The History of Wandsworth Common

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[HOWC DRAFT 1, 8 April 2026, based on KB’s original manuscript, October 2020]

The Heathfield Cottages, Wandsworth Common

A Building history

Keith Bailey

[N.B. The Heathfield Cottages may also be referred to as Heathfield Lodge, Heathfield Gardens, Heathfield Houses.]

Contents

– Introduction
– The Penn Years c.1750–1800
– The Fitzpatrick Years 1800–c.1845
– The Leach Years c.1845–c.1875
– The Heathfield Houses
– Heathfield Occupiers c.1840–1910
– Heathfield c.1900–c.1965
– Conclusion
– Notes

Introduction

This tiny one-acre enclosure on Wandsworth Common with its six houses provides an ideal opportunity to examine the processes by which agricultural land was converted to residential uses during the century after 1760. It also enables us to examine the social history of the occupiers, albeit as a series of snapshots rather than as a continuum, from the early nineteenth century to the 1960s. As with any such study of estate development, many incidental aspects of social history are revealed. One event which has so far remained elusive is the reason for the creation of this tiny enclosure on Wandsworth East Common in the first place, sometime between the 1630s and the 1740s, and those responsible.

Prior to the late 18th century the documentary record remains patchy. The “Heathfield” enclosure does not appear on the 1633 map of Allfarthing Manor, but does feature on Rocque’s 1747 map. Corris’s 1787 map and survey of Wandsworth gives its area as 1a 0r 31p [1.19 acres]. It was then part of Earl Spencer’s manor of Battersea-cum-Wandsworth, occupied by Richard Penn (d.1801). Penn was a ‘gardener’ — that is, either a market gardener or a nurseryman. Penn is not named elsewhere by Corris, but may have held further land in Allfarthing Manor, since the holdings of Richard Penn ‘gardiner’ qualified him as a juror in 1762.

Tracing individuals before and after their known involvement with Heathfield is a hit-and-miss affair until the mid-19th century, especially when it comes to identifying their occupations. The records relating to a succession of owners and occupiers between 1755 and 1855 are patchy, but do enable us to reconstruct the essential elements of Heathfield’s history. Early on, many of these individuals are characterised by having left few, if any, direct heirs.

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The Penn Years c.1750–1800

Our first detailed information about “Heathfield” comes from an insurance policy taken out by Richard Penn from the Hand-in-Hand office in 1756 [no.76637] and renewed every seven years until 1791.¹ It relates to the ‘south-west corner of [Wandsworth] East Common on the south-east side’. In 1756, the tenants were ‘Self [i.e. Penn]’ and ‘Childs’; in 1763/70 ‘Self &c.’ and in 1777–91 as ‘Self, John Childs’.² ‘Childs’ may be John Childs, who held land in Wandsworth in the early-1790s from local victualler William Blackbourn (d.1816), but otherwise remains elusive.³

The property insured comprised ‘three brick-built tenements’, all of two storeys with garrets; two also had sheds. Later cartographic evidence suggests that the buildings were free-standing. Each had different dimensions: No.1, 14ft square (196 sq.ft.); No.2, 14ft by 10ft (140 sq.ft.); and No.3, 13ft 4 by 11ft (147 sq.ft.). The two sheds were both 13ft by 7ft (91 sq.ft.). No information is given on the occupiers, although Childs and Penn himself are possible candidates, along with farm labourers.

In the 1780 Land Tax returns, Richard Penn is said to be a tenant of ‘Esq Porter’ (i.e. Pearce or Pierce Porter, lord of Allfarthing manor). Heathfield itself was outside Allfarthing manor, however, and may have originated as an illegal enclosure on Wandsworth East Heath, part of Battersea manor. In 1780 and subsequent years the tax records divided Penn’s holding into three elements, two assessed at £5, and the third, sometimes described as ‘land of the common’, at £1. By 1790, the landowner is given as Earl Spencer.

Richard Penn made his will in February 1798 and died in March 1801.⁴ In it he describes himself as ‘gardener and nurseryman… sick and weak in body’. He was a widower, and left five guineas to his housekeeper Martha Davis. The rest of his estate passed to James and Joseph Fitzpatrick, the sons of his sister. Penn’s executors were James Fitzpatrick and Richard Phillips of Wandsworth. The Fitzpatrick brothers also held other land in Wandsworth as tenants of Earl Spencer. The 1801 Land Tax return noted that Penn’s land was temporarily in Spencer’s hands.

