Friends of Wandsworth Common · Heritage Group Talk
Lost Houses of Wandsworth Common
Bolingbroke House · Grove House · Bolingbroke Grove House · The Elms · Dent's House
Welcome everyone to another Heritage Group talk for the Friends of Wandsworth Common. The presentation this evening will be in three parts, so I'll be very brief and hand straight over to Mark.
Thank you, Stephen. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Henrietta and I are going to present some of the results of our research into the Five Houses of what was once called Five Houses Lane and is now Bolingbroke Grove. This is part of the Lost Houses of Wandsworth Common initiative under the Heritage Group. Two of us actually live in Bolingbroke Grove, and the third lives just around the corner — which means we've been able to gather a lot of material over the last six to nine months. We've got quite a lot to say, so we'll proceed at a fairly rapid pace and would be grateful if you could keep questions until the Q&A at the end.
I'll start with some historical scene-setting. Sarah will then provide some fascinating insights into those who lived both upstairs and downstairs in these houses. And Henrietta will describe how the estates were laid out — the fields, the farms, the planting, the trees. Although we sadly only have actual images of Bolingbroke House, the first house on Five Houses Lane, we did find some remarkable sales advertisement details for when the estates went up for sale, which gives us a vision of what the other houses would have looked like.
It all starts in the latter part of the 18th century. A senior partner in Charron & Co Bank — one of the famous private banks of that era — a man called Robert Dent — managed to purchase 88 acres from Lord Spencer for the tidy sum of £5,650. Spencer had himself secured this land, which he then sold on to Dent, from Viscount Bolingbroke — which will all become very clear as we go through. Bolingbroke had been forced to sell this land and other parcels to pay off some of his substantial debts; he was that type of Earl.
In 1777 — a key date — the Five Houses were built through Robert Dent, described as "very genteel, modern-built brick houses which overlook the Common towards the west and had pleasure grounds containing landscapes, gardens and walks." Not surprisingly, the road on which they were built was called Five Houses Lane or Five Houses Road, and only became Bolingbroke Grove much later, in the 1850s.
It may be rather difficult to imagine today, but these residences were actually built as second homes — country estates for wealthy bankers and merchants who lived in central London and wanted a country retreat, or a place to allow their families to live. They would travel down to these properties in their carriages when able, often bringing servants from their city houses to supplement the household staff.
The Five Houses were all built at essentially the same time — 1777 to 1778. They were designed primarily by a well-known surveyor and entrepreneur of the time called Richard Norris, though one was the creation of another man called John Soane. The development was very much a family affair: Richard Norris was the surveyor who designed the properties; his brother was the builder who constructed them; and another brother was a lawyer who drew up all the contracts for sales and leases.
Apart from Bolingbroke House, the other four houses survived for only about a hundred years before being demolished for development.
Our favourite map is the 1840 tithe map, a copy of which is in your handout. It shows how the Five Houses lined up down Five Houses Lane opposite the Common, rather close together — you might have thought they'd have left a little more room between them. The Falcon Brook ran through all of their estates. When a man called Robert Lovelace sold additional land east of the brook to some of the owners, they created even bigger estates. There was also a private lane — Green Lane, now Webs Road — which provided access to the rear of several of the properties. At the junction of Green Lane and Battersea Rise was a lodge called, rather strangely, Australia Lodge, which protected the entrance to Green Lane.
By 1868, Bolingbroke Grove House had already been demolished and Chatham Road had appeared — just the beginning of the development that would follow. The Stanford map of that era also shows a road actually called Bolingbroke Grove coming off Five Houses Lane itself, so it seems there was an original Bolingbroke Grove Lane before Five Houses Lane itself was renamed.
Bolingbroke House — the first house, situated south of what is now the cemetery and opposite a pond on the Common that no longer exists. This was the grandest of the five, with the most extensive grounds, including its own farm. It was described as a rather plain and flat three-storey affair at the front, set back somewhat from the Common. It doesn't look very impressive from that angle, but look at the back view and there's a much grander affair, with the grounds sweeping all the way down to the brook. Wings and additional levels were added over the years. When the property went to auction in 1858, the sale description showed it was a very substantial house: 11 bedrooms, "a noble suite of reception rooms, domestic offices, stabling for six horses, coach houses, a gig house for the carriages" — and rather intriguingly, something described as "Men's Rooms," which I'm not sure whether to interpret as the first man caves or something else entirely — all set in 15½ acres of "beautifully timbered" grounds.
