The History of Wandsworth Common

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[HOWC DRAFT 1, 8 April 2026, based on KB’s original manuscript, March 2022]

From Home Field to Bramblebury:
Suburban Development in Victorian Wandsworth

A Building history

Keith Bailey

Contents

– Introduction
– A Rural Landscape
– Development in Wandsworth 1841–1870
– Mitchell Estate (1866)
– British Land Company Estate (1870)
– The Corsellis Estates (The Lawn & Bramblebury)
– Knoll Road (1887)
– The Bramblebury Estate (1892–1898)
– The Rise and Fall of “The Huguenots”
– Conclusion
– Appendix 1: British Land Company Estate — Houses & Builders 1871–1887
– Appendix 2: Lawn Estate Builders 1887–1891
– Appendix 3: Bramblebury Estate Builders 1892–1897
– Notes

Introduction

This paper examines the development of the fifty acres bounded by East Hill, Wandsworth Common, Allfarthing Lane and St Ann’s Hill between 1850 and 1900 (hereafter “the study area”), once the northern extremity of Allfarthing Manor.

Between 1801 and 1901 the population of Wandsworth parish increased from 4,445 to 68,403, and the number of houses from 722 to 11,396. Wandsworth had a substantial industrial base centred on the Wandle in 1800, but the majority of the parish was still agricultural, much of it medieval open-field furlongs and strips. There were also two substantial areas of infertile common land, much reduced during the 19th century. In 1800, most people lived in or near the old village centre, often in densely-packed courts and alleys. Elsewhere, there was a scattering of mansions, villas and farm buildings.¹ Although the population increased by 116% between 1801 and 1851, the process of wholesale conversion of farmland and the grounds of large houses into building estates of mostly terraced houses only began in earnest after 1860.

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A Rural Landscape

Most of Allfarthing manor was enclosed by 1633, when the study area was part of Home Field, so-called from its proximity to the manor house in Allfarthing Lane.²

[Fig. 1: Allfarthing 1787 — The Study Area comprises no.278 and its fringes]

John Corris’s 1787 map of Wandsworth (Fig.1) depicts a few houses along the south side of East Hill, part of the main London–Kingston road, turnpiked between 1718 and 1865. Plots 239–252 were small encroachments from the road and lay in Wandsworth manor, though any associated land to the south was in Allfarthing.³ Plot 239 was enclosed from the Common c.1734 and the house later called Bramblebury was bought in 1753 by Joseph Wight (d.1770). By 1787 it was used as a school. The house on Plot 240, later home to the Du Buisson family, was built c.1750 for London salter and wax chandler Thomas Crozier. In 1771 it was occupied by Thomas Rackett, a Covent Garden tailor.

Plots 241–243, occupied by John Lee, John Harris and John Dearman, were slivers of garden totalling only 0.25 acres. Plots 244/245, encroachments from Wandsworth Common totalling 1.75 acres, were both subsequently returned to the Common. Plots 246–252 totalled 0.85 acres, with a road frontage of 240 yards. Only the largest (251) appears to have had a house in 1787, leased by Daniel Pinder, possibly a builder.⁴ Corris’s key refers to ‘buildings’ on plots 249 (William & Joseph Pearson), 250 (John Webster; garden and cart house) and 252 (Jonathan Dawson, market gardener). By 1841, most of these plots had been absorbed into the fields behind. In 1787, plot 248 was occupied by “Ward”. In 1841 (TA 265) it was owned by the parish and contained a pair of houses, which were replaced c.1880 by a villa (now 79 East Hill).

Milne’s land-use map of 1800 indicates that the grounds of the houses on East Hill were mostly used as pasture, with some meadows in the south-west corner and a single arable field near the dog-leg in Allfarthing Lane (now St Ann’s Hill/Crescent).⁵

[Fig. 2: Allfarthing Study Area 1841]

Little had changed in the study area by 1841, despite substantial population growth in Wandsworth. In 1851, half of the forty or so houses were clustered at the corner of Allfarthing Lane (now St Ann’s Hill) and East Hill, including the Two Brewers beer-house and ten houses, behind which were James Place and Emily Place with around fifteen small houses. Uphill and facing the Common, most of the houses were detached, some with separate accommodation for outdoor domestic staff. The exception was a terrace of four houses west of The Lawn (part of TA263; Corris 251). In TA265, east of the later Geraldine Road, was the pair of houses on Corris’s plot 248.

