There is a network of streets on Planet Tooting that produce the occasional flourish of most unusual planting, some of which would not be out of place on a tropical island or in a rain-forest. There are also vibrant bursts of scarlet and pink camelias, roses and ceanothus. A green-fingered Imam is renowned for his exquisite sunflowers. A much-loved green space used as a sports field has the richest, most chocolate-cake like soil. Its borders, a forager’s dream of grapes, figs and the plumpest blackberries in the Wandle Valley. In the neighbouring Cemetery, once part of the nursery but now separated, two lime trees have fused together forming an arch, nature as ever showing the way forward. All of these wonders become all the more apparent when you know that for almost a century, this was the site of the highly acclaimed Tooting Nursery and the domain of gardening genius William Rollisson and his sons.
I refer to it as the ‘Lost Nursery of Blooming Tooting’ simply because there is so little known about it. We would like that to change, which is why we want to put up a historic plaque in Moffat Road later this year. The site is bang-on where the glasshouses used to be. They really deserve it because in reality the name ‘Rollisson’ is widely known in gardening circles and a quick google will give you an idea of how far back they go and how significant they were. Digging for them online offers up the never-ending promise of revealing something exciting and exotic; reports of an orchid from Java first revealed at the Rollisson nursery in 1842 or an exquisite illustration in a gardening magazine of some wildly coloured, extravagantly-named specimen sent to Tooting from Madagascar or Nepal. Its almost as exciting as the adventures of the plant-hunters themselves, many of whom set off on their travels around the world on the instruction of the Tooting Nursery.
This is the Wandle Valley and at this point its rich alluvial soils, hydrated by a network of springs and watercourses give the area its name ‘Springfield’ and made it perfectly appointed to grow the most wonderful things. The name is most commonly associated with the hospital which has stood on the high ground overlooking all this since 1840. That is still going strong but is also now the site of a major development and the creation of London’s first public park since the 2012 Olympics. For many years the hospital was supported by its own farm and the growing tradition endures through the wonderful Share Nursery. All of this happens in the middle of a very densely-populated area, a network of green spaces which all have a horticultural heritage. Streatham Cemetery and Fishponds Field were once part of the Rollissons’ Nursery. Aboyne estate was part of Springfield Farm. Welcome to ‘The Green Fields of Blooming Tooting’.
At the very heart of all this and prominent on any of the old maps circulating from the 1860s/1870s is the Tooting Nursery, occasionally referred to as Springfield Nursery. On the one above the glasshouses are indicated by the cross-hatched boxes, most in the area of what are now Moffat and Hereward Roads. The Nursery was sandwiched between the grounds of two manor houses and nestled alongside an odd collection of mis-shaped water features whose legacy lives on through the naming of Fishponds Road. It was owned and managed for the entire period of its existence by the Rollisson family. These ‘ponds’ provide endless fascination, they were still all in place in the last years of the twentieth century, but by 1916, Gatton Road had been built over the most southerly channel. Living in one of these manor houses, Park Hill, was a wealthy philanthropist, Eliza Bell, known as ‘Lady Bountiful’. Her death in 1914, paved the way for major housebuilding in the 1920s. The main fish pond would be filled in and preserved as a playing field. St Augustine’s Church on Broadwater Road was built in 1929.
The best description of the Nursery recalls a period around 1860 when it probably had its biggest footprint. Thanks to Andrew Pettigrew’s evocative account in The Gardeners’ Magazine and a map from about a decade later, we can pinpoint the location of some of its key features and most certainly the main hub of the business which would have been entered from Upper Tooting Road. This was very close to the ‘dwelling houses’ of both George and William Rollisson who not only grew up here themselves but would raise their own families, among the flowers and ferns. I’m hoping some of their descendants might read this one day and get in touch!