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The Fitzpatrick Years 1800–c.1845

James Fitzpatrick was a wine cooper at Mark Lane in the City, while Joseph is described as a florist c.1805, presumably carrying on Richard Penn’s business.⁵ Joseph resided at Heathfield between 1804 and 1831, while James is only noted as an occupier in 1802/3 and from 1817 to 1826. James’s will is dated July 1816, although he did not die until 1828.⁶ It refers to the brothers’ Wandsworth land having been ‘lately partitioned’ and now held in severalty. James’s widow Rebecca was to succeed him, followed by Joseph and then his children Joseph and Mary Ann. Rebecca was James’s second wife and died in 1837.

Joseph Fitzpatrick senior’s will of 1829, when he was living at Penn’s Cottage, refers to ‘two cottages with gardens and appurtenances, situate on Wandsworth Common’. These were left to his wife Margaret, who was named as executor along with neighbour and fellow-nurseryman Thomas Potter.⁷ Joseph died early in 1832. The Land Tax indicates that the two cottages were Joseph’s portion of the new houses built by the Fitzpatricks since 1800 (see below). In 1841 Joseph’s widow Margaret and daughter Mary lived at the foot of West Hill. Mary died that summer, her mother in August 1843 aged seventy-eight. Joseph Fitzpatrick junior died in Wandsworth Union Workhouse in 1848. By then, however, Heathfield had passed into the hands of John Leach (see below).

Until 1825, Heathfield remained in the ownership of Earl Spencer; thereafter Joseph Fitzpatrick is named as the freeholder. During the Fitzpatrick brothers’ tenure five of the existing houses were built (now 1–5 Heathfield Gardens), transforming Heathfield from a smallholding into a line of Regency-style houses, albeit not a uniform terrace, with plain, stuccoed exteriors. It is impossible in the absence of any contemporary deeds to know precisely which house was built when. In the following discussion they are numbered in order of their first appearance in the Land Tax.

It appears that one of Richard Penn’s houses had gone by 1802, with another lasting until c.1807. The £10 house occupied in 1802–4 by James and subsequently by Joseph Fitzpatrick may have been one of Penn’s. The house occupied in 1802–6 by solicitor and conveyancer Charles Trebeck may well be the first of the new houses. Before coming to Heathfield, Trebeck lived in Mayfair. In 1807–14 he was at Hayes, Middlesex. In 1814, Trebeck was imprisoned for debt in the Fleet Prison, after which he left for India to serve as an East India Company attorney at Calcutta.

The Land Tax records reveal a rapid turnover of occupiers in the Fitzpatricks’ new houses. This characterised Heathfield for well over a century, and was typical of an era where annual tenancies were the norm. The required outlay of £15–25 per annum indicates that the Fitzpatricks were aiming to attract middle-class tenants, who seldom remained longer than a couple of years. There were often quite protracted vacancies.

House A appears in the Land Tax for 1804, with an estimated rental of £14, and was occupied until his death in 1818/9 by Thomas Lewis, a local shopkeeper. This unusually long tenancy was followed by a vacancy until 1823, when Alfred Hodgson, a London shipping agent, moved in. In line with other Heathfield houses, there was an abrupt decrease in the estimated rental in 1824/5. Hodgson was succeeded in 1825–6 by Henry Wilkinson, the son of a wine merchant who had substantial property in Allfarthing. Wilkinson was succeeded by Mrs Sawyer (1826–31).

House B: In 1810, the estimated rental value of property occupied by Joseph Fitzpatrick increased abruptly from £16 to £28, probably reflecting the demolition of one of the “Penn” houses and its replacement. Joseph was there until 1819, when no rental value is given. He reappeared at Heathfield between 1825 and 1831.