The Tithe Apportionment data are summarised below. (Numbers in bold denote those containing one or more houses.)

Table 1: Allfarthing Home Close — Land Use & Ownership 1841

^a co-owner Sigismund Rucker

Four individuals owned nine-tenths of the study area: Thomas Du Buisson (34%), Robert Barchard (23%), Edward Parsons (17%) and Moses Getting (17%). Sophia Shepherd owned plots 271–274 in the north-east corner, all of which contain houses.

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Development in Wandsworth 1841–1870

Wandsworth parish was changing rapidly after 1800. By 1841, the population had increased by 71% to 7,614, although there were still only 44 houses and 151 residents in the study area. The 1840s were marked by rapid growth in inner South London. Although still quite separate from the metropolis, Wandsworth’s population increased by 26%. The closure of a boarding school on East Hill actually saw numbers decline in the study area, and no new houses were added in the 1840s.

Development south of East Hill only got underway in earnest in the 1870s and by 1901 it was fully developed. In 1861, however, eight cottages in James Place were vacant.

Table 2: Houses & Population 1841–1901

New building in the study area accelerated sharply in the 1870s, with the number of houses more than doubling, whereas Wandsworth’s grew by only 40%. Growth continued unabated during the 1880s. The population of Wandsworth grew by 42% compared with 222% in the study area. By 1901, the study area was virtually built-up, with a population of 4,349 — almost the same as the whole parish a century earlier. Building along East Hill after 1860 was largely associated with the new estates to the south, but there was some “infilling”, including four houses by Thomas and George Adamson of Putney in 1862, and a Congregational chapel at the corner of Geraldine Road.

Before examining the estates within the study area in detail, a caveat about the term “House Builder” is necessary. In 19th-century sources, notably the District Surveyors’ Returns, the term encompasses not only those individuals whom we would understand as builders or building tradesmen, but also men only indirectly connected to the building industry, or with no apparent link at all. In the absence of complete documentation for each property, some actual “builders” are likely to remain unidentified.

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Mitchell Estate (1866)

Woollen draper David Mitchell (1793–1882) had moved from Kennington to Allfarthing Lane c.1830, adding “landed proprietor” to his occupation by 1861.⁶ Mitchell acquired land piecemeal, mostly to the west of St Ann’s Hill and The Grove, and building was underway in St Ann’s Hill by 1863. Malva Road (northern section) was approved in July 1864 and most if not all of the 52 houses were built by carpenter and joiner Caleb Champion of South Street (now Garratt Lane).⁷

Ridgmount and Aspley Roads were approved on 3rd August 1866 and marked the first green-field development east of St Ann’s Hill.⁸ Progress here was slow and piecemeal, lasting for fifteen years. Four two-storey houses in Ridgmount Road by carpenter Robert Ronald (1835–1925) of Malva Road were approved in December 1867, but all were still vacant in 1871. Ronald, from Edinburgh, lived at 36 St Ann’s Hill from c.1880 until his death.⁹

[Fig. 3: 2–4 Ridgmount Road]

Nos.5–14 Ridgmount Road finally followed in 1882. Builder George King of Brompton Road began his career as a carpenter at Ryde, moving to London in the 1850s. By 1881 he employed around forty men. He also built a dozen houses in Eglantine Road (see below).

[Fig. 4: 5/6 Ridgmount Road]

Aspley Road, with only eighteen houses, provides a classic example of piecemeal progress over many years.¹⁰ Things began well enough with nos.1–5 & 2–6, substantial four-storey houses with a notable roofline, built by John Lewis in 1868 (Fig.5). Nos.7–11, also 1868, were by George Hill.¹¹

[Fig. 5: 1–11 Aspley Road]

[Fig. 6: 13–15 Aspley Road]

The builder of nos.13–15 Aspley Road, similar but not identical houses, is unknown. Nos.8–18 were not built until 1890 by William Mulliner junior, one of a dynasty of builders from Suffolk active locally for many years from 1862. They closely resemble many houses later built on the Bramblebury Estate.

