With Love to All
On my many strolls down Blackshaw Road over the last twenty years, the postbox near the Wimbledon Road roundabout, opposite the Summerstown Mission has been a constant landmark. It now has new and...
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Stories
Exploring the lives and heritage of Summerstown, from the trenches of the Great War to the vibrant streets of today.
George’s Door
Having noted that he was a bottlewasher in the 1911 census, I’ve always felt a bit of an affinity with George Boast. The London Census 1891 Transcription Blog of Victorian occupations defines a...
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Joseph, Albert and John
There are two really outstanding photos that we’ve come across in this project. Once tucked away in private family collections, they can now be viewed by all, allowing us a very privileged insight...
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War of the Roses
The extraordinary Summerstown road which bends its away around the Wimbledon Stadium complex never fails to throw up a good story. This is the wild frontier between the boroughs of Wandsworth and...
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Bois Quarante
Alston Road really makes for a most delightful stroll if you are coming from Summerstown and heading in a Tooting direction. Particularly in summertime when the legacy of its horticultural past...
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King of the Track
Alight from any of the buses heading down Garratt Lane from Wandsworth and Earlsfield to Tooting, and just past the Tesco roundabout is the stop they call ‘Summerstown’. A century and a half ago this...
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Charlie Corben’s Spurs
Its not unusual for First World War soldiers to have served under a name that wasn’t their own. One who I researched extensively a few years ago was a shipyard worker from Sunderland called Robert...
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All Together Now
When I was in India a few years ago I had a bizarre idea that if I went along to the Royal Bombay Yacht Club I might find some reference to my Great Uncle, Alan Lendrum having passed through. Turned...
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Crowded House
Twenty one is supposed to be the age when life begins, the threshold of adulthood, a proper grown-up, the key of the door and all that. Charles Jeffries from Thurso Street never quite made it. He...
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The Flower Girl
A couple of years ago when it emerged that the family of a soldier called Percy Randall lived at 65 Franche Court Road, I went past the house on my bike and took a photo. It was mid-June and I was...
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The Visitors Book
On our last visit to France in October we identified a couple of Summerstown182 cemeteries not too far from Dunkerque that we should be able to visit on our way over to Lens. Both proved a lot more...
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Black Monday
Charles Robinson lived at 12 Bendon Valley and there has been more doubt and speculation about him than any of the other 179 names on the St Mary’s Church war memorial that we have so far identified....
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