House C, a new property with an estimated rental of £27, appeared in 1810. Tenants passed through in quick succession: John Guest (1810–12), possibly a pawnbroker/upholsterer of Fleet Market; William Bailey (1813), who previously lived in Lambeth; James Purcell (1815), auctioneer and land agent of Soho. After a brief gap, the house was occupied in 1817/8 by James Fitzpatrick, with an enigmatic annotation ‘old house’ in the Land Tax return. Once Fitzpatrick moved to his ‘new’ abode, the rapid turnover of tenants resumed: George Short (1819–20); Edmund Read (1821/2); druggist James Curtis (1823); Mrs Sawyer (1824/5, who then moved to no.1 in 1826); Mr Dimes (1827/8), possibly a china dealer who later lived at Vauxhall. After a vacancy in 1829, the occupier in 1830/1 was recently-married Frenchman Alexander Malcouronne, a language teacher who soon moved to Putney. He was declared bankrupt in 1844.⁸

House D: James Fitzpatrick’s ‘new’ £30 house appears for the first time in 1816–8, and he remained there until his death in early-1828, when it passed to his brother Joseph with a reduction in estimated rental to £18.

House E appears in the Land Tax returns in 1819, assessed at £20, though it may have been built slightly earlier. The first tenant, Joseph Freeman, left within a year. The house then remained vacant until the arrival of William Lavender in 1823. Its rental value reduced to £13 in 1824. After Lavender left in 1826/7, the house remained empty until at least 1831, when the Land Tax records end.

Allowing for some inexplicable discrepancies in the Land Tax records, it appears that the Fitzpatrick brothers proceeded in piecemeal fashion to convert “Heathfield” from an agricultural plot into a line of unmatched houses. The layout adopted by Richard Penn is not clear on early maps. Corris (1787) shows one building in the north-west corner. The shape of the enclosure from the Common meant that a decision to build along the northern edge produced plots 300 feet deep, with no thought apparently given to building along the southern edge as well. As subdivided by the Fitzpatricks, the frontages are far from regular. From west to east they were: 38ft; three of about 21ft; and 32ft. Plot 6, which remained vacant until the 1850s, is significantly wider at 49ft.

These variations suggest that the brothers did not employ a professional surveyor and/or architect. Without any surviving records, the Fitzpatricks’ intentions must remain open to question, although the erratic progress probably reflects the economic impact of contemporary wars with France and the USA, with developers and builders finding credit, labour and materials more expensive and difficult to obtain.⁹

Although the information on the very early tenants is far from complete, it suggests that they were drawn from the lower and middle reaches of the middle classes, in search of a new and readily affordable ‘house in the country’. Once established, this pattern persisted largely unchanged until the 1940s. Thereafter, multiple-occupancy increased, though a few houses remained with single families. The rapid turnover of occupants from the very earliest days would indicate that Heathfield’s relative remoteness could be a drawback.

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The Leach Years c.1845–c.1875

The death of Margaret Fitzpatrick in 1843 marks the end of a century which saw Heathfield transformed from a smallholding/nursery with three small houses into a terrace of five stuccoed houses erected c.1804–19.

Margaret Fitzpatrick had died intestate and by the time of the Wandsworth Tithe Survey of 1841, Heathfield had become the property of John Leach (c.1790–1855), an oil and colorman of Wandsworth High Street.¹⁰ In 1851 Leach and most of his family were living at 2 Heathfield Cottages. His will is dated November 1851, and he died in spring 1855.¹¹ The business went to his eldest son John, if he was ‘willing to purchase the same for £1,500’. The will makes no reference to Heathfield, of which he held the freehold, nor does it offer any clues as to how and when he acquired it. The sixth house was probably built some time between 1848 and 1855.

In 1861, John Leach senior’s widow Margaret, a ‘Proprietor of Houses’, was living in Kensington with one of her daughters. The houses presumably included Heathfield, since Margaret had returned to no.2 by 1871, along with two daughters and a housemaid. She died at her son’s house in Lowestoft in October 1874, leaving under £450. Her executors, spinster daughters Elizabeth (d.1912) and Margaret (d.1915), remained at no.2. Her son John Leach junior had moved to Lowestoft by 1871, where he remained, dying at nearby Gorleston in 1902 and leaving £25,471.

The only physical contribution of the Leach family was the building of the detached house (no.6) at the north-east corner of Heathfield. Its all-over stuccoed façade was by then rather dated. Precisely when it was built is unclear. Its style and the status of its occupants is indistinguishable from those of the “Fitzpatrick” houses.

