Putney Vale

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Putney Vale
Putney Vale Estate. London, SW15.jpg
Stroud Crescent, Putney Vale Estate. 2021
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Putney Vale
Location within Greater London
London borough
Ceremonial county Greater London
Region
Country England
Sovereign state United Kingdom
Post town LONDON
Postcode district SW15
Dialling code 020
Police Metropolitan
Fire London
Ambulance London
UK Parliament
London Assembly
List of places
UK
England
London
51°26′24″N0°14′31″W / 51.440°N 0.242°W / 51.440; -0.242
The Portsmouth Road, showing the Bald Faced Stag Inn, 1888 Bald Faced Stag Inn, Putney Vale 1888 print.jpg
The Portsmouth Road, showing the Bald Faced Stag Inn, 1888
KLG factory at Putney Vale. Demolished 1989. Now an ASDA superstore. KLG factory, Putney Vale.jpg
KLG factory at Putney Vale. Demolished 1989. Now an ASDA superstore.

Putney Vale is a small community in south west London. It lies between Richmond Park and Wimbledon Common, to the east of Beverley Brook and Kingston Vale. Its main features are a housing estate, a superstore and a large cemetery. The A3 dual carriageway runs through it.

Contents

Description

Political geography

Putney Vale is part of the London Borough of Wandsworth and is currently within Roehampton ward and Putney Parliamentary constituency. [1] In the Church of England, it has been a part of Roehampton parish since its separation from Putney parish in 1845. [2]

Housing

Most of the housing is provided by an estate built in the mid-1950s, on land originally earmarked for a possible cemetery extension. [3] It consists of local authority-built (mainly duplex, four-storey) maisonettes and short terraces. Many homes are now privately owned, with the balance owned and let by the Borough. The estate's curved access road, Stag Lane, has a row of shops.

There is further privately owned housing beside the A3, and on Friars Avenue – built in 1983 – adjacent to playing fields and Wimbledon Common.

Amenities

The non-denominational Putney Vale Cemetery and Crematorium, in which a number of well-known people are buried, is north and east of the housing estate. Covering 47 acres, it was established in 1891 and the crematorium in 1938. [4]

Beaver's Holt Primary School on the estate was closed in 1992 due to falling roll numbers. It was then sold to the private Hall School Wimbledon to house its junior branch. [5] In 2019 the site was sold to Thomas's London Day Schools to provide further teaching space for all four of its preparatory schools. [6]

Kingston University's Roehampton Vale campus is situated beside the A3. It has facilities for students on engineering courses. [7]

Shortly before the First World War, 175 acres were added to Wimbledon Common, including much of Newlands Farm, which had been here since the Middle Ages. The extension also created extensive playing fields at Putney Vale named the Richardson Evans Memorial Playing Fields in honour of the scheme's sponsor, Richardson Evans. [3] The fields host Saturday/Sunday league football teams, as well as number of annual schools' rugby and women's football tournaments. It is the home ground of London Cornish RFC. [8]

Allotment fruit and vegetable gardens, let by the Borough, are to the south-west of the housing estate. [9]

An Asda superstore is situated beside the A3.

History

The lower part of Putney Vale, nearer Beverley Brook, was known as Putney Bottom [10] [11] until the mid-nineteenth century. [12]

There are four Wimbledon Common rangers' cottages on Stag Lane and Friars Avenue. On the north east side of the playing fields, Stag Lane becomes a track called Kings Ride. The origin of the Kings Ride name is believed to date from when Henry VIII, while chasing deer from Richmond Park would pursue them onto the common before the wall to the park was built.[ citation needed ]

The first significant building in Putney Vale was the Halfway House, later the Bald Faced Stag, an Inn established about 1650 on the corner of Stags lane and the Portsmouth Road (now the A3). [3] In the eighteenth century the road here was a well-known spot for robbers. The inn was reputedly a haunt of the highwayman Jerry Abershawe until his execution in 1795, [11] after which his body was displayed in a gibbet at Putney Vale. [10]

In 1912 Kenelm Lee Guinness, a member of the brewing dynasty and a motor racer, acquired the by-then disused Bald Faced Stag inn, where he developed a more efficient sparking plug for use in car and aircraft engines. Small-scale production began at the former inn, and by 1914 Guinness was producing 4,000 plugs a week. The First World War led to an increase in demand, and in 1916 the company was incorporated as KLG. In 1917 larger premises, known as the Robin Hood Engineering Works, were opened to the east of the old premises. This employed over 1,200 mainly women workers, [13] making the factory the largest employer in the area. [3] By 1918, the bulk of the factory's output was reserved for the Royal Air Force. [14]

