Tooting Bec

Beechcroft Road

Bushey Down, Joseph Rank, the Yorkshire miller, lived at Bushey Down, on the south side of Tooting Bee Road, opposite the common, now a mental hospital. He was instrumental in the founding of the Central Hall at Tooting Broadway, demolished 1966, to serve the working classes of the area. He is buried at Sutton cemetery, at the northern end of the Sutton bypass (A217).

Tooting Bec Hospitaltransferred from Metropolitan Asylums Board to London County Council. Built as Tooting Bec Asylum, before 1916. Forbidding brick blocks; good iron railings with Art Nouveau touches

48 Bookspread

Crockerton Road

Developed by Alfred Heaver as part of estate

Dalebury Road

Part of Heaver’s Trinity Road estate

Glenburnie Road

Springfield Hospital. Built as the Surrey County Lunatic Asylum in 1840 built by E.Lapidge and W.Moseley. It had 360 beds for each sex.  General Hospital 11 years with 900 patients but 100 more women than men.  In 1879 a new recreation hall was built .  Following the Local Government Act 1888 it went to Middlesex County Council and an annexe for 250 ‘low grade mental defectives’ as built for 80 children and 80 adults.  In the First World War it housed an army neurological unit and by 1939 it had 2,000 patients. It had  145 acres, with  83 acres of farmland and 14 acre garden.  Steam engines supplied by Maudslay in 1840 and they worked until 1949 and are now in the science museum.

Computer Centre in the grounds by Andrews, Sherlock & Partners, 1979.

Garrett Lane

Streatham Cemetery.. portes clocheres, vestigial transepts, rest is very dismal, jumble, unexploded bomb. Stone lodges and two chapels by W. Newton Dunn, Gothic, opened 1893

Tooting Bec

There are two parts of Tooting: Upper Tooting or Tooting Bec; and Lower Tooting or Tooting Graveney. Bell Tota and his people lived there. In the Domesday Book Tooting appears as held by the Abbey of Bec in Normandy; hence the name Tooting Bec. It was part of the manor of Streatham, and so belonged to the Howlands in the c17, to the Dukes of Bedford in the c18. Tooting parish church is at Tooting Graveney, which derives its name from the Graveney family which held the manor from Chertsey Abbey in the c12 and c13. In the c17 it belonged to the Maynards. In 1871 Thorne described this area as 'a region of villas and nursery gardens . . . very pleasant and apart from the common, very commonplace'. It remained quite distinct from Upper Tooting until the later c19, when the open land in between was filled up by houses and hospitals and cemeteries. The main centre of Lower Tooting is now at Tooting Broadway Station, away from the old church, south of Tooting Bee Common is the area called Streatham Park, the site of Streatham Place, the house of the Thrales frequented by Dr Johnson.

Tooting Bec station. 13^th September 1926. Between Balham and Tooting Broadway on the Northern Line.  Built by the City and South London Railway in the house style of the line which was extended from Moorgate following rebuilding and extension to Camden Town and South Wimbledon.  designed by S A. Heaps, who was probably responsible for much of the interior detail, and Charles Holden. A satellite building on the east side of the junction provides a subway access and has a large glazed roundel the panels of its glazed screen  - other stations have only a centre roundel, for a long time it was the only example of the 1920s "UNDERGROUND" lettering. The station was originally called ‘Trinity Road’ and in 1950 it was renamed ‘Tooting Bec’.

Trinity Road

Developed 1871 by Alfred Heaver on Wandsworth Lodge Estate. Red brick ornate railings

172 Arundel Terrace, Plaque to Thomas Hardy who lived here in the early 1880s. It says 'poet and novelist lived here 1878-1881'. Hardy took this house on a three year lease; but didn't enjoy his stay but he wrote, in November 1878, "The Return of the Native".  Hardy wasn't well in the winter of 1880, he was bedridden for many weeks and it wasn't until the following Spring that he was able to walk on Wandsworth Common. Plaque erected 1940.

Holy Trinity At an angle to the road.  The original building 1854-5 by Salville tower 1860 by Ferrey, who also added the transept and widened the aisle in 1889. The aisle, widened in 1893, was divided off as a church hall in 1976. 

Fire Station1907. One of the L.C.C. Fire Brigade Departments free, asymmetrical stone and brick compositions

Fine police station 1890

Upper Tooting Road

68-72  King's Head a proper drinking place bar divisions are important

Woodlands Doulton