contained all of the usual rooms for a country house, and the stable block was separated from the house by a space of about 22 feet to the north.
[Sarah: I think this was lifted from the Survey book and might need quotation marks etc.]
The house was altered before 1838, according to the Survey of London, using the imagery of the 1838 Tithe map, which indicates a bay window on the south elevation of the breakfast room.
When the owner Sir James Mansfield died in 1821, the house and 12 acres of grounds were offered for sale. In the advertisement his estate was described as follows:
“A commodious freehold residence — pleasantly situated at Wandsworth Common, tastefully disposed and adapted for the accommodation of a Family of the first Respectability … containing suites of handsome apartments on the Principal Story, with a tastefully designed entrance by a double flight of stone steps to the Hall; three capital Bedchambers, with Dressing-rooms and Water closets on the first floor, with servant’s apartments in the Basement, numerous excellent offices of all descriptions plentifully supplied with water; Coach houses, stables for five horses and other outbuildings … Farm yard enclosed by folding gates with stable; Cow-house, Cattle shed; Poultry houses; Piggery, Dog-kennel; rick yard … kitchen garden, Melon-ground; tool and rabbit houses enclosed by a lofty wall and paling … a beautiful lawn, tastefully laid out and ornamented by fine timber; a cold bath, with a constant supply of fine water … the whole estate containing about twelve acres, in high condition.”
The advert also lists a “valuable cellar of superior flavoured old wines consisting of 160 dozen of excellent Port, Sherry, East India, Madeira etc.” and eight loads of meadow hay.
From the Survey of London, we learn that in 1877 Sir Charles Forbes of Broomwood House died, and within three years his executors had sold his estate, then known as Broomwood Park, along with part of the Dent’s House estate and The Elms, which Forbes had also acquired. All were sold to John Cobeldick, builder of Stockwell. By 1881 builders were at work and the west ends of Broomwood and Honeywell Roads, with small frontages to Bolingbroke Grove, were laid out.
| Years | Occupants | Details |
|---|---|---|
| 1777 | Designed by Richard Norris | |
| 1778–1800 | Benjamin Cole | Wealthy Draper, Government Broker and Sheriff of London |
| 1803–1821 | Sir James Mansfield | Lawyer and Chief Justice |
| 1821–1823 | John Gordon | Solicitor |
| 1823–1844 | Alexander Gordon | |
| John Deacon | ||
| Sir Charles Forbes | ||
| 1846–1855 | Frederick Mangles | MP, Ship owner and Merchant |
| 1858–1870s | Charles Lambert | |
| 1880 | HOUSE DEMOLISHED |
The Elms was designed by Richard Norris in 1777 and leased to him in 1778. It had a stable block and carriage drive. According to the Survey of London, it was designed specifically for Benjamin Cole and his young family. Cole was a very wealthy draper of Wandsworth and Bath, a government broker, and Sheriff to the City of London and County of Middlesex in 1782–3. He occupied The Elms until about 1800.
Benjamin Cole invited Sir John Soane to make plans to alter the house to improve its layout, which was deemed most inconvenient. A pupil of Sir John Soane, Thomas Chawner, drew plans of the existing layout, with dimensions of the raised basement/service floor and the ground floor, which survive and are housed at the Sir John Soane Museum Archive. Plans were prepared for the alterations and were shown to and discussed with Cole, but they were not implemented, and no charge was made by Soane for the preparatory work done. These plans have not survived.
From the plans drawn up by Chawner, it has been estimated that the ground and upper floors of the house measured about 60 feet (18 metres) wide, and that the basement floor measured about 100 feet (30 metres) wide. The width of the whole plot was about 500 feet (150 metres). Plots for Grove House and Bolingbroke Grove House had similar widths. The Elms was similar in size to both of those houses and with a similar sized estate.