By 1876, a hundred years after it was built, the house was no longer required as a private residence. Fortunately it was rescued from developers by Canon John Erskine Clarke, a local vicar, who paid £4,500 for the house and grounds and turned it into a pay hospital that opened in 1880. Pay hospitals were quite an interesting phenomenon: they were set up for the middle classes, who couldn't afford private nursing care in their own homes but certainly didn't want to be admitted to the working-class infirmaries. The Bolingbroke Pay Hospital started with 30 beds, but grew steadily — new wings were added, and by the time the hospital had developed fully it had 120 beds, 20 cots in the children's ward, an operating theatre, an accident centre, and a brand new three-storey block. By 1928 the average cost of an inpatient was £2 13s 10d, with an average length of stay of 17 days.
The original house eventually found itself hemmed in on three sides by all these new extensions, until in 1937 old Bolingbroke House itself was finally demolished. The hospital continued in the three-storey block, which many of you will know, until the council decided it too was surplus to requirements. It became the Bolingbroke Academy, which opened in 2012.
Grove House — the second house, a similar long rectangular footprint but smaller than Bolingbroke House. This time designed by John Soane but built surprisingly close to Bolingbroke House. It had 12 acres and only a three-stall stable. It was the last of the Five Houses to remain in private use, sold and demolished for development in 1889. The sale advert makes a great deal of its proximity to Clapham Common and Crystal Palace Railway stations — the classic estate agent speak of any era.
Bolingbroke Grove House — the third house, located opposite the Three Island Ponds on the Common. A more compact villa, but still with its own carriage drive and stables, set in 14 acres. The sale description describes it as "of a suburban character, very commodious, with lots of domestic offices, coach houses, stabling, carriage and riding horses, stately timber and a beautiful lawn to the rear with a walled garden and vegetable garden." In 1853 the sale advert rather candidly claimed it was "a fine site for the erection of terraces, crescents and detached villas" — and of course that's exactly what happened. It was the first of the five to be demolished, in 1864. It did have its own pew in the parish church, which was probably very helpful.
The Elms — the fourth house, similar in size to Bolingbroke Grove House. It was designed, we believe, specifically for its first owner, Benjamin Cole. Another simple brick-built three-storey bay house, but with a relatively grand entrance front: a four-column covered porch to the principal floor. However, the interior hadn't been designed particularly well — the eating room doubled as the entrance hall, the reception rooms didn't have the best views, and the children's nursery was only accessible from the basement. Plans were drawn up to change the whole interior, but sadly were never implemented.
The estate agent's description is wonderful: "commodious, pleasantly situated, tastefully disposed, and for a family of the first respectability." Three bedrooms had their own dressing rooms and water closets — en suites, obviously — plus stables and coach houses, pleasure grounds, poultry houses, and — rather intriguingly — a cold bath. We found a lovely article on these:
"The relatively brief vogue among the 18th-century upper classes for cold outdoor bathing gave rise to a distinctive architecture: bathhouses, spring-fed pools and pseudo-rustic grottos provided a convivial 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. However, like most 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 a less attractive proposition. These cold baths were often then turned into ice houses."
Dent's House — the fifth and last house. A vast estate of 36 acres including its own farm. Similar in style to the others — the same carriage sweeps, stabling for six horses, numerous outbuildings and paddocks — not as grand as Bolingbroke House but certainly more substantial than the middle three. It was occupied by William Dent, brother of Robert Dent who had originally purchased the land from Lord Spencer. The house stood in the north-west corner of the plot, with the farm further south.
When the large estate was eventually divided up for sale in 1874, it was finally sold in two lots: the house with 5 acres of ground to a man called John Elder Gore, and the remaining 28 acres for development to a developer called Charles Applebee. After demolition, the stable block and a piece of old Battersea wall were left standing between the garden of 35 Bolingbroke Grove and houses 36 and 38, where they remain to this day. The stable block is now 1B Gore's Road, and still has the wall-rings where the horses were tethered.
To help you visualise where these houses stood relative to the current road layout, we've put a couple of slides together in your handout showing how the tithe map plots translate onto the modern streets of Bolingbroke Grove.