Its quite hard to pinpoint when the Nursery was established. An illustrated handbill from 1875 suggests the firm had been trading for a century. William Rollisson Senior was born in 1765 so unless he was a child prodigy that is unlikely. From a well-established family, originally from Whitkirk near Leeds, he came to London as a young man and married Jane Evans in Lambeth in 1795. The land on which the nursery was established had been purchased in an auction by Thomas Rollisson, William’s father in 1767. Some of this extended to the other side of what is now Upper Tooting Road and was run as a nursery by Alexander Hay who supplied roses to the Duke of Bedford. Rollisson sold some of his land to Samuel Rush in 1785 and this was leased back to Rollisson for use as a nursery. This appears to be the point where William stepped forward to run it. All five of their children were born in Tooting. Sons William and George would eventually take over the business. They had three younger sisters; Ann, Grace and Harriet. Accounts of William’s experimental propagation and cross-pollination with cape heathers suggest the work was begun in Tooting in the last decade of the eighteenth century.
The late eighteenth century saw a craze for collecting and cultivating species of Erica – ‘Cape heaths’ from southern Africa. It was similar to the previous century’s tulipmania and orchidmania still to come. With the cost of employing collectors becoming prohibitive, skilled and innovative nurserymen like William Rollisson embarked on a process of ‘cross-pollination’, creating their own hybrid versions. Experts agree that the main man in this field was William Rollisson. Intruigingly he didn’t tell anyone about what he was doing so his work remained unknown. He was most certainly doing this for commercial reasons but if it stopped hordes of plant collectors pillaging the beautiful flora on the Cape, then good on him. This was also a time of continual warfare all over the world so why put anyone’s life in danger. Rollisson’s secret work was only revealed publicly by his son on the pages of the gardening press in 1843 in which the names of 90 hybrids were listed. Just down the road in Mitcham, also dabbling in Cape heath hybridisation was Reverend William Herbert, one-time Dean of Manchester. Victorian gardening magazines like The Gardeners’ Chronicle contain a wealth of fascinating material including no doubt many more illuminating nuggets about the Rollissons. Many of these can be accessed online at the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
Ericas were very much William Rollisson’s thing but he tried similar experimentation with azaleas, rhodedendrons and perlagoniums. Half a century of hybridising in Tooting means that a great many plants in circulation in this country were first raised here in the Lost Nursery. With no photography, these heathers also resulted in the production of a number of very expensive illustrated books such as the one put together by Henry Cranke Andrews. Many of these can be viewed online and the joy of stumbling across a gorgeous specimen of some exotic multi-coloured species raised in the Tooting Nursery is always a possibility.
In the mid-nineteenth century Victorian society went crazy for orchids, the ultimate ‘must-have’ plants and status symbols. Plant hunters were sent by nurseries to the ends of the earth in search of rare discoveries. According to Pettigrew, the Tooting collection was one of the largest and the best in the country, The Rollisson orchid connection was well established when Hugh Cuming sent a sample of Aphrodite’s Phalaenopsis, Greek goddess of beauty from the Phillipines in 1837. William Rollisson made it flower the same year. Having grown from being recorded as a walled ground and kitchen garden with a dwelling and hothouses just two acres in size in 1803, by the late 1830s and the dawn of the Victorian age it was 45 acres in extent.
After William Rollisson Senior’s death on 24 April 1842 at the age of 76, the business was taken over by his sons William and George. There followed some highly successful and eventful years. Tooting was in the news in 1849 when 120 children at Drouet’s pauper hospital, close to the nursery died of cholera. It was a cause of immense local shame. Charles Dickens visited the area and wrote about it. The Nursery was mentioned in some of the reports with regard to a stagnant ditch supplying manure for the grounds. They strongly disputed any claim of negligence. 1851 was the year of The Great Exhibition. Pages of the gardening publications were awash with news of their achievements over the following decades.
