A Brief History of Time Wandsworth by Carrie ‘Hawking’ Scott

I’ve lived in Wandsworth all of my life, and been an estate agent in Wandsworth for over half of this time. One of the things I love most about being an Estate Agent is the history, whether this be about the people I meet or the properties I see. Invariably the property history is always fascinating and Wandsworth has a rich and diverse story behind its growth from being a ‘meadow’ in the Domesday book to the large London Borough we know today.

Wandsworth takes its name, unsurprisingly,  from the River Wandle, which enters the Thames at Wandsworth. Wandsworth appears in the Domesday book of 1086 as Wandesorde and Wendelesorde. This means 'enclosure of (a man named) Waendel', whose name is also lent to the River Wandle. Over time this would have derived to various incarnations before becoming Wandsworth at some point in the 1600’s.

In the aforementioned Domesday booked Wandesorde was noted down as having assets of 12 hides (a hide was a way of assessing tax and land value), 5 ½ ploughs and 22 acres of meadow.

To put this in context, Wandsworth Common is 183 acres and the Borough as a whole is 8,468 acres. We’ve come a long way in the last 933 years!!

As with nearly all of London, Wandsworth did the majority of this expansion during the industrial revolution. The Wandle and its links to the Thames providing Wandsworth with the tributaries needed to take advantage of the new industrial age.

Around 100 years before this, a seed in the future of Wandsworth was being sown. In 1685 King Louis XIV of France revoked the Edict of Nantes. Previously Louis’s Grandfather Henry IV had given substantial rights in the Nation to the Calvinist Protestants, also known as Huguenots. The redaction of these rights led to a large number of Huguenots leaving France and seeking refuge in other countries, as over 400,000 people had to flee to avoid persecution.

The top of East Hill in Wandsworth is called Huguenot Place; and an inquisitive look around the Garratt Lane Old Burial Ground or Wandsworth Cemetery will reveal that a number of the Huguenots who fled France found a safe haven in Wandsworth. They were skilled in the weaving trade and at that time French fashions were very popular. Many also settled in Spitalfields where they contributed enormously to the silk trade that was starting at that time. But, also in Wandsworth these skills found traction and very quickly Wandsworth became a booming area for the making and trading of cloth and hats.

One other historic legacy of the Huguenots is the Huguenot Burial Ground Mount Nod, which is ironically now next to Mary Magdalen Catholic Church, which is where I got married in 2008. In many ways the Huguenots have come full circle, which is rather poetic.

Undoubtedly these skills prepared Wandsworth well for the arrival of the industrial revolution and formed a sound base for it to become a booming hub for fossil fuels and beer. The staple diet of the industrial age!!

In 1834 the Wandsworth Gasworks were built on the Surrey Bank of the River Thames near Wandsworth Bridge. By the 1850’s it had incorporated and then started to supply Wandsworth Putney and Battersea. This company then became the Wandsworth and Putney Gaslight and Coke Company. In 1912 it merged with the Mitcham and Wimbledon and Epsom and Ewell Gaslight and Coke companies to become Wandsworth, Wimbledon and Epsom District Gas Company.

The vast numbers of workers needed to create and sustain this business would have been housed in and around the Tonsley’s area of Wandsworth Town, and those running the business or middle management would have found housing in larger properties near to Spencer Park, The Toast Rack and over towards Putney.

3 years earlier and probably the most famous Wandsworth company was founded – Youngs!! It all began in 1831 when Charles Young and Anthony Bainbridge bought the Ram Brewery. The first recording of a pub or microbrewery at this site was around 1550, and the first real indication of brewing took place around 1576 and it remained this way until being bought in 1831.

I can still remember the days when shire horses would deliver beer to the local pubs via horse and cart and also the very interesting smell that emanated from the brewery - morning, noon and night! I grew up with Youngs being a huge part of my life, many of my friends parents worked either directly for them or at companies that relied on Youngs for trade. Also, our parents were fond of the odd tipple here and there in the locals that were dotted around.

Now the brewery is gone and replaced by some wonderful flats and a real desire to retain the heritage of what is an incredibly iconic place. Youngs is still synonymous with Wandsworth and now owns over 220 pubs across the UK.

The great war of 1914 to 1918 and World War II also had a huge part to play in shaping the history of Wandsworth and had a profound effect on the housing demographic. According to the website www.bombsight.org during the blitz (7^th October 1940 and the 6^th June 1941) over 738 high explosive bombs were dropped on the borough of Wandsworth, this is one bomb for every 11 acres, or one bomb for every five football pitches.

It is impossible to overstate the effect this had on what we now see as Wandsworth – whole streets simply disappeared and large levels of infrastructure were flattened to the ground. This has largely shaped what we now see as ‘Wandsworth’, from the modern flats alongside the River to Southside shopping centre, these have all risen from the rubble created by these bombs.

The effects can also be seen street by street – at the end of Westover Road or around Brocklebank and Swaffield Road, new homes built where bombs fell is evident across all of the borough and has shaped the way housing has developed over the last fifty years.

As someone who has spent the last 40 years watching this, I find it has added to the diversity and intrigue that has been part of Wandsworth’s very interesting history. It is one of the many reasons why I love this area, it’s rich history and the fascinating way in which it has evolved only adds to my deep rooted admiration for all of the people who have helped shaped this amazing borough.