[Fig. 7: 8/10 Aspley Road]

Building along the western and southern edges of the Mitchell estate was equally complex, partly obscured by street-name changes.¹² The St Ann’s Hill frontage was mostly commercial. Nos.5–11 north of Ridgmount Road were shops built by Thomas Mulliner in 1867, of which the last became “The Star & Garter” pub. Three more shops (nos.13–17) by Mulliner followed in 1868. The next two plots were merged to become the GPO Wandsworth Sorting Office. Finally, in 1890, came nos.21–25 built by William Mulliner junior, identical with his six houses in Aspley Road.

[Fig. 8: Nos.194–198 (formerly 13–17) St Ann’s Hill & GPO Sorting Office]

The south-facing section of St Ann’s Hill opposite the church clearly demanded something better than the stylistic hotch-potch elsewhere on the Mitchell estate. The most likely candidate for nos.1–13 St Ann’s Crescent is Frederic Hughes Gilbart, in 1885. In 1881 he lived at no.1 The Grove, next to the Vicar of St Ann’s. His occupation, once ‘timber merchant’, had become ‘accountant’, while his son Ernest (23) was a house agent.¹³ Gilbart later lived in Geraldine Road. Whatever their origin, this group of imposing, relatively plain houses is unusual in that the front view gives the impression of one detached house and three semi-detached pairs — they are in fact conjoined towards the rear as a terrace.

[Fig. 9: Nos.3–5 St Ann’s Crescent]

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British Land Company Estate (1870)

The British Land Company (BLC), founded 1856 as an offshoot of the National Freehold Land Company (NFLC), was one of several such companies established in the 1840s and 50s, the brainchild of radical politicians including Richard Cobden and John Bright. The object was to increase the electorate by selling small freehold plots, which could subsequently be combined and developed for housing. Both companies were active in Battersea and Wandsworth in the 1860s and 1870s. The BLC’s first venture in Wandsworth covered fourteen acres either side of Trinity Road at the southern extremity in 1864–66.

The BLC acquired a 9.69-acre meadow (TA 267) from the executors of Charlotte Barchard in 1870 for £18,000 (around £1,860 per acre). Charlotte (d. May 1869) was the widow of coal merchant Robert Wildman Barchard (d.1848), and a long-standing resident of “The Huguenots” at the top of East Hill.¹⁴ “The Huguenots” itself was excluded from the sale and survived until c.1909. A detached villa, a terrace of four houses and a Congregational chapel seating 600 had already been built along East Hill.¹⁵ The MBW approved Eglantine, Geraldine and Rose Hill Roads on 5th August 1870.¹⁶ The north side of Eglantine Road was acquired by William Pocock and remained undeveloped until the Knoll Road estate was built after 1887 (see below).

The first auction of land in Geraldine Road was in September 1870.¹⁷ Clearly aimed at small investors, only 10% of the purchase money was needed up-front, the rest taking the form of a mortgage or contract at 5% over nine years. Further sales in Geraldine and Rose Hill Roads followed in 1871 (April and August) and 1872 (April). This piecemeal approach, typical of land companies, resulted in a variety of house-types and plot sizes and also fitful and protracted building, here lasting from 1871 to 1885. The finished estate contained 114 detached, semi-detached and terraced houses, the work of thirty-three builders (Appendix 1). Two-thirds of builders lived in Wandsworth and Battersea, the others had addresses from Croydon to Camberwell and Chelsea to Acton. Among them was George King of Brompton, whose nos.39–49 Eglantine Road (1879–80) were identical to his eight houses in Ridgmount Road (see above). In September 1880, King and his mortgagees sold them to Elizabeth Leyburn of Pimlico, the widow of the Chief Clerk in the Admiralty Victualling Office.¹⁸

The BLC was not involved in the building process, which could lead to a complex sequence of transactions. Local developer David Mitchell (see above) bought Lots 94/95 in November 1871 and sold them on to tailor’s clerk Charles Blatchly of Spencer Street, Battersea.¹⁹ Samuel Cowdry, a Metropolitan Police surveyor already living at 26 Rose Hill Road, purchased Lots 86–89 in Geraldine Road in June 1874.²⁰ Many houses in Rosehill Road were initially named, including ‘Glenduish’ and ‘Glentrool’ (no.10), built by Andrew McDowall of Camberwell. They were acquired in October 1880 by wholesale bread manufacturer Robert Nevill of South Kensington.²¹

The commonly protracted and complex process of building on freehold land company estates was exacerbated here by the steep downturn in the building cycle around 1870. This, together with the wide array of plot-purchasers and builders, produced a varied townscape which stands in contrast to some neighbouring developments where homogeneity was the key to success.

