Foulwell and Kingston-Upon-Railway

The suburbs are weird, aren’t they? I mean, by their very nature. Central London has long been a well-defined place. City walls, city gates, parish boundaries, main roads and the river have meant that for centuries the different places in London have been pretty clearly delineated. Granted, there’s the occasional dispute about, e.g., where the West End ends, and there are new places like Fitzrovia and Chinatown to contend with, but by and large you know where you are.

The suburbs, though, are different. You can’t really have suburbs until you have decent transport, so the area we now tend to think of as “suburbia” didn’t really exist until the 19th century. And I know I go on about the railways in London quite a lot, but the fact is that they were absolutely instrumental to the formation of Greater London.

For instance, take where I live – Colliers Wood. Where is Colliers Wood? It’s at the southern end of the Northern Line (incidentally, it’s a geographical irony that the Northern Line goes further south than any other Tube line). When was it founded? Well, basically, Colliers Wood-the-place didn’t exist until 1926, when the Tube station was opened. The area wasn’t exactly desolate and uninhabited, but this place as a whole was known as Merton. Colliers Wood was a local landmark that hadn’t existed for about fifty years when the Tube came along. Had the Underground station been named something different, I might well consider myself a resident of Merton Abbey, or Haydons Road, or Tooting-on-Tube.

The last may seem like a flight of fancy, but know this – there nearly was a suburb with an equally stupid name. When the London and Southampton Railway opened their station a little way south of the busy market town of Kingston, they planned to call it Kingston-upon-Railway. Because it sort-of served Kingston, but not quite. Good sense eventually prevailed, and it was renamed in 1869. The original Surbiton was a small village, also not-quite-served by the new station. However, the station and its railway line were very convenient for commuters, and so a town grew up around the station. The station was called Surbiton, so, inevitably, was the town around it. What if the station had been called something else? Would we even have a Surbiton today? Would we think of Kingston-upon-Railway as the main town, and Kingston-upon-Thames be relegated to the status of “Old Kingston” or some such?

I suspect a few of the suburbs, such as Hampton Wick, wouldn’t really be anything more than a theoretical concept were it not for their railway stations. Hampton Wick has little by way of a focal point other than its station. Certain other suburbs, lacking notability, were absorbed by others as the commuter towns expanded – Lonesome being a case in point, once a village in its own right and now just a part of Streatham.

And this brings me on to the strange case of Fulwell. Fulwell is one of those places that always feels as if it’s on the verge of vanishing, as I had cause to reflect when I went there for a party on Saturday. It’s quite old, its name may have derived from “foul well” (so good work on getting that renamed, I suppose). It doesn’t really have a high street to speak of – a few shops, but nothing to distinguish it from the outlying parts of Twickenham or Teddington, on whose borders it lies. Its major landmark is the bus garage, pictured above right, but that’s more of an obstacle than a focal point. There is a railway station, sure, but it’s an unmanned two-platform branch line affair in a back street. I’m not clear exactly where it begins and ends. I reckon that, were the station to be renamed, the town would cease to exist altogether, torn between Teddington and Twickenham. It’s usually at this point that a bunch of angry residents of the area post a huge rant in the comments section about how I’m wrong and stupid, so scroll down to skip straight to that.

Yet right next to Fulwell, but a short walk from the station, you have Hampton Hill – nothing but a high street really, yet nobody would dispute the validity of its existence. Damned if I understand the suburbs.

Gone for a Merton, Part II

In yesterday’s entry I talked about Merton Abbey Mills, and briefly brushed against the subject of the Abbey itself. Today, Seb drew my attention to the following:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-10912858

I didn't have a decent photo of the ruins of the Chapter House, so here's a better picture of the Colourhouse - which may well have once been part of the Abbey.

This is a BBC report on the hidden ruins of the old Priory. The custodians of the site are hoping to get it World Heritage status. I support this, firstly for the obvious reason that I live near it, but secondly because it’s one of those secret, unknown parts of the city that really deserves to be better known.

Henry III. Now there was a man who understood facial hair, even if his crown did come from a Christmas cracker.