Like Mark I've written a script, so forgive me for reading it. It has proved much simpler to learn something of the owners of the Five Houses than of those who lived below stairs as servants. We've been able to establish facts about various owners covering the whole period in which the houses stood. However, researching the lives of the servants proved much trickier. We relied on the census returns, which gave us a snapshot every ten years from 1841 to 1881 — that being the last useful one before demolition — plus birth, marriage and death records, and some wills. This means we were unable to learn anything about the living servants in residence for the first sixty years or so after the houses were built.
What struck us about the servants was the very ephemeral or transient nature of their lives. Many of those named at an address on one census were not present on the next — which surprised me. A few servants were with a family for life, but not many. Some died young, and others simply disappeared from the record.
Generations of the Willis family owned the leasehold and later the freehold to Bolingbroke House, having purchased it sometime before 1797. William Willis the Elder was a partner in the long-established Lombard Street banking house Willis, Perall and Company. This firm financed international trade, in particular cargoes of sugar from the West Indies in the 1780s, and their customers included plantation owners using labour from enslaved people. I felt we should perhaps just acknowledge that and move on.
Among the servants: the unfortunately named James Death was the coachman at Bolingbroke House in 1851 — he was 33 and born in Essex. The coachman held a responsible position within the household and was required to be presentable, as he would accompany the family on their afternoon visits. James was living in the coach house with his wife Elizabeth, who was a laundress — the most arduous and lowly of all servant occupations. They had married in 1849, three years after the birth of their son, who was born in Streatham. Notably, the son didn't live with them in either 1851 or 1861 but with his father's relatives in Essex. Most female servants were obliged to remain unmarried if they wished to keep their position, and I think it's rather sad that they weren't able to have their son live with them.
William Willis the owner acquired Bolingbroke Farm, which Mark mentioned, in 1797 and incorporated it into the Bolingbroke House estate. The farmhouse was situated roughly where the Aurientaster Bakery and café now stand on the junction of Northcote and Shellgate Roads. The farm bailiff who lived there in both 1851 and 1861 was a man named Uriah Wackell — a name worthy of a Dickens novel, and I haven't made it up. In 1851 he lived there with his wife Sage — and why wouldn't she be called Sage? Our research indicates they didn't have any children, though they'd married in 1833 in Southwark. Uriah was from Essex, and earlier in his life had spent time near Tiverton in Devon working as a gardener at Knightshayes Court, which some of you may know as a National Trust property. He also attempted several business ventures as a maltster and brewer, but each of these appears to have ended in bankruptcy.
However, in 1856, aged 53, he won a prize of 15 shillings at the Chelmsford Grand National Flower Show for growing six peaches of the variety Violette Hâtive. His address in the newspaper report is given as Bolingbroke Farm, and though it's a long way to transport peaches, the Great Eastern Railway line from London to Chelmsford had opened in 1843, so he could have gone by train. My suspicion is that the peaches were actually grown in the hothouse at Bolingbroke House rather than at the farm — but that's just a supposition. Uriah continued to live locally until his death in 1872, dying at Two Lime Cottages, Battersea Rise, aged 69, and was buried at St Mary's, Battersea.
Alexander Champion acquired the lease to Grove House in 1807 — thirty years after it was built. He and his father before him were merchants and prominent whalers in the southern seas, and famously among the first European visitors to the Galápagos Islands. Two of his daughters, Maria and Elizabeth, lived on in the house after their father's death. Elizabeth never married, purchased the freehold, and did good works in the parish. On the 1851 census, the occupation of the two sisters is listed as "fund holder" — meaning they lived off their investment income.
Their cousin Charlotte Ellen Blackmore, who lived with them at Grove House in both 1851 and 1861, married the Reverend John Pincher Fortescue Thorp, a clergyman and Vice Principal of St John's College, Battersea. This couple, together with their four children, lived in the house until after 1881.
One of their servants, Jane Annam, was with them from 1861 until after 1901. She never married; she was born in Sussex in 1838, her father a labourer. Jane's older brother William was a farm lad at Grove House in the 1851 census — he was born in Sussex in 1832, and all of William's surviving siblings were either servants or labourers. However, William's career took a rather different path. Ten years after working as a farm lad at Grove House at age 18, he was living in Leicester, unmarried, but working as a schoolmaster in a national school. He married Elizabeth Clover in 1861 in the City of London, and on subsequent census returns describes himself first as a professor of music and then as a music teacher.