In 1919 Guinness sold the firm's distribution rights to S. Smith & Sons . In the inter-war years KLG sparking plugs made at Putney Vale were used in the majority of British cars. This included Henry Segrave's Golden Arrow and Malcolm Campbell's Blue Bird series, which set world land speed records. [13] In 1927 Smith & Sons bought KLG and in the 1930s built a new spark plug factory, in an Art Deco style, on the Putney Vale site. The factory was demolished in 1989 and replaced by an Asda superstore. [3] Asda donated the old factory gates, bearing the KLG logo, to the Brooklands Motor Museum. [15]

Surroundings

Beyond relatively large green buffers – playing fields, a golf course, Richmond Park, Wimbledon Common and Putney Heath – and beyond adjoining Roehampton Vale, are:

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Putney</span> District of London

Putney is an affluent district in southwest London, England, in the London Borough of Wandsworth, five miles southwest of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roehampton</span> District in south-west London, England

Roehampton is an area in southwest London, in the Putney SW15 postal district, and takes up a far western strip, running north to south, in the London Borough of Wandsworth. It contains a number of large council house estates and is home to the University of Roehampton.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">London Borough of Wandsworth</span> London borough in United Kingdom

Wandsworth is a London borough in South West London, England. It forms part of Inner London and has an estimated population of 329,677 inhabitants. Its main communities are Battersea, Balham, Putney, Tooting and Wandsworth Town.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">A3 road</span> London to Portsmouth road in England

The A3, known as the Portsmouth Road or London Road in sections, is a major road connecting the City of London and Portsmouth passing close to Kingston upon Thames, Guildford, Haslemere and Petersfield. For much of its 67-mile (108 km) length, it is classified as a trunk road and therefore managed by National Highways. Almost all of the road has been built to dual carriageway standards or wider. Apart from bypass sections in London, the road travels in a southwest direction and, after Liss, south-southwest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wimbledon Common</span> Large open space in Wimbledon, southwest London, England

Wimbledon Common is a large open space in Wimbledon, southwest London. There are three named areas: Wimbledon Common, Putney Heath, and Putney Lower Common, which together are managed under the name Wimbledon and Putney Commons totalling 460 hectares. Putney Lower Common is set apart from the rest of the Common by a minimum of 1 mile of the built-up western end of Putney.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Southfields</span> Human settlement in England

Southfields is a district of inner London located within the London Borough of Wandsworth, England, 5.6 miles (9 km) south-west of Charing Cross. Southfields is mainly residential, historically a part of Wandsworth itself, and is divided between the SW18 and SW19 postcode areas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kingston Vale</span> District in Kingston upon Thames, London

Kingston Vale with Kingston Hill is a district in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames in south-west London. It is a residential area between Richmond Park, the much smaller Putney Vale, Wimbledon Common, Coombe/Coombe Hill and the Norbiton part of the very old borough. The main road is the A308 which is a through route for traffic passing to and from Kingston Hill to the A3 trunk road. Many of the branch roads are cul-de-sacs. It includes, toward the east and in the Vale, the only part of Kingston which drains eastward, that is, into Beverley Brook. The hill expanse, shared with Coombe and a golf course, has a hotel, some tall blocks overlooking Kingston, the edge of Kingston Hospital, the main campus of Kingston University London and faint remnants of dense woodland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coombe, Kingston upon Thames</span> Neighbourhood in London, England

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beverley Brook</span> River in London, England

Beverley Brook is a 14.3 km (8.9 mi)-long river in the south-western suburbs of London, England. It rises in Worcester Park and joins the River Thames to the north of the Putney Embankment at Barn Elms, having flowed through the green spaces of Wimbledon Common, Richmond Park, Barnes Common and Putney Lower Common on its course. It is followed for much of its course by the Beverley Brook Walk.