A magnificent account of the Nursery in its prime appeared in The Gardeners’ Magazine on 7 October 1893, written by Andrew Pettigrew. Born in Ayrshire, the son of a shoemaker, he worked his way up to become Head Gardener at Cardiff Castle. He had been employed by the Rollissons some 30 years before and the 1861 census sees him lodging at 104 Mitcham Road. The following year he married his wife Agnes at the nearby St Nicholas Church. In 1867 he took up a position as head gardener to the Marquis of Bute. His recollection provides a detailed and heartwarming review of a lost era. Everything went after an auction in the nearby Castle pub in 1880. It must have been very odd for anyone living there at the time. One moment the area resembled a mini Kew Gardens, the next it was a building site. ‘A region of villas and nursery gardens, very pleasant’ as described by James Thorne in 1876 quickly became streets of terraced houses. Hereward and Moffat Road emerged upon the key inner sanctum of the Nursery. Selkirk Road with its nod to Daniel Defoe’s castaway inspiration would have evoked tropical images any plant hunter would have recognised. The remainder of the area had to wait until the passing of Lady Bountiful before more house-building kicked in.
One tiny enclave of growing has survived in the form of a small allotment at the end of Herlwyn Gardens, a close off Hebdon Road. From what I gather some exceptional produce is harvested here and some of is displayed at the annual Transition Tooting ‘Foodival’. There are also a rather odd arrangement of back alleys and enclosed spaces between the houses in the Fishponds Road area, perhaps best appreciated by a view from overhead. These may well be indicators of various pathways and divisions in the Tooting Nursery.
In his article, Pettigrew recalled that his first visit was on 17 April 1860, a precise date because it was also the occasion of a notorious ‘world title’ boxing match between Tom Sayers and John Heenan. This was the time the Rollissons employed William Bull as a collector. He went on to greater fame with his own nursery in Chelsea and is renowned for saving the Sri Lankan (Ceylon) coffee industry by supplying a variety of plant immune to disease. Another big name to benefit from the Rollisson tutelage was James Veitch, whose father sent up to Tooting from Exeter to be apprenticed. The story goes that the Rollissons declined any payment and James Veitch senior thanked them by buying a collection of orchids from which they caught the bug. The company bought extensively when the Tooting Nursery was sold in 1880 after George’s death.
Pettigrew clearly had great affection for his time in the Tooting Nursery. ‘Famed near and far for its large collection of hard-wooded ericas, New Zealand plants, orchids, stove and greenhouse plants and new and rare plants of all kinds. The home nursery and grounds were extensive and complete and contained a great variety of soils suitable for the propagation and cultivation of nearly all kinds of hardy plants and a pond of nearly an acre for growing aquatic plants. The grounds were favourably suited for doing a large trade and were supplied with soft water from a moat dividing the grounds from the adjoining property. The portion of the nursery containing the principal plant houses abutted the public road to London, some six miles distant from London Bridge. It was about two acres in extent, enclosed by high walls on the south, east and west side and by Mr George Rollisson’s dwelling house and a large temperate plant house on the north side. A broad gravel walk bordered with grass plots and flower beds on either side, divided the ground in the centre and beyond these were the plant houses. The show house, a very large span-roofed structure with an ornamental lantern on top, was entered by a massive door in the end from the public road. It had a gravel walk all round with a broad bed in the centre, a stage on the south side close to the side lights and a border on the north side between the hot-water pipes and the wall. The bed in the centre was planted with camelias, rhodedendrons, aralias, araucarias, tree ferns and a great variety of plants from the temperate zones. The pillars supporting the roof, and the back wall of the house were covered with the best variety of climbers planted out permanently in the beds. The stage round the south side of the house was kept gay with a miscellaneous collection of flowering and foilage plants in pots. This was reckoned at the time to be the finest show house in the trade and deservedly so. I have a vivid recollection of the grand effect the climbers had when in flower. Passifloras, tacaonias, clematis and many others hanging down in long festoons from the roof around the principal entrance and the counting-house door – which had an entrance from this house – and the tall, stately tree ferns spreading out their large fronds in a graceful form, produced a sight not easily forgotten.’