[Sarah: we have all of the plans that Thomas Chawner drew up — not sure why these are not included! I have these. — Sarah]
After Benjamin Cole left The Elms (c.1800), it was bought by Sir James Mansfield, who lived in it from 1803 to 1821. He was a distinguished lawyer, having represented John Wilkes on his application for bail when he returned to England in 1768.
[Sarah: who is John Wilkes? Need to expand this.]
Mansfield became Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas in 1804 and presided over the trial in 1812 of John Bellingham for the murder of Prime Minister Spencer Perceval. Mansfield died in 1821.
The house was then occupied by John Gordon, a solicitor, and then his son, Alexander, 1823–44. It was purchased by John Deacon (when he also purchased Broomwood House); Sir Charles Forbes later became the owner of both houses. There was a short occupation by Frederick Mangles (1846–1855), an MP, ship owner, and merchant trading in India. The final occupant was Charles Lambert (1858–1870s). When the house was demolished, Lambert moved to Streatham.
[Sarah: this just feels like a bit of a list — can we colour it a bit?]
The occupier of The Elms was Alexander Gordon, 65, solicitor, and his wife, Harriet, 50, and their children Alexander, 25; William, 20; Clarence, 20 (none born in Surrey); and Elizabeth, 15, and Janet, 14 (both born in Surrey). Elizabeth Gordon was born 19 April 1824 and baptised 12 May 1824 at St Mary, Battersea; father Alexander, Esq., abode Wandsworth Common. Janet Gordon was baptised 16 October 1827 at Battersea. In 1851 this family had left The Elms and were living at Widbury Hill, Ware, Hertfordshire.
Servants: Ann Harris, 30; Mary Attree, 30; Sarah Drew, 20; Elizabeth Skinner, 40 (all female servants); William Bass, 20; Richard Trent, 25 (male servants). All ages on this census are rounded.
Resident was Frederick Mangles, 57, head of household, married, Magistrate, merchant trading to India and the Colonies, dealer in ships’ stores who was born in Hackney. His wife, Mary A., 40, was born in Hammersmith. Their children: Georgiana M., 10; William W., 5; and Grace M. H., 3, all born Compton, Surrey. Per Annex 1 of South Battersea: The Formative Years, the owner of The Elms in 1851 was John Deacon. The Mangles family lived at Down Farm, Compton, Surrey in 1841; in 1861 they had moved to Pendell Court, Bletchingley, Surrey.
Servants: William Killerby, 24; Benjamin Attfield, 23; Ann Raven, 51; Rebecca Spong, 20; Mary Wilder, 32; Elizabeth Jenner, 18.
The head of the household was Charles Lambert, 48, married, tobacco manufacturer, born in Wallington, Surrey; his wife, Anne, 42, born in Croydon; plus their children: Charles E., 17; Allen B., 16; Louisa, 13; Jessie A., 11; Ernest J., 6 (all born London); and Gertrude, 3, born Battersea.
Servants: George James, 24, domestic coachman; Ellen Grant, 45, cook; Sarah Seagar, 23, servant; Hannah Skeats, 33, servant; and Rachael Skeats, 20.
The Elms had many occupants: Charles Lambert and his wife, plus six of their children, a daughter-in-law, and granddaughter.
Servants: M. N. May, 23, domestic nurse; Eliza H. Dyer, 20, parlourmaid; A. M. Baker, 25, housemaid; E. M. Dyer, 26, domestic nurse; Susan Bridges, 24, cook; Jane Alford, 19, domestic nurse; Stephen ____, 19, groom.
Lambert family notes: Charles Lambert was born 1812 at Beddington, Surrey, died 1 September 1887 at Oak Hill Place, Leigham Court Road, Streatham. He married on 10 August 1842 Ann Brooker, born 1820, in Croydon. Charles Lambert died in 1887 and in his Will he left an estate of £75,832. He lived at Oak Hill, Streatham, and had a business address of 141 and 142 Drury Lane. Lambert & Butler cigarettes were launched in Clerkenwell in 1834 by Charles Edward Lambert and Charles Butler, among the earliest British cigar manufacturers. Lambert & Butler operated as a private business until 1901 when it merged with other UK manufacturers to form the Imperial Tobacco Company.