One of William and Elizabeth's children had the unusual middle name of Champion. I believe that gives us the explanation for William's remarkable rise in occupation and social status. There was no school in his hometown in Sussex during his childhood — where did he get his education? Almost certainly, at least in part, from the Champion sisters. They really did do good works.
One more servant from Grove House: Charles Worthington lived there in 1861 and worked as a domestic servant. Sadly, he died on 22 January 1864 at Grove House, aged only 29. His death certificate states he had rheumatic fever — a feared and deadly disease in 19th-century Britain, one which once acquired would wax and wane in episodes. Bed rest and opioids were the only treatments available. His death was reported by Joseph Sharp, one of the other living servants at Grove House.
Chamberlain Goodwin, a wealthy dyer of Moorfields, lived at Bolingbroke Grove House for only four years, between 1785 and 1789. He was born in 1753, baptised in Shoreditch, and occupied commercial premises in Wandsworth in 1782. As many of you will know, Wandsworth and the River Wandle were well known at that time as areas of dyeworks. Goodwin was made a Freeman of the City of London in 1790. He married Elizabeth Harrup in 1798 — she was many years his junior — but they appear to have had no children. She died in 1801 aged just 36, and he moved to Ravensbury House, Mitcham, dying in 1803.
Among the servants: William Goodridge was the footman at Bolingbroke Grove House in both 1841 and 1851. He was born in Hampshire in 1803. The 1851 census states that he was married but that his wife was not with him at the house — he had married Maria Harris in 1835 in Marylebone, and they had at least five children who lived with Maria in Marylebone until her death in 1857. In 1848, at the baptism of their youngest child, William is described as a "gentleman's servant." By 1861 he was out of employment and living in Gray's Inn Lane, and died sometime thereafter.
The Elms was owned by Benjamin Cole — a wealthy draper, member of the Drapers' Company, a government broker, and Sheriff of London from 1782 to 1783. He was born in 1739 in the City of London and married Harriet Steer in 1776 in Middlesex, just before moving to The Elms in 1777–78. Their first two children, daughters Harriet and Maria, both died in 1783 or shortly thereafter, as young children. Benjamin and Harriet's son, also called Benjamin, was born and baptised in Wandsworth in 1782.
These three children and their parents are depicted in a painting made in 1782 by John Downman RA, which Christie's auction house describes as showing a charming family group — quite possibly painted in the garden of The Elms itself, albeit depicting an idealised view. We like to think that is a vision of The Elms, possibly minus the lion. Those two little girls both died the year after the painting was made — but that was the way it was then, no matter how wealthy you were.
After the Cole family left, The Elms was acquired by Sir James Mansfield in 1803, and he lived there until his death in 1821. He was born in 1734 and was a lawyer, judge and politician — twice Solicitor General, and Chief Justice of the Common Pleas from 1799 to 1814. He had been educated at Eton and King's College Cambridge, and called to the bar in 1758. As a lawyer he was notably involved in defending James Somerset — a slave brought by his master from Jamaica to London in 1769. Mansfield married Grace in 1765 and they had six children together, though he also had five other children with another partner. As a judge he was known for his easily provoked temper, but his knowledge of the law was considerable. As Chief Justice he presided over the trial of John Bellingham, assassin of Spencer Perceval — the only British Prime Minister ever to have been assassinated.
One of the shadowy servant figures at The Elms was Anne Raven, domestic servant in 1851, probably the most senior female servant in the house. She was a widow, born around 1800. By 1861 she had moved on and was working as a cook for a refrigerator merchant and woollen draper in St Ann's Lane, Wandsworth. Tantalisingly, by 1871 she was listed as a widow living in Lambeth, her occupation given as "kept by her children" — but no record of her marriage, husband, or children has been found.
William Dent, brother of Robert Dent of Old Park House, acquired Dent's House in 1777 from his brother and lived there until his death in 1823. He is buried at St Mary's, Battersea, and was born around 1740. He never married, but his adopted — or possibly natural — daughter Mary lived on in the house until her death in 1867. She never married either, and was born around 1775 in Kensington. William had left his entire estate to her.
John Elder Gore held the lease on Dent's House from 1874 to about 1881. He was a QC, an MP and a Tory party agent, born in 1835. He served as Solicitor General. He married Mary Moore, who was born in the West Indies, in 1860 in Australia. They had eight children, the first two born in New Zealand and the last three at Dent's House.