Putney Lower Common is an open parkland space in the London Borough of Wandsworth between the town centres of Putney and Barnes. It is part of Wimbledon and Putney Commons, lying 1.5 miles from the rest of the common area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Putney (UK Parliament constituency)</span> Parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom, 1918 onwards

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Parks and open spaces in the London Borough of Wandsworth</span>

The inner London borough of Wandsworth contains some 670 hectares of green space in the form of parks, commons, allotments and cemeteries, which is the largest amount for an Inner London borough. Central London borders some of the borough's boundary with the Thames the closest park to which is Battersea Park.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kenelm Lee Guinness</span> Irish racing driver

Kenelm Edward Lee Guinness MBE was an Irish racing driver of the 1910s and 1920s mostly associated with Sunbeam racing cars. He set a new Land Speed Record in 1922. Also an automotive engineer, he invented and manufactured the KLG spark plug. Additionally, aside from motorsport and mechanical interests, he was a director of the Guinness brewing company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Putney Vale Cemetery</span> Cemetery in London, England

Putney Vale Cemetery and Crematorium in southwest London is located in Putney Vale, surrounded by Putney Heath and Wimbledon Common and Richmond Park. It is located within 47 acres (19 ha) of parkland. The cemetery was opened in 1891 and the crematorium in 1938. The cemetery was originally laid out on land which had belonged to Newlands Farm, which was established in the medieval period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Green Man, Putney</span>

The Green Man is a public house in Putney in the London Borough of Wandsworth, on the edge of Putney Heath, parts of which date back to around 1700. The pub was once frequented by highwaymen and was a popular place for participants to fortify themselves before or after a duel on nearby Putney Heath.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Putney Park Lane</span> Unmade road and public park in London, United Kingdom

Putney Park Lane is an unmade road and public urban park in the London Borough of Wandsworth between Putney and Roehampton town centres.

Putney Hospital was a public hospital in the London Borough of Wandsworth, west of Putney town centre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beverley Brook Walk</span> Footpath in London, England

The Beverley Brook Walk is a walking route in the south-western suburbs of London, England. It is 11.5 km (7.1 mi) long, of which the last 10.5 kilometres (6.5 mi) follows the lower reaches of the Beverley Brook, a tributary of the River Thames. It starts at New Malden railway station and ends to the north of the Putney Embankment at Barn Elms, having passed through the green spaces of Wimbledon Common, Richmond Park, Barnes Common and Putney Lower Common on its route.

References

  1. ↑ Garton Ash, Timothy (8 December 2019). "On the streets of a marginal seat, I've seen how remain disunity could seal Brexit". The Guardian . Retrieved 5 July 2021.
  2. ↑ Malden, H.E., ed. (1912). "A History of the County of Surrey: Volume 4. Parishes: Putney". London: Chapman & Hall. (Republished online: Institute of Historical Research). pp. 78–83. (Accessed 5 July 2021)
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "Putney Vale, Wandsworth". hidden-london.com. 2021. Archived 2 March 2021 at the Wayback Machine (Access date 4 July 2021)
  4. ↑ Wandsworth Borough Council website Archived 8 November 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ↑ Boggan, Steve (7 September 1992). "Wandsworth school 'deal' angers residents". The Independent . Retrieved 5 July 2021.
  6. ↑ "Thomas's Schools: History, 2019". 2021. Archived 3 March 2021 at the Wayback Machine (Access date 14 July 2021)
  7. ↑ "Roehampton Vale campus". kingston.ac.uk/. 2021. Archived 17 April 2021 at the Wayback Machine (Access date 5 July 2021)
  8. ↑ "Richardson Evans Memorial Playing Fields". Wimbledon & Putney Commons. 2016. Archived 28 June 2021 at the Wayback Machine (Access date 5 July 2021)
  9. ↑ "Putney Vale Allotments". Wandsworth.gov.uk. 2021. (Access date 5 July 2021)
  10. 1 2 Harper, Charles G (1895). "The Portsmouth Road and its Tributaries: To-day and in days of old". London: Chapman & Hall. p. 69. (Accessed 5 July 2021)
  11. 1 2 Mitton, Geraldine Edith; Geikie, John Cunningham (1903). "The Fascination of London: Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney". London: A & C Black. pp. 84, 89. (Accessed 5 July 2021)
  12. ↑ Early references to Putney Vale include property notices on front page of Morning Herald: 24 Nov 1849, 14 June 1850.
  13. 1 2 Donnelly, Tom (2013). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: Guinness, Kenelm Edward Lee. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0198614111.
  14. ↑ The Sphere . 'In the petrol world.' 25 January 1919, page 26.
  15. ↑ Staines & Ashford News. 'Museum gets KLG gates.' 16 February 1989, page 8.
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