Ann Raven is listed as a servant on the 1851 census at The Elms; the order in which servants are listed suggests she was the most senior female servant. She was a widow, aged 51, born in Enfield. Research suggests she was a cook; in 1861 she appears working in Wandsworth, and in 1871 she was living alone at 73 Vauxhall Street, Lambeth, a widow aged 76, with the tantalising occupation ‘kept by children’. She is another rather shadowy figure, for whom little further information could be found.
Rebecca Spong was aged 20 in 1851 and a live-in servant at The Elms and was born either in Compton or Worpleston, Surrey, probably baptised 20 June 1830. She was found on one later census, in 1901, living at 20 Scylla Road, Peckham Rye, single, retired housekeeper. Rebecca died on 6 March 1904 and her Will states that she, a spinster, leaves her estate of £355 4s 10d to a Thomas Spong.
Benjamin Cole was born on 11 July 1739 to parents Benjamin and Elizabeth and was baptised on 25 July 1739 at St Benet Fink in the City of London. He was a very wealthy draper and member of the Drapers’ Company, and also a Government broker. He was appointed Sheriff of the City of London and Middlesex for 1782/3, elected on Midsummer Day 1782 by the City Livery Companies at Guildhall.
Benjamin married Harriett Steer (1755–1829) on 12 December 1776 at All Saints, Edmonton. Their first two known children were Harriett, born 24 September 1777 (died June 1783), and Maria, baptised 25 July 1780 at St Mary’s Battersea. They then had a son, Benjamin, born 25 August 1782 and baptised in Wandsworth on 16 September 1782, and a daughter, Caroline, born 7 February 1784. The family lived at The Elms, Bolingbroke Grove, from perhaps late in 1777 or early 1778 until about 1800.
The portrait by John Downman RA, shows a family scene in an idealised garden, painted in about 1781, which would suggest that it portrays a version of the grounds at The Elms.
[Sarah: where is the picture?]
Benjamin Cole died in August 1816 and was buried at Bathwick, Somerset, on 5 August 1816, aged 77. His Will describes him as being of Bathwick, late of London. He left his estate to his wife, Harriett, who died on 4 February 1829 and left her estate to her two children, Benjamin junior and Caroline.
Sir James Mansfield, SL KC (originally Manfield), was a British lawyer, judge, and politician. He was twice Solicitor General and served as Chief Justice of the Common Pleas from 1799 to 1814.
[Sarah: repetition]
The son of a Hampshire attorney, Mansfield attended Eton from 1745 to 1750, and then King’s College, Cambridge, of which he was elected a Fellow in 1754. He graduated BA in 1755 and MA in 1758. Mansfield pursued a career in law, admitted to the Middle Temple on 11 February 1755 and called to the bar on 28 November 1758. He was appointed one of the counsel for John Wilkes in 1768, and was also one of James Somersett’s lawyers; Somersett was a slave brought by his master from Jamaica to London in 1769, and freed on 22 June 1772 by a ruling from Lord Mansfield (no relation).
Mansfield was made King’s Counsel on 24 July 1772. He was involved in the trials of the Duchess of Kingston for bigamy (1776) and was defence counsel for John the Painter (1777). He became Chief Justice of Chester in July 1799 before becoming Chief Justice of the Common Pleas on 24 April 1804, receiving a knighthood. As chief justice, he presided over the trial of John Bellingham, assassin of Spencer Perceval, in 1812. He resigned on 21 February 1814 due to ill health and died at his house in London on 23 November 1821.
