July 2021 marked the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Wandsworth Common Act, which transferred authority over the Common from Lord of the Manor Earl Spencer, to a group of conservators.
The hero of the day was John Buckmaster who campaigned over many years, leading marches across the Common with the rallying cry of ‘down with the fences’.
The protests reflected wider unease, with other nearby Commons also under threat, giving birth to the Open Spaces Society in 1865.
The matter was eventually settled by parliament in the Wandsworth Common Act of July 1871. This saved the Common from further enclosure and sub-division, as had allowed unrestricted gravel digging, refuse dumping, the railway cuttings and large scale building, preserving its shape pretty much as it is today and ushering in 150 years of improvements.
Earl Spencer ceded his rights as Lord of the Manor in exchange for £200 per annum and the area now called Spencer Park, where he had a house. Almost immediately he filled in a large lake - the Black Sea - in front of the house, just north of where the windmill now stands.
Celebrating the 150th Anniversary
The Friends’ Heritage group, created by popular demand in January 2019, thought hard about how to mark this significant event in our local history. We couldn’t be too ambitious regarding events, as Covid held sway throughout the year. We therefore focussed on a few landmark but deliverable projects which were appropriate and doable.
For a start we decided we had to commemorate John Buckmaster, ‘the man who saved Wandsworth Common’
The Battersea Society kindly agreed to oversee the placing of a blue plaque at the entrance to Clapham Junction station, near his former house.
We also unveiled a green Wandsworth Council plaque commemorating Buckmaster and all those who have helped make the Common what it is today. The ceremony was presided over by the Mayor of Wandsworth, and both plaque unveilings were attended by Viscount Buckmaster, a descendant of JCB.
The green plaque on the wall of Neal’s Lodge, the white building at the centre of the Common, overlooks a former ‘municipal bed’ next to the playground, which has been rewilded, with the help of Enable, to form a more natural wildflower garden, including a new Friends noticeboard and a flagpole where our recently awarded Green Flags now fly.
In May 2021 we published an amazing book, The Wandsworth Common Story. This brings together a wealth of information from various sources including local archives, research by our editorial team and a veritable treasure trove of information gathered by local historian Philip Boys. There’s no shortage of material, including fossils, prefabs, the famous Craig telescope, suffragettes, a famous Romany beauty, and of course the key protagonists Earl Spencer and John Buckmaster. It will be essential reading for all those wanting to put the present day Common in historical context.
Until 1921, sheep were regularly grazed on the Common. There’s a story about ‘The last shepherd on Wandsworth Common’.
The book has an introductory chapter to set the scene, culminating in the fight to save Wandsworth Common. 150 smaller articles are then arranged under five themes - Nature, Buildings, Society, Culture and Politics. It has a central section of maps showing how the Common has changed over time
The book has already become essential reading for all those wanting to put the present day Common in its historical context and has received rave reviews. The first print of 1,500 copies has sold out and a reprint of 500 was ordered in 2022. The book can be purchased for £12.50 on our website, at the Skylark Café and at Neal’s Nurseries.
The Rocque map of 1746 - the first to show an area called Wandsworth Common
Tree Planting
We wanted the 150th anniversary to have a lasting legacy. What could be more fitting therefore, especially given the environmental challenges we face, than to plant trees.
The trees, pictured in 1925, were planted in the 1890s and today are amongst the oldest on the Common. Many trees planted in the 1880s and 1890s are now approaching the end of their active life and are entering a period of managed decline. We must think ahead if we are to match the foresight of our predecessors and provide future generations with a rich and flourishing inheritance.
Starting in December 2020 we planted 50 saplings - each about seven years old - in most parts of the Common. We also planted 100 sqm of ‘mini-forest’ - trees, shrubs and plants - to connect existing areas of woodland on the Bolingbroke side of the Common and foster biodiversity, including rare butterfly species. More details of the project here.
Trees are expensive. A typical native, semi-mature tree - cherry, hawthorn, hornbeam, maple - costs £150 to buy and plant, while an oak costs £200. The mini-forest will contain disease resistant elms - which at £250 are more expensive still - but also younger, faster growing trees - blackthorn and buckthorn - and a variety of plants and flowers. The cost of planting a sqm of mini-forest is £50 while a single young ‘whip’ costs £5.
Our donors were exceedingly generous, contributing over £12,000. Enable was also very generous with its time and resources. We have been able to plant a further 30 trees in 2022 and the appeal remains open so that we can plant more trees in future years.
PLEASE GIVE GENEROUSLY USING ONE OF THE BUTTONS
All donations will go towards the project as a whole and will be recognised in an appropriate manner
A Party Postponed
We like our parties, and we all deserved one by July 2021. Sadly, our plan for a big celebratory event was not to be.
Buckmaster day
However, the idea of a celebratory day lives on and we are exploring ways in which ‘Buckmaster Day’ can become a permanent feature in July in the future.
Please get in touch with your ideas
Walks & Talks
We resumed small group walks as the year progressed, many with a 150th Anniversary theme.
We continued our programme of walks focussing on flora and fauna, biodiversity, butterflies and heritage trees. But there were also several new heritage walks, led by people who’d been researching the Common’s history for the book. The Wandsworth Heritage Festival at the beginning of June was a particular focus.
Many of these walks will be repeated and new ones are being added all the time. Our Heritage group has scheduled an event every month for 2022. Become a Friend to receive our newsletter and keep in touch with what’s going on.
So you can see we managed to achieve a lot, despite the constraints, even though we scaled back our ambitions quite a bit. All this thanks to our volunteers. We hope John Buckmaster would have been proud.
We hope our Anniversary activities have whetted your appetite, given you some ideas, and hopefully inspired you to get involved in future events that celebrate our Common, which we've all come to appreciate even more in recent times.
Our next big project will be an Oral History Project to capture the memories of those who’ve lived by the Common for several decades. Do please get in touch if you feel you can help in any way with any of our projects.