[Fig. 10: Nos.42–46 Geraldine Road]

[Fig. 11: Nos.49–53 Eglantine Road]

[Fig. 12: Nos.1–3 Eglantine Road]

[Fig. 13: No.18 Rosehill Road]

[Fig. 14: Nos.42–46 Rosehill Road]

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The Corsellis Estates (The Lawn & Bramblebury)

The BLC estate was flanked on the west, east and south by two estates developed by solicitor Henry Nicholas Corsellis (1856–1910). Their initial phases are considered together, followed by separate accounts of the builders and houses.

Corsellis began his career as a major estate developer in Battersea and Wandsworth in 1884. His father, Arthur (1828–1888), also a solicitor, was born in India and came to Wandsworth in the 1840s, living initially in the High Street.²² He later served as Clerk to the Wandsworth District Board of Works. During the 1850s, Arthur built a modest three-storey villa, no.89 East Hill, named Marney Lodge after the family’s ancestral home in Essex.²³ This was followed in 1861 by a terrace of four altogether grander houses with three storeys, basements and attics and prominent pillared porches (nos.81–87), built by brothers Thomas and George Adamson of Putney. Arthur died at Torquay, leaving an estate of £29,305.

Arthur Corsellis did not apparently engage directly in estate development, though it seems likely that he provided at least some of the capital for his son’s first relatively small venture, undertaken at the age of 28 on the site of Grove House, Battersea High Street in 1884.²⁴ Socially, the three-storey terraces in Orville Road deteriorated rapidly, and were coloured Black on Charles Booth’s Poverty Map. In nearby Green Lane (now Vicarage Crescent), the Corsellises acquired half an acre from Earl Spencer in May 1886 for £945, on which fifteen houses were quickly built, later classified “comfort and poverty mixed” by Booth.

Also in 1886, Henry Corsellis turned his attention to the rapidly-developing area bounded by Lavender Hill, Wandsworth Common and Clapham Common. By 1896, his five Battersea estates had covered around 35 acres with 900 houses. He went on to add another 636 houses on almost 31 acres off East Hill between 1887 and 1900.

Corsellis worked closely in both Battersea and Wandsworth with members of the Stanbury family. Builder William Stanbury (1841–1925) and his sons John (1862–1937) and William Henry (1866–1949) had arrived in London from south Devon in the late-1870s. In 1881 the sons worked as joiners for their father. The family were major builders by contemporary standards. Between 1879 and 1898, William senior was responsible for 185 houses (93 in Battersea, 92 in Wandsworth), while John achieved twice as many between 1886 and 1898 (Battersea 350, Wandsworth 21). Corsellis estates accounted for 323 houses.

William Stanbury senior latterly died at 90 West Hill, leaving £34,884. John Stanbury retired in the late-1890s and moved to Cheam, where he lived in style with six servants including a coachman. His estate was £208,872. William junior’s estate was a very modest £12,241.

Henry Corsellis’s annual income from ground rents alone would have been in excess of £3,500. In 1908, his wife Emma filed for divorce, alleging denial of conjugal rights and refusal to cohabit. She refused his offer of an annual settlement of £800, plus £500 for her to find and furnish a house, and the marriage was dissolved.²⁵ Corsellis died at Hambleden, Surrey, in December 1910, aged fifty-six, leaving £190,900.

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Knoll Road (1887)

Henry Corsellis’s first Wandsworth estate was the Lawn and its grounds, previously owned by architect William Willmer Pocock (1813–99), earlier a developer in Kensington and Battersea.²⁶ Pocock moved to Wandsworth around 1870 to be near two of his children. Alfred was a mechanical engineer living at St Ann’s Hill Park. Alice, the wife of tea dealer Digby Shillington, lived at Spencer Park.