Frederick Mangles lived at The Elms from about 1846 to 1855 as a leaseholder. He also had an address at 17 Gracechurch Street in the City of London. The 1851 census states that he was a Magistrate, merchant trading to India and the colonies, and dealer in ships’ stores. He was baptised on 1 May 1794 to parents James Mangles of Woodbridge, Suffolk, and Mary, at St John, Hackney. As eldest son he was heir to the family’s ship chandlery and whale oil business in Wapping and Rotherhithe. In 1840 he became a Director of the East and West India Dock Company.
Frederick married Mary Anne Scott on 3 May 1832 at Hammersmith. They had at least six children. Frederick died on 10 February 1869 and was buried at St Mary, Horsell, Surrey on 17 February. His estate was valued at under £5,000. Mary Anne died in 1878 and her estate was valued at under £500.
Charles Lambert was called “the best judge of a Havana cigar.” Lambert & Butler was established in 1834 in Clerkenwell, Central London, by Charles Edward Lambert and Charles Butler, among the earliest British cigar manufacturers. The company operated as a private business until 1901 when it merged with other UK manufacturers to form the Imperial Tobacco Company. Apart from tobacco products, L&B released several cigarette card sets from the 1910s to the 1930s. Nowadays L&B is a brand owned and commercialised by Imperial Brands.
[Sarah: more repetition here?]
When The Elms was built in 1777, the landscape was rural and open, having been agricultural — arable, pasture, and meadow, as shown by the Rocque Map of 1761. Within this verdant environment, the Five Houses were created, foreshadowing Victorian ribbon development in the mid- to late-nineteenth century.
The portrait by John Downman RA, owned by The Elms’ owner Benjamin Cole, shows a family scene in an idealised garden, painted in about 1781. The style of the period was often to depict a wealthy individual set against a grand rural background with Italianate architectural detail to enhance the grandeur of the family group; we cannot attribute every detail to The Elms, but elements such as the grand building to the left, rolling green pasture into the middle distance, and a fine horse and groom were all recorded features of the property.
The Corris Map of 1787 shows the house sitting in a rectangular plot fronting Wandsworth Common on its west side. A tree-lined lane divided the house from rough ground characterised by poor, damp land with gravel pits. The house’s grounds lay principally to the east, down to the Falconbrook. The map shows an additional smaller detached building just south of the main house, and another north of the house abutting a similar one at Bolingbroke Grove House — likely stables or a carriage house. A particularly characteristic feature of The Elms is the exceptionally wide lake created by the brook at the end of the gardens, with damming detail visible at the north and south ends.
In 1797 the land on the Clapham Common side of the Falcon Brook was sold to the owners of three of the Five Houses, but not to Grove House or The Elms, making these two estates significantly smaller than the other three.
The 1800 Milne map shows the land marked as ‘P’ meaning ‘Paddocks and Little Parks’, suggesting the grounds had a large proportion of rough grass for grazing alongside more formal planting of trees and shrubs. At this stage the common was known as ‘Battersea Common’.
The Tithe Map of 1840 is a gem of extra information. We can see the creation of tracks around the house for carriage and pedestrian access. The property had a circular sweeping drive between the lane and house, and unlike most of the other houses there are no trees bordering the lane by the common, lending a more open aspect to the west. Between 1787 and 1840, The Elms expanded its outbuildings considerably. The map shows a long building which may have been stabling, alongside what may be a dairy — the distance between the dairy and stables being a convenient 22 feet or 7 metres. There are also possible greenhouses to the south of the house, logically facing south and close to the area marked as ‘garden’.
The apportionment book supporting the tithe map records The Elms as follows (Flood Marsh*):
| Section | Land Use | Acre | Rod | Perch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 343 | Pleasure Ground | 2 | 1 | 10 |
| 344 | Meadow | 4 | 1 | 15 |
| Total | 6 | 2 | 25 |
* Both The Elms and Dent’s House are described as ‘flood marsh’ unlike the other three houses, suggesting the southern end of Bolingbroke Grove was of damper conditions.