As the chap says in the video linked to above, Merton Abbey is hugely significant in English history. In its heyday, it was on a par with Westminster Abbey in terms of importance. It was founded under Henry I, Henry III held court there and mad Henry VI was crowned there. Thomas Becket (not A Becket, that’s a scribe’s error) was educated here. In 1235 the Statute of Merton was drawn up. This, the follow-up to the better-known Magna Carta, formed the basis of modern English law. Helpfully, it also defined a bastard. That guy who drives through a massive puddle, spraying you with mud while you’re waiting for a bus even though he could easily steer around it? Not a bastard, at least in law.

There are plenty of other places vying for World Heritage status. A lot of industry is represented – the Great Western Railway and other railway pioneer places are hoping to win the status, as are Chatham Docks, the Welsh slate industry and the Forth Bridge. A couple of cities are hopeful – Lincoln and York. Blackpool is also in there, though it’s hardly a city. The almost unspeakably beautiful Flow Country in Scotland and Lake District in England are on the list. More recent hopefuls include Jodrell Bank and RAF Upper Heyford. All have a claim, but in the end, there can be only one.

So what does World Heritage Status mean? Well, basically, that it becomes the responsibility of the world to preserve it. In a nutshell. There may be money. And you probably get a nice plaque or something.

London can boast several sites. Kew Gardens, Maritime Greenwich, the Palace of Westminster, the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Westminster School and St Margarets Church all have World Heritage Status. Will Merton Abbey be joining them? Well, here’s hoping.

Further Reading

http://www.culture.gov.uk/news/news_stories/7221.aspx - The “Tentative List,” as it is known, of British sites nominated this year.

Gone for a Merton

I’ve lamented the decline of some of London’s best-known markets in these pages before, so I’d like to use today’s entry to talk about an utterly enchanting example of one of the lesser known markets.

In fact, this one is very near to me – about 15 minutes walk via the scenic route – so it’s a mystery why I haven’t talked about it before now. Merton Abbey Mills describes itself as London’s Alternative Market. It’s located out in the suburbs, more-or-less equidistant between Colliers Wood and South Wimbledon Stations on the Northern Line, near Phipps Bridge on the Tramlink and a short bus ride from Wimbledon Main Line and District Line stations. And if you’re particularly energetic, you can peg it from Haydons Road. To get there from the main road (and Colliers Wood bus garage), I would recommend taking a walk along the river from in front of the massive Sainsbury’s superstore. This is perhaps the most unexpected aspect of it – much of the area is covered by superstores, car parks, hotels and similarly overwhelming structures. So this little 19th century survivor is somewhat incongruous.

The market is near to the site of  the medieval Merton Abbey – indeed, the Colourhouse Theatre, on site, may have been an ancillary building to the old Priory. If so, it would be one of the few remnants of the Abbey surviving to the present day (although there are some fragments walls, and the ruins of the Chapter House are preserved in a secret little chamber under the road).

This part of what-would-eventually-become South London lapsed into boringness following the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII. However, from the 17th century onwards, the river came into demand for the purposes of industry. See, the thing about the Wandle is that it’s rubbish for navigation. It’s shallow and fast-flowing, so can’t be used for carrying goods. However, it’s perfect for driving waterwheels. The chalky water also makes it ideal for the purpose of textile manufacture. Merton Abbey Mills was founded in the 18th century as a silk works, one of dozens of mills along the river and the only working survivor.

1890 painting of the Mills by L L Pocock. Thanks, Wikipedia!

The charming complex was taken over by William Morris, he of Arts and Crafts fame, in 1881. In accordance with his rather sentimental philosophy (I like Arts and Crafts just fine, but you have to admit it has a somewhat 19th-century middle-class sentimentality about it), he retained the old buildings, adapting and adding to them. Carpets, stained glass, tapestries and fabrics were all produced here. The site was taken over by Liberty’s in 1940 and abandoned in 1972, following which it fell into a state of shocking dereliction.

In 1989, fortunately, it was figured that something ought to be done about this horrible eyesore, and so following the example of Camden Lock (to the extent of using the same consultants, I believe) it was decided to turn the place into a craft market.

Today the market boasts of half a million visitors per year. As well as the market, there’s the aforementioned Colourhouse Theatre and the William Morris pub on site. The wheelhouse, as you can see in the photo at the top of this entry, has been restored and the wheel now provides power to a pottery. There is a small display on the history of the area inside.