After viewing various properties, Pocock chose the Lawn, despite its proximity to the BLC estate. He leased the house, grounds and fixtures for £200 p.a. and purchased the freehold for £4,000 in 1872–3. He also purchased all the plots on the north side of Eglantine Road for £1,500, thereby preventing building until he had sold out to Corsellis in 1886. Unhappy with the condition of The Lawn, Pocock moved to Spencer Park.²⁷

William Stanbury’s application for Knoll and Herndon Roads was approved on 7th January 1887. The total area was 3.63 acres. The awkward shape presented challenges to surveyor and builder alike in maximising the number of houses, of which eighty-three were built between February 1887 and March 1891, all but seven of them in 1887–88. William Stanbury built eight shops on East Hill and nine houses in Herndon Road.

Table 3: Builders on the Lawn Estate 1887–1891

* Includes 8 shops on East Hill and 9 houses in Herndon Road

Many of the houses had porches and bays in styles found on many Corsellis estates.

[Fig. 15: Nos.1 & 3 Knoll Road]

[Fig. 16: Nos.17–19 Herndon Road]

[Fig. 17: Nos.2/2a Herndon Road]

[Fig. 18: Nos.22–26 Herndon Road]

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The Bramblebury Estate (1892–1898)

By far the largest development in the study area, this was a textbook example of how to cover a compact block of land with the maximum number of houses aimed at a specific market. The estate took its name from the southernmost mansion facing Wandsworth Common, also known as West Side (Fig.19). Before work commenced at Bramblebury in 1891, Corsellis moved from Marney Lodge to 69 East Hill, immediately opposite Mount Nod. He remained there while the bulk of the estate was built, delaying the creation of Acris Street, the building in Trefoil Road (north), Huguenot Place and part of West Side.

As in central Battersea, the aim at Bramblebury was to attract lower-to-middle-class and upper skilled working-class occupiers. The high-density layout covered 26.53 acres with almost 560 houses in less than six years.

[Fig. 19: Bramblebury or West Lodge]²⁸

The old house name was preserved in Bramblebury Gardens (nos.62–72 West Side). In 1891, the occupier was Frances Stephana Dickinson (1824–93), widow of a Liberal MP. She served as a local Poor Law Guardian, while her son Willoughby, a barrister, sat on the new London County Council (1889–95).²⁹ North of the Dickinsons lived widowed Elizabeth Dubuisson with six resident servants, the last of a family that had lived here for almost a century.³⁰ Finally, Henry Corsellis’s temporary abode was swept away along with “East Hill” and “Ivy House”, occupied in 1891 by railway signal engineer (Colonel) Leicester Stevens, and civil engineer John Melton Black.³¹ Only “The Huguenots” survived as a reminder of a more spacious era.

On 29th September 1891, William Stanbury’s application on behalf of Henry Corsellis for the extension of Geraldine Road and six new streets was approved by the LCC. Acris Street followed in October 1895. The new streets and sewers were rapidly constructed, followed by a surge of notices by builders to the District Surveyor from January 1892. The estate was essentially complete by the end of 1895. The updated OS 5ft plan of 1893–4 shows 246 houses at Bramblebury, with Melody Road, Trefoil Road (south) and Cicada Road (east) completed. In contrast, there were none in Jessica and Dault Roads, only four in Quarry Road, and large gaps on West Side.

Builders’ notices to the District Surveyor are summarised in Table 4 and individual outputs in Table 5. In Melody Road Alfred Eaton completed ninety, a major achievement for a single builder. The DSRs omit nineteen houses in Trefoil Road (south side), and also the flats known as Huguenot Mansions.³²

Table 4: Bramblebury Estate — Notices to District Surveyor

Table 5: Bramblebury Estate Builders

Notes: 1 Wandsworth by 1901; 2 Wandsworth by 1896; 3 34 Quarry Rd by 1900; 4 16 Eglantine Rd by 1901

The completion of such a large development in so short a period was a major achievement, a far cry from the neighbouring BLC estate. Several of the shorter streets were completed in a matter of months. Progress was slowest along West Side, where building lasted from 1892 to 1898, with small groups of houses rather than lengthy terraces the norm, producing a wide variety of styles, several of them three-storey versions of houses in the side streets. Apart from a few shops in East Hill and St Ann’s Hill, there were only two minor variations to the original scheme. At the Allfarthing Lane–Melody Road junction, Victoria or Bramblebury Hall (east) and Allfarthing Library (west) were built. The former, erected by 1894, has been used by various religious denominations over the years. [More on Library to be added.] The two substantial houses adjoining the library are in a style unique on the estate.