And finally — a living-in-servant romance to finish on. Joseph Barras, aged 29, was the footman at Dent's House in 1851. Caroline Styles was a housemaid there, aged 26, born in Battersea — he in County Durham. They married on the 5th of July 1856 at St Mary's, Battersea. At that time Caroline was still living in Battersea but Joseph had moved employment and was living in Leamington Spa. In 1861 Caroline and their daughter Harriet were living in York Road, Battersea, while Joseph was working as a butler to a general in the British forces in Paddington. In 1871 Joseph was a butler in County Durham, while Caroline and their four daughters were living in Yorkshire, where she described herself as "husband — butler — out of employ." By 1881 and 1891 the couple were together in County Durham, where Joseph was first a waiter and then a butler. He died in 1893, but Caroline continued to live in County Durham, letting furnished apartments and then retiring before her own death in 1912. A little snapshot of a life.
I would like to give you a broad sense of the gardens and natural landscape surrounding the Five Houses, starting with an evocative description from Former Years in South Battersea by Logan, written in the mid to late 19th century:
"Picture yourself at the crossroads of Battersea Rise and Bolingbroke Grove. Look south along the Grove, wending its undulating way towards Nightingale Lane, and observe on the right the rough open expanse of Battersea West Common — that is now Wandsworth Common. Only one railway line crosses the Common; in the middle distance is a windmill, and behind it the newly built Surrey House of Correction. From where you are standing, look down Battersea Rise, noting a few cottages. Further east is a substantial house with other houses and grounds stretching away into the distance along the edge of Battersea East Common — which is now Clapham Common. Down in the valley bottom is a stream, the Falcon Brook, and by the side of it is a farm. Open land exists between that farm, our vantage point, and the first of the five big houses in Bolingbroke Grove. It is in Bolingbroke Grove that this history begins."
Going back into deep time: the Rocque map of 1761 — the first map we have of the area — shows fields and land gently undulating along what was to become Five Houses Lane. The fall of the land down to the Falcon Brook gave the Five Houses an elevated outlook to the east, which still exists today.
The Haron map of 1775 is charming in its hand-drawn way. It shows what became Bolingbroke Farm as a 100-acre holding with crops of barley, wheat and potatoes — and this is where our colourful character Uriah Wackell was head of household, growing his peaches either here or at Bolingbroke House.
The Corris map of 1787 is the first map to actually show the Five Houses. It divides all the fields into what were called "shots" — cultivation units — which were further divided into strips. The original document describes units such as "gravel shots" or "south meadow shots," depending on land type. And for the first time we can see Five Houses Lane edged with trees — the first sign of formal enhancement of the area.
The Mill map of 1800 shows the area labelled with "P" marks standing for "park" or "little parks." Wandsworth Common is described to the north and west; the southern portion is known as Battersea Common.
For us, the tithe map was a gem — probably the most precious resource we have for this area. Once purely agricultural land is now a mix of arable land, pasture, meadow, and the emergence of pleasure grounds and gardens.
Capability Brown and Humphry Repton were the preeminent landscapers of the Five Houses period. These houses had a blank canvas on which to impose a modest form of Brown's landscape movement, followed by Repton's expansion into shrub and flower gardens.
Brown's style was of sweeping parkland punctuated by clumps of trees and lakes, with broad lawns enveloping the house. The Falcon Brook was dammed to create lakes, as you can see at the rear of The Elms' garden — very much in his vernacular. His influence was so deep and widespread that Walpole said of him:
"We have discovered the point of perfection; we have given the true model of gardening to the world."
Humphry Repton followed on from Brown and introduced flower and shrub gardens closer to the house, keeping the parkland beyond. Our maps of the gardens show lawns sweeping up to the house, with parterre, flower and shrub borders, and walled kitchen gardens. Carriages could conveniently go from the main lane to the house; Repton was also known for the circular planting with paths and tracks of gravel that we can see at the front of each of these properties.
The parterre tradition of 17th-century France inspired these large houses to devote space to the formality of bedding plants and box hedging, and that element is visible in the tithe map too.
The apportional book for this section of the tithe map describes the land with names like "Upper Brimstones" — which may refer to an individual but more likely to brambles or gorse, which was prevalent on the Common. People would use gorse bushes for drying their clothes. Another reference is "Flood Marsh," which confirms the damp conditions we all know exist on the Common today.