By good fortune, a small cache of deeds at the London Metropolitan Archives relates to no.6, though not unfortunately its origins. Chief among them is an Abstract of Title covering not only no.6 but also the earlier houses. The earliest document, an indenture between George Mence Smith and John Leach and John George Bond of Chelmsford, is dated 18th August 1875.¹² It recites that Leach, late of Wandsworth, was entitled to hereditaments under the will of his father, whose will stipulated that Margaret Leach was to receive rents from William Hoggart Haines and Richard Haines, the other trustees of his will, until her death.

Margaret Leach was the younger sister of the Haines brothers, both of whom died in 1864 and were buried at Stock near Chelmsford. Following their deaths, Margaret Leach entered into a new agreement in November 1864, appointing her son John and George Mence Smith (1820–95) as new trustees. The latter was a successful oil and color merchant, whose chain of shops was later acquired by Timothy White and ultimately Boots. He retired to Clapham and left an estate of £282,000.

Smith and Leach put Margaret Leach’s estate up for sale at auction in May 1875, when John George Bond (1837–1923) was the highest bidder for Lot 1 at £5,000 (around £580,000 at 2020 prices). It comprised ‘all that parcel of Wandsworth West Common [sic] and six messuages containing 1a 0r 31p, then known as 1–6 Heathfield’. No.1 was vacant; the others were occupied by John Pease, Charles Richardson, O[wen] Anwyl, Matthew Henry Hall and Alfred Aiscough Wilkinson. In an echo of Heathfield’s rural origins, the transfer to Bond included ‘common of pasture and turbary’ (right to cut turf or peat) and other rights, ‘saving the Lord of the Manor of Battersea and Wandsworth’s rights’. John Bond was the husband of John Leach senior’s daughter Catherine, so his acquisition kept Heathfield ‘in the family’. They married in 1861, when Bond was a draper’s assistant. John Bond died in 1923, leaving £103,250.

John Bond made an agreement with Richard Crabb of Great Baddow, Essex in December 1875 for a loan of £3,000 at 5%, which included the conveyance of 6 Heathfield to Crabb, a brewer and farmer who died in 1899 leaving £71,938. Crabb’s purchase was purely an investment since no.6 continued to house a succession of tenants.

The next stage in this complex tale came in April 1883 when Bond and Crabb entered into an agreement with Joseph William Duffield, a Kensington builder. Bond agreed to sell to Duffield nos.1, 3 and 6 Heathfield for £3,420, including the stable and chaise house at the rear of no.1. Originally a house painter, Joseph Duffield had twenty employees in 1871 and fifty ‘and upwards seasonally’ in 1881. An interesting insight into Heathfield’s anomalous location surrounded by the Common occurs in an agreement of June 1893 between Duffield and the recently-created LCC, relating to the erection of a wire screen at the rear of nos.1, 3 & 6 ‘to prevent cricket balls entering the premises’.

The long saga of no.6 ended in September 1907, when Duffield agreed to sell the freehold to Samuel Osborne, timber merchant of nearby 20 Trefoil Road, for £2,000. Samuel Osborne remained at no.6 until his death in March 1947 at the age of 83, leaving £18,848. His forty years at Heathfield was exceeded only by the de Gruchy family who lived at no.1 from 1890 until 1956/7.

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The Heathfield Houses

No.1 Heathfield Gardens (occasionally Heathfield Lodge in the late 19th century) has a three-storey façade with a hipped roof and side entrance. It may be James Fitzpatrick’s “new house” of 1817. Nos.2–4 are two-storeyed with assorted dormer windows. If original, the dormers may reflect the piecemeal nature of building. No.5, slightly set forward, is a three-bay house with a hipped roof and what appears to be an original central dormer. The characteristic Regency-style iron canopy across the door and ground-floor windows may be original, though it could equally be a later addition. The distinctive appearance of nos.1 and 5 may indicate that they had briefly been free-standing prior to the erection of nos.2–4.

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Heathfield Occupiers c.1840–1910

A variety of sources enables some occupants of Heathfield to be tracked from the 1840s to the First World War, although a complete listing is impossible given the rapid succession of often very short-lived tenants. Successive population Censuses from 1841 to 1911 provide information on who lived where at regular intervals, supplemented by street directories and incidental references in other sources.