Bramblebury consists overwhelmingly of two-storey terraces, many of them three-storeyed at the rear. They are faced in red brick with a limited selection of contemporary bays and porches. On East Hill was a mixture of three-storey shops-cum-accommodation plus a small block of flats. Ten shops were built at the south-east end of St Ann’s Hill (now Crescent). A selection of the principal house-types is illustrated below.

[Fig. 20: No.23 Melody Road]

[Fig. 21: No.21 Dault Road]

[Fig. 22: Nos.1–5 Trefoil Road]

There are around 260 examples of this porch/bay style, almost 50% of the estate.

[Fig. 23: Nos.22–26 Eglantine Road]

This porch/bay style accounts for 35% of the total. It also occurs widely in South Battersea and West Wandsworth.

[Fig. 24: Acris Street]

[Fig. 25: Nos.49–53 Cicada Road]

[Fig. 26: No.10 Jessica Road]

In contrast to the two dominant house-types, West Side has an array of more ornate creations, reflecting its higher social status.

[Fig. 27: Nos.20–24 Wandsworth Common West Side]

[Fig. 28: No.34 Wandsworth Common West Side]

[Fig. 29: No.55 Wandsworth Common West Side]

Huguenot Mansions stand out from the rest of Corsellis’s estate and do not seem to have formed part of the Stanburys’ original plan. Although flats aimed at the middle classes were locally becoming more common in the 1890s, this modest example blends well with the rest of the neighbourhood. The builder and architect have not been identified.

[Fig. 30: Huguenot Mansions]

[Fig. 31: Huguenot Mansions detail (Philip Boys)]

The plots on which Huguenot Mansions stood were leased by Corsellis to prosperous licensed victualler Henry Aubrey Woodwell of Nightingale Lane (1846–1937; estate £65,475), whose executors included auctioneer Moreton Riches. Locally, Woodwell was responsible for 33–39 East Hill and Woodwell Street.³³

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The Rise and Fall of “The Huguenots”

Building along the northern fringe of Allfarthing manor had begun in earnest in the later 18th century. “The Huguenots” was one of the earliest large houses to appear. Its first occupant was City banker Sir James Sanderson (1741–98), formerly a hop merchant and Lord Mayor in 1792 and MP for Malmesbury. He first appears in the local Land Tax returns for 1782. The three-storey, five-bay house was built in 1785–6, and assessed at £50 p.a. The house was later home for many years to coal merchant Robert Barchard (d.1848) and his widow Charlotte (d.1869). In 1871, “The Huguenots” was occupied by labourer James Law, the ‘person in charge’.

By 1881 “The Huguenots” was a private lunatic asylum for ladies, run by ‘proprietress’ Martha Leech (1819–1905), with five staff including her sister Eliza, and nine inmates. Martha was born at Long Sutton, Somerset. Her father was a druggist who moved his family to Wardleworth near Rochdale in the early 1820s.

Martha Leech’s long career in mental health began when she moved to London in the 1850s. By 1861 she was Matron at Cyrus Elliott’s Munster House Asylum in Fulham, where there were fourteen staff and twenty-five male patients. Elliott was prominent in the world of private asylums in the London area in the 1850s and 1860s (see Fig.32). Such places catered mainly for a middle- and upper-class clientele.³⁴

[Fig. 32: Advertisement for Cyrus Elliott’s Asylums, 1865]

“The Huguenots” was ideal for this purpose and Martha Leech successfully operated there for many years. In 1881, supported by her sister Eliza as secretary, with Eliza Norveil as attendant and three domestic servants, Martha cared for nine female “boarders”. As required by the Census instructions, inmates are shown only by their initials. Their average age was 64, ranging from 46 to 74. Six were spinsters, two widows and one married.

In 1891, Martha Leech, now in her early seventies and assisted by three attendants (including Eliza Norveil) and two maids, cared for eight “patients”. Five patients were single, two married and one widowed. The youngest patient, Edith Bax, was the daughter of a wealthy property owner. She died at “The Huguenots” in 1895, aged 45. Ellen Schofield (b. Camberwell 1825/6) was resident from at least 1881 until her death in 1907.