The Morning Herald of 1853 describes Bolingbroke House as having "14 acres of pleasure grounds and gardens and rich paddocks of meadow, extensive shrubbery walks embellished with choice evergreens, exotics and stately timber, commanding a very attractive situation in the fine avenue described as Bolingbroke Grove. Appropriate coach houses, stabling for carriage and riding horses, loose boxes for hunters, farmyards and agricultural buildings, and it embraces a beautiful lawn in the rear and conducts to an admirable walled fruit and vegetable garden. The approach from Bolingbroke Grove is by a bold carriage sweep and lawn, and from Battersea Rise by a green lane with lodges and gates of entrance in Common with several adjoining proprietors, double access being thus obtained."
The Elms sale details are extraordinary in their specificity: "garden lights, tools, plants, garden implements, two carts and harnesses, about eight loads of meadow hay, and dairy and kitchen utensils and healthy greenhouse plants; coach houses for five horses and other outbuildings; and a farmyard enclosed by folding gates with stable, cow house, cattle shed, poultry houses, piggery, dog kennel, rick yard, kitchen garden and a melon ground, and rabbit houses enclosed by a lofty wall and paling; a beautiful lawn tastefully laid out and ornamented by fine timber." Then there's the cold bath, described as having "a constant supply of water" — probably positioned to draw from the Falcon Brook — "the whole estate containing about 12 acres in high condition."
The melon ground is a particularly interesting feature, reflecting the opulence of the estate and the fashion of the era. Melons had been fashionable as an exotic fruit for centuries and were typically nurtured in raised beds with heat and enriched soil in an enclosure separate to the main vegetable garden. Stoves were often installed in these gardens to nurture tender plants such as orchids as well.
The mature trees in the images of Bolingbroke House could be elms, white or black poplar, horse chestnut, oak, or lime — all of which flourish on the Common today. Cedars of Lebanon were also popular; there is one still standing on Blenkarne Road which we believe dates from the 19th century when the land was part of the Dent estate. I knocked on the current owner's door one day and we measured its girth — and that girth measurement, together with the height, gives you the age of a tree. We reckoned it was planted in the 19th century.
The shrubs would have been traditional native types or newly introduced exotic varieties, which were flooding into Britain from the great global plant-hunting expeditions of the time. Wealthy individuals were keen to display what might be called "status trees and shrubs from abroad" to embellish their grounds.
These properties were particularly well placed to benefit from two major plant nurseries nearby.
Rollinson's Tooting Nursery, between 1790 and 1880, was large and highly reputable, situated just south of what is now Wandsworth Common, on what is now St James's Drive near the Springfield Hospital site. It has recently been given a blue plaque, which reads: "These streets were once the site of Rollinson's Tooting Nursery, 1790 to 1880: a name that will long be remembered and esteemed in the gardening trade. Placed by public subscription." In 1842 an orchid from Java was exhibited for the first time there.
Neil's Nurseries overlapped with Rollinson's for a few years. By the 1870s Neil's was approximately 70 acres in total. From an article in the South London Press in 1874, I calculate that Neil's dispatched 236,000 plants in a single year, including pines, spruce, cedars, cypress, privet, specimen weeping trees, limes, planes and other ornamental and forest trees. By 1897 they were also selling thousands of roses, clematis and bedding plants.
Looking at the wider area of Battersea: it was producing asparagus and lavender. Wandsworth still had acres of cornfields, cabbage grounds and young tree plantations. References are also made to tomato houses, vineries and extensive greenhouses. The unprecedented interest in gardening from the late 18th to the early 20th century meant a proliferation of literature and institutions supporting horticulture in this part of south-west London. Two key national institutions had recently emerged: Kew Botanic Gardens, which started within the pleasure grounds at Kew in 1759 — just before the Five Houses were built — to become a national institution for botanical research; and the Horticultural Society of London (now the RHS), founded in 1804 just to the west of here before moving to Wisley.
Two images convey the change in times particularly well. The first, from 1883, shows the view from Bolingbroke Hospital looking west across Wandsworth Common — providing fresh air for the patients. It's atmospheric: the Common looks rough and wild. The second shows the twin row of mature, established, single-species trees lining Bolingbroke Grove with a formally dressed and elegant local lady on the path — which then looked to be of hard materials, stone and gravel, rather than the grass and compacted earth of today. Ironically, that image shows the area to be more formal than we see today. In recent years the Common has become more naturalistic, and the ecological management allows for more biodiversity and informality.