From the evidence of maps and sale advertisements, here is a generic list of plants known to have been available at the time and likely planted within the estate:
| Category | Plants |
|---|---|
| Tender plants | Aspidistra, pelargonium, carnations, hyacinths, mimulus, fuschia |
| Perennials and bulbs | Tulip, anemone, lupin, gaillardia, gardenia |
| Shrubs | Magnolia, azalea, daphne, rhododendron, rose, hydrangea, berberis, aucuba, holly, laurel, privet, box, conifer |
| Trees | White or black poplar*, elm*, plane*, ash, chestnut*, lime*, oak*, sycamore, purple beech, cherry, almond, birch, lilac, robinia, laburnum |
* Particularly likely trees; these all flourish on the common today. There was a large plant nursery just across the common at the time.
The 1862 Stanford map is interesting in its depiction of four recent arrivals that still exist today: the Royal Patriotic School (now Building), the Surrey County Prison (now Wandsworth Prison), a large plant nursery (now Capital Gardens / Neals Nurseries), and the County Arms. The area was becoming more developed.
The 1868 OS map shows an increased-sized pond almost opposite this house and more trees formally planted along the common edge. References to ‘waterfall’ in three nearby places explain the damming method of creating long thin lakes from the Falcon Brook, again reminiscent of the Capability Brown method. The layout of buildings looks similar to that shown on the Tithe Map. There is a clear line dividing the more domesticated garden area around the house from the broader section of perhaps wilder grass or meadow leading down to the brook. By now Bolingbroke Grove House had gone (since 1864), and so to the northern side The Elms overlooked the newly emerging Bolingbroke Estate with smaller terraced, semi-detached, and detached properties.
In summary, the information available on The Elms provides one of the more comprehensive pictures of the overall property and estate. It was the first of the Five Houses to create a lake from the brook, and on the 1862 OS map is annotated as ‘The Elms’ — the only other house singled out by name in this way is Bolingbroke House.
The Elms is the one house of the five on Bolingbroke Grove for which we have an architect’s plan, with detailed measurements. The house measured just over 60 feet wide and 33 feet deep, with a much wider basement, and had a basement, ground floor, and two floors above.
One of the houses built nearby was Broomfield House (later Broomwood House), built in 1794, roughly 15 years after The Elms. From an existing plan in New Vitruvius Britannicus (1797), we know that Broomfield House and The Elms were more or less the same size:
Broomfield House: 55 feet wide and 40 feet deep. The Elms: 60 feet wide and 33 feet deep.
Both were designed in fairly typical, classical, Georgian style. Photographs of Broomfield House and the nearby Glenelg, taken just before they were demolished, are included below as visual aids to what The Elms — and probably the other three houses for which we have no images — may have looked like.
[Sarah: this is the place to add in the photo of The Elms, and either update or add the discovery story here.]
The cold bath mentioned in the 1821 sale advertisement deserves special mention. It was a fashion in the 18th century for the gentry to indulge in cold, outdoor bathing, encouraged as a health benefit. The Elms had the typically grand gardens to allow for a walk around the grounds before taking the bath. This could have been in a bath house or pool, perhaps located near the brook (where there was a constant supply of water) or closer to the main house, positioned to afford a good view. The fad for cold bathing slowly ebbed away later in the 19th century.
A blog post from The Fire on the Hill (20 July 2012) describes the vogue among the 18th-century upper classes for cold, outdoor bathing, explored in an article by Dr Clare Hickman: “Bath-houses, spring-fed pools and pseudo-rustic grottoes provided a congenial environment for the gentry of the time to pant and splash around in ice-cold water, while surrounding gardens allowed space for a leisurely stroll beforehand, as recommended by fashionable physicians. Like most other health fads, the fashion for cold bathing ebbed away, and as the 19th century wore on, the increasing trend towards taking regular, hot, indoor baths would no doubt have made immersion in freezing spring water seem an even less attractive proposition.”
[Additional images — please place in appropriate sections]