In 1901 Martha Leech, aged 81, was living with a cousin at Lytham, Lancashire, where she died in 1905. Control of The Huguenots passed to Martha’s niece Florence Leech (b.1869). The 1901 Enumerator treated “The Huguenots” (77 East Hill) like any other “household”, providing a rare glimpse of patients’ backgrounds. The staff comprised a German-born Assistant Matron, three mental nurses and three domestic staff. There were now twelve residents, three of whom were widows, the rest unmarried. Their average age was fifty-three, ranging from thirty to seventy-five. Only Ellen Schofield had been there in 1891. Where given, patients’ birthplaces ranged from Canada and Barbados to London, Liverpool and Gloucestershire.

The freehold of “The Huguenots” was sold in 1903 for £4,370, but it is unclear when the asylum ceased to function.³⁵ The purchaser was builder George Cattell Hudson (1858–1923), who lived for many years in Spencer Road. The Georgian mansion was finally replaced in 1910–11 by a parade of shops (nos.77a–77e East Hill) ‘with all modern fitments’ and a terrace of nine houses in Geraldine Road (nos.3–19). Both shops and houses are attributed to ‘G. Soper of Wandsworth’ in the District Surveyor’s Returns — actually James Soper (1880–?1930), the son of a master tailor, born at Wandsworth in 1880. Initially a plumber, Soper progressed rapidly to builder. In 1911 he was living at “Le Soken” Geraldine Road with his young family and resident servant. His modest contribution was the final piece of a building jigsaw that had taken nearly fifty years to complete.

[Press cuttings & photograph of 77 East Hill/3–19 Geraldine Road to be inserted here]

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Conclusion

The transformation of one corner of the manor of Allfarthing from fields and meadows with some mansions, villas and smaller properties along East Hill into a group of Victorian building estates was a typically complex and protracted process.

East Hill had long been part of a major route from London to the south-west. As such it attracted a scatter of substantial houses during the 18th century amongst the meadows, arable fields and market gardens. The wealthy residents were both incomers and members of prosperous local families such as the Watneys, Du Buissons and Barchards. Smaller properties housed various service providers and servants.

The rural idyll began to fade after 1865, coinciding with a peak in the London building cycle. The first green-field development was that of woollen draper David Mitchell in 1866, though it took more than two decades to complete. It was quickly followed by the much more ambitious British Land Company estate, though that too progressed only fitfully. It was only after 1880 that development south of East Hill picked up speed. The two estates developed by local solicitor Henry Corsellis ultimately had in excess of 600 houses. By far the larger was Bramblebury, which in barely five years transformed the grounds of large houses into a sea of terraces, with minimal retail provision. By 1900 only the 1780s “The Huguenots” remained. Within a decade, it too was gone. Since then the only major changes to the local townscape have occurred as a result of bomb damage in the 1940s.

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Appendix 1: British Land Company Estate — Houses & Builders 1871–1887

Geraldine Road [38]

Rose Hill Road [41]

Eglantine Road [35]

* Impossible to identify on style grounds; assigned 3 each to Eglantine/Rose Hill

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Appendix 2: Lawn Estate Builders 1887–1891

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Appendix 3: Bramblebury Estate Builders 1892–1897

1 Wandsworth by 1901; 2 Wandsworth by 1896; 3 34 Quarry Rd by 1900; 4 16 Eglantine Rd by 1901

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Notes

¹ See D. Gerhold, Wandsworth Past (1998).

² Available at https://www.layersoflondon.org. Note that the original is not always very legible.

³ For more detail see D. Gerhold, John Corris’s Map of Wandsworth in 1787 (Wandsworth Paper 11, 2002).

⁴ The house was later known as The Lawn.

⁵ Thomas Milne’s Land Use Map of London & Environs (London Topog. Soc. 118/119, 1975–6).

⁶ Mitchell left an estate of £37,111.

⁷ Champion built 73 houses in Wandsworth 1863–66 before moving on to Putney, where he built 19 houses 1867–70.

⁸ The spelling of Ridgmount Road took time to settle down and it regularly appeared as Ridgemont, e.g. in 1871.

⁹ Apart from Ridgmont Road, Ronald’s local output was only 11 houses.

¹⁰ The situation is confused by the fact that the south wall of no.17 is also the rear, windowless wall of no.15 St Ann’s Crescent, a one-off house.

¹¹ He gave notice of six houses in the otherwise unknown Hedgeway Road, Battersea in 1866, and for two houses and three houses+shops on St Ann’s Hill in 1869.