As a closing comment, Wilberforce, who lived close by at Broomwood House, described the area to a correspondent in 1807 as "a poor mimicry of real country." This comment reflects an opinion that while these estates were impressive, they were often viewed as inferior to the grander, more sophisticated properties north of the river, but not as authentic as truly large rural country estates. Basically, it's suburbia.
Where did the ponds come from, and when? Most of them were gravel pits and sand pits dug for raw materials for building. Lord Spencer — or Bolingbroke before him — used to sell licences to dig the gravel and sand. They then filled up with water because underneath the gravel and sand is clay, which acts as a natural liner. There were dozens of ponds on the Common, but most got filled in when the Victorian housing was developed. The Three Island Pond — the circular one — is still there and is one of the longest-established natural features on the Common. The pond that was opposite Bolingbroke House is now filled in.
Where exactly is the surviving wall from Dent's House? If you're on the Common looking between Gore Road and Broomwood Road, you'll find it between two of the houses — between numbers 35 and 36 from memory. It's a double-thickness wall running west to east, so if you walk along the pavement you can see it. Behind it — more easily visible if you go down Gorst Road — is 1B Gorst Road, a very odd house set back behind the Victorian terrace. It looks as if someone built a house in somebody's garden, but that was actually the stable block or coach house of Dent's House. The current residents wouldn't let us in, but they told us there's still an arch, now a window, where the coaches or horses came in, and the rings are still on the wall where the horses were tethered.
Can you help us understand the scale of these properties in terms of current streets? Green Lane is now Webs Road, and the Falcon Brook is roughly where Northcote Road is. So some of these properties extended all the way from Bolingbroke Grove back to Webs Road — a very substantial distance indeed.
Tommy Deans was quoted in relation to The Elms — what was the reference? He wrote a book in 2006 referencing the Soane pictures — that is, the plans of the existing house. I think the book is called Sir John Soane and London.
Is the stable block at 1B Gore's Road listed? We have no idea, but it sounds as though it ought to be. We have written to the residents — they did reply, but they didn't invite us round for a cup of tea. We'll keep trying.
Did all the grounds extend beyond the Falcon Brook? Not all of them. Looking at the tithe map, the green lines show the extent of each estate. Grove House was relatively small; The Elms had land going right across the Falcon Brook. Bolingbroke House and Grove House are unusually close together. If anyone wants to study the map in detail, there's a copy in Lavender Hill Library; the original is in St Mary's Church.
A comment about the elm trees: As children in the early 1960s we remember there being an enormous number of elm trees on the Common. Dutch elm disease struck and a great many were cut down. If that hadn't happened there would have been far more surviving trees from this period.
Were the mature trees in the Bolingbroke House images already there when the houses were built, or were they planted afterwards? The lithograph of Bolingbroke House dates from around 1830, which is about 53 years after the houses were built in 1777. Given that status trees were very fashionable — rather like having a fancy car today, you needed to have a particular specimen tree — an awful lot of them would have been planted very soon after the houses were built. In 53 years you'd get the mature look you see in the images. And unlike the Common itself, the agricultural land coming off the Common has a much better soil type, so trees like elm and poplar, which are quite happy in wet conditions, would have thrived.
Where exactly was Rollinson's Nursery? Just south of St James's Drive, between St James's Drive and what is now Springfield Hospital — in that little cluster of roads there. We have Geoff Simmons to thank for getting the blue plaque erected.
What a wealth of material and depth of research — I love the detail of wandering off to measure the girth of trees on Blenkarne Road. What's your next step? Is there more you'd like to discover?
We've only given you a fraction of what we found tonight. It would have been an eight-hour lecture if we'd covered everything. We have talked about doing a small publication — I think it would warrant it. And there's also potential for future work on some of the other substantial houses in the area, such as Burntwood House and Old Park, which haven't really been included in the Lost Houses project yet.
From the broader project perspective: this is just five of the 32 houses we identified. There are other volunteers currently researching the Burntwood houses — Burntwood House, Burntwood Lodge, Collamore House and Burntwood Grange — and we're hoping they may be able to do a similar presentation towards the end of the year. We would also love to see this material put into a booklet, as the first in a series that the Lost Houses project hopes to produce. Keep your eyes peeled for developments on that front.