Table 1A: Heathfield — Household Heads, 1841–1911

X = not yet built; * also Corden, lodger; ** Directory; *** Auction sale

Table 1B: Heathfield — Occupations of Household Heads, 1841–1911

Live-in servants in italics; + Directory; * son a solicitor; ** Caretaker; *** at Royal Victoria Patriotic Asylum

Owen Anwyl, a bank clerk, was exceptional in occupying no.4 for at least thirty-four years. Only a handful of others stayed for more than ten years. A clear majority of families had living-in servants, usually a single housemaid. Of the thirty-seven instances of occupied houses between 1841 and 1911, twenty-nine had servants (78%). The record numbers were in 1861: John Richardson (no.3) had two general servants and a nurse for his one-month-old daughter, while the Rev. William Kirby (no.5) had a cook, housemaid and nurse.

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Heathfield c.1900–c.1965

After the 1911 Census, records of Heathfield residents are even more patchy, comprising a mixture of directories and electoral registers. They nevertheless show that several late-Victorian and Edwardian occupiers remained for considerable periods, as did some newcomers. After 1945, however, there was a trend towards multiple occupancy, albeit with less rapid turnover than in the early 19th century.

The all-time record for continuous occupation is held by the de Gruchy family, represented by architect Charles de Gruchy, who lived at no.1 from the 1890s to 1956. Other long-lasting residents were builder [XX] Stevens at no.4 from c.1890 to 1919, Samuel Osborne at no.6 from 1907 to 1947, and [XX] Palmer at no.2 from 1930 to 1956. Although Heathfield escaped direct bomb damage during the war, nos.4–6 appear to have been all vacant by 1945.

Table 2: Heathfield Occupiers 1914–1965

D = Street Directory; E = Electoral Register; R = 1939 Population Register

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Conclusion

When and why the small, 1.25-acre rectangular enclosure later known as Heathfield was made on Wandsworth Common is unclear, but it seems likely to have been in the first half of the eighteenth century. The land to the west, mostly part of Allfarthing Manor, was almost entirely agricultural at that time and for long afterwards. The precise regularity of Heathfield clearly suggests some specific plan on the part of its owner/tenant, though the poor-quality, thin soils on the underlying gravel make it difficult to surmise what crop he had in mind.

Down to 1800, the only structures on the site were three small houses and some sheds. The decision to build a group of houses was made shortly after 1800 by the Fitzpatrick brothers. The plot dimensions and piecemeal nature of house-building over about fifteen years indicate that there was little input from a professional surveyor and/or architect. Five of the six substantial plots were built upon by 1820, and most saw a rapid turnover of occupiers, largely drawn from the middle classes. The sixth house, no.6, was detached and built in the early 1850s. Most households had at least one live-in servant down to 1914. These patterns of occupancy and turnover continued throughout the 19th century and down to the 1940s. After 1945, multiple-occupancy prevailed, but in recent decades the houses have reverted to single-family homes.

Although the sources available naturally leave many questions unanswered, Heathfield nevertheless offers a fascinating microcosm of the suburban development process.

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Notes

¹ T. Evans, Local and Family History from Fire Insurance Policies: 1 Wandsworth (Wands. Paper 10, 2001), 19, 33.

² In 1784/91 the valuation was £100 for brick construction and £150 for timber.

³ It seems unlikely that he is the John Childs who was a major tenant of Thomas Ponton in Nine Elms, with land assessed at £65 in the 1810s.

⁴ TNA PROB11/1355.

⁵ Holden’s Triennial Directory 1805–7.

⁶ TNA PROB11/1744.

⁷ TNA PROB11/1795.

⁸ London Gazette 10/5/44, p.1626.

⁹ For problems associated with the Napoleonic Wars see J. Summerson, Georgian London (rev. ed. 1978), chap.11.

¹⁰ WHerS/TNA ref. Wands TA.

¹¹ TNA PROB11/2219.

¹² LMA LCC/CL/GEN/08/95/1677–8.

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I should like to thank Philip Boys for sparking my interest in Heathfield, and for his helpful comments and suggestions.

Draft version, October 2020. © Keith Bailey. All rights reserved.

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