¹² The sinuous nature of what was once Allfarthing Lane all the way from East Hill to the Common has led to several name changes. In the 1860s, St Ann’s Hill ran from East Hill to Allfarthing Lane, with a dog-leg around the churchyard. The north-south road west of the church to Earlsfield Road, now St Ann’s Hill, was then The Grove.

¹³ In 1861, when the family lived in Paddington, Frederic gave his occupation as ‘timber merchant’.

¹⁴ The old curved field boundary is still apparent on modern maps.

¹⁵ The chapel was built by John G Stapleton in 1859–60. It was enlarged in 1876 to 1,030 seats.

¹⁶ Rose Hill Road became Rosehill at some time between 1893 and 1914.

¹⁷ Morning Post, 16 Sept. 1870; Pall Mall Gazette, 17 April 1871; Standard, 18 Aug. 1871.

¹⁸ WA Deeds/65.

¹⁹ WA Deeds/1647 & 1648; 3662.

²⁰ WA Deeds/1376. In 1887/8 Cowdry briefly employed a servant who left without notice taking a dress. Tragically she is well known to posterity as Jack the Ripper’s first victim.

²¹ The Scottish names of the houses reflect McDowall’s origins in Wigtownshire, Galloway. In 1881 he described himself as ‘Master Carpenter, employing four men and 1 lad’. He died in 1890, leaving an estate of £10,382. WA Deeds/1587 & 1651.

²² Arthur’s birthplace varies from Census to Census: in 1851 it is simply ‘India’, in 1861 & 1881 ‘East Indies’ and in 1871 ‘Mhow’ — a city in Madhya Pradesh and an important military centre.

²³ Wealthy merchant Nicholas Corsellis bought the Marney Estate in 1667 and it remained in the family until 1835. Layer Marney Tower is the tallest Tudor gatehouse in England. Henry Corsellis also used Marney for a street on one of his Battersea estates.

²⁴ For more detail on Corsellis’s work in Battersea, see K.A. Bailey, The Development of Building Estates in Battersea 1780–1914, Wandsworth Paper 24 (2012), 29–31; C. Thom (ed.), Survey of London vol.50: Battersea Part 2 Houses and Housing (London, 2013), passim.

²⁵ Divorce papers at TNA J77/958/9105.

²⁶ Pocock’s manuscript autobiography offers rare insights into the complexities of creating mid- to late-Victorian suburbia. It was typed in the 1960s by his great-granddaughter Margaret Powel. Copy at the RIBA Library. For a discussion of Pocock’s activities in Battersea see K.A. Bailey, ‘William Willmer Pocock, A Wandsworth Architect’, Wands. Historian 56 (1988), 9–14.

²⁷ Pocock also bought substantial properties at St Leonards West Marina and Tunbridge Wells, where he died in 1899, leaving £51,101.

²⁸ Pen & ink drawing by local surveyor Victor Rashbrook (1913–73), dated 7th Feb. 1945. The signboard on Rashbrook’s estate agency at 93 East Hill was a prominent feature for many years. Large-scale 19th-century OS plans confirm its accuracy.

²⁹ Bramblebury was the location for the first production of The Tinted Venus in October 1889, starring actress Elizabeth Bessle, then living at Barnes. K. Newey, Women’s Theatre Writing in Victorian Britain (2005). Mrs Dickinson moved to Bedford Hill. She died in Yorkshire in 1893, leaving £1,298.

³⁰ Mrs Du Buisson had six servants in 1891, and is last recorded in the 1893 Electoral Register. She moved to West Clandon near Guildford, where she died in 1902, leaving a modest estate of £3,439.

³¹ He later lived at “Knapdale”, 21 Tooting Bec Road for many years, initially next door to the prominent local builder and estate developer Alfred Heaver.

³² The LCC assigned the following numbers to the latter in early February 1897: 1–10 Huguenot Mansions, and five shops 8–12 Huguenot Place.

³³ TNA IR58/88667. The Finance Act aimed to raise money by levying a duty on land-value increments resulting from public expenditure on infrastructure.

³⁴ Private-house asylums had existed in various parts of Wandsworth and Battersea from the early 19th century, for example York House.

³⁵ In 1908 Florence Leech married a George Frederick Bennett in Wandsworth.

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Draft version, March 2022. © Keith Bailey. All rights reserved.

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