The shops and stalls are a fairly eclectic mix. The market deliberately encourages independent artistic types, offering free stalls (I know, right?) and being, I understand, fairly strict about what is considered unsuitable for sale. There’s a second-hand bookshop and a small but varied vintage clothing shop next door to each other, so that keeps me happy for a while, and they’re across the way from some marvellous small restaurants. Izzi and I have sampled the waffles and the Caribbean cuisine, and found them good. The waffles in particular induced a sense of guilt within me, but this was overruled by my tastebuds. God, I miss those pre-diet days.

Other stalls and shops sell paintings, dolls’ house furniture, farm goods, ceramics, clothing, rocks and gems, fancy dress and some really top-notch coffee beans. The market as a whole has an artsy-but-independent feel about it that is, as far as I’m aware, unique in London.  It’s not as trendy as Camden and not as touristy as Portobello, but neither of these are a bad thing. There’s a much more relaxed feel about it than you get at any of the bigger markets, and is one of the finest ways I know to spend a summer afternoon.

The whole thing can be done in about an hour. If you wish to make more of your visit to the area, a pleasant walk along the riverside will bring you to Deen City Farm and Morden Hall Park.

All in all, Merton Abbey Mills is highly  recommended for those with a love of arts and crafts, those who seek a rural escape in the heart of suburbia and those who keep a London blog and can’t think of a subject for their Sunday entry.

Going down to Lonesome Town

I stayed in on Saturday through a need to save money, due to my landlord’s entirely unreasonable demand that I pay a certain amount of money each month in order to live in his property. Every month!

While sitting around, being bored, I heard the song Lonesome Town by Ricky Nelson (actually I heard a cover by the yummy Zooey Deschanel, but you know). And this prompted me to research something that’s been bugging me for literally years. See, I live in Colliers Wood, in South West London (not North, as many people seem to think), and have done since 2006. When I first moved there, as I like to do when moving to a new area, I had a long walk to get to know the place. I did find myself getting horrendously lost somewhere around Mitcham/Streatham, which is an awful place to get lost. Having lived north of the river, I’d heard some terrifying stories about South London. They say the people of Streatham have no Tube lines at all!

What really creeped me out, though, apart from the presence of what appeared to be an abandoned and boarded-up school, was the discovery that the place I had wandered into was called “Lonesome”. I mean, nowhere is called Lonesome outside of Gothic horror movies. I decided to basically just keep going along the road and not ask for directions at any dilapidated petrol stations, isolated farms, castles etc.

Not Lonesome, but you get the idea.

I rather put it from my mind (repressed memories?) until a few hours ago, and I thought I’d look into just what the deal was with this scary-named place.

Well, turns out it genuinely is a spooky nineteenth century village, very possibly cursed. This area was, for a long time, a pretty vile place. It was wild and more than a little damp, haunted by highwaymen, cutpurses and probably werewolves. The Merton Historical Society notes that the area had remained largely unchanged until the middle of the nineteenth century, with the medieval fields still in place.

The only structure in the area was Lonesome House, about which I’ve been able to find no information other than the fact that it’s not there any more. From the mid nineteenth century onwards, there was some industry – a chemical works, a fireworks factory owned by a gentleman named Pain, a farm owned by one Mizzen and some lavender fields. And some gypsies.

 Then someone had the bright idea of constructing a residential village there. Out in what was still rural countryside, next to the Pain factory, in a district called Lonesome. This was the result:

As you can see, it’s basically what you’d get if the Blair Witch decided to go into town planning. None of the sources of information I’ve been able to find mention if these abandoned houses were haunted by hatchet-wielding serial killers, but I think in the absence of any evidence to the contrary I’m going to assume they were. Better safe than sorry.

Since then, it’s been absorbed into Streatham and largely forgotten by the outside world, mostly commemorated in a few street names and the name of the local primary school. Most of the pages Google comes up with relating to Lonesome belong to estate agents, who have a peculiar affinity for cursed ground. They probably describe it as “an exorcist’s dream!” It doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page.

And now the name. I’ve consulted several books and a handful of websites, and nobody seems to know whence it originates. We know the name dates back a long way, pre-dating accurate records. All anyone can suggest is that the area got its name by being, yes, lonesome…