The overall extent of the Tooting Nursery was in fact around sixty two acres by the 1850s and employing 43 men. In 1866 it was reported that they had been paying their gardeners 15 shillings a week for the last 25 years. Recruitment advertisements indicate that high standards were expected. In 1848, ‘As gardener – a middle-aged married man without incumbrance, who understands his profession in all its branches. Can have a good character from the gentleman he has just left and one of four years with the gentleman he lived with previously. His wife if required, could superintend a small Dairy or take the management of poultry or the charge of a Lodge – Direct to S.F., Messrs Rollisson & Sons, Tooting.’
Pettigrew went on to recall the craze for giant tree ferns, large consignments of which arrived from Australia in gigantic boxes, twelve foot by four. Bound together tightly with iron hoops, these trunks were stripped of their roots and foliage. They were unpacked and immediately potted in a moist shaded house until they started to re-shoot. He remembered the first arrival in Europe of Begonia Rex from Java, a surprise package, unknowingly included in a consignment of other species, sold in a London auction room and immediately re-purchased for £100. Cissus discolor apparently arrived in this country in similar fashion from south east Asia. I think there may be one sitting in a pot behind me as I write this…
Behind the hard-wooded propagating pits was Mr William Rollisson’s house. ‘A modern erection with garden and pleasure grounds attached, beautifully laid out and planted with rare trees and shrubs and the best varieties of conifers then introduced.’ Rollison by this stage was involved with a new church in Tooting, Holy Trinity, not too far up the hill on high ground looking down across the Nursery and Wandle Valley. Built in 1855 with a tower added in 1860, William Rollisson was a church warden there from 1858 to 1869. With the tower recently renovated, attention focused on elaborate floral ornamentation which contains a frieze of what may very well be a representation of orchids.
‘The orchid house occupied a site on the south side of the nursery not far from the entrance gate and some little distance away from the other houses. It is needless to say that they were well-grown and the collection was one of the largest and the best in the country, and a good trade was done in these plants. I remember the late Mr William Rollisson telling me that the Duke of Devonshire and his gardener Mr Paxton – afterwards Sir Joseph, had on several occasions come over from Chiswick House in a morning and bought several hundred pounds worth of orchids’.
Paxton was of course at the centre of The Great Exhibition of 1851 which the Rollissons saw as a great opportunity to amplify their business. The Exhibition was probably the most successful, memorable and influential cultural event of the 19th century. From May to October 1851, the site in Hyde Park would be visited by some six million people. It became one of the defining points of the nineteenth century and the Rollinsons had a presence, running an advertisement in French in the catalogue. As outlined on the pages of The Gardeners’ Chronicle, they won a lot of honours in those few months but John Mylam gardener of one of their top clients Sigismund Rucker appeared to steal the show with his orchids consistently scooping ‘Large Gold Medals’.
Sigismund Rucker is another part of the Rollisson story. A name that pops up all over the place in Wandsworth he is buried in the Old Garratt Lane Cemetery next to Southside. With a rhododendron named after him he was also a keen orchid grower. From his house on West Hill, Rucker raised orchids for over 40 years and also, from 1844 onwards, had fine collections of trees, shrubs, ericas and azaleas. His patronage of the nursery trade lead to him being dubbed ‘Prince of Gardeners’and he sponsored plant-hunting exhibitions to places like Columbia and Venezuela.
The ledgers in Kew Gardens Herbarium archive show a fascinating list of plant samples sent to the Botanic Collection from all over the country and overseas. A regular contributor were the Rollissons with a steady stream of plants, shrubs and bulbs moving westward to Kew. Elegant Victorian script painstakingly lists details and quantities of what was received.
Some of these have been preserved, pressed in great dusty scrapbooks, groaning with ancient samples of plants and flowers all carefully mounted and annotated. Looking through these precious volumes it was almost overwhelming to imagine the shrivelled specimens contained in them had been grown in Tooting soils some 170 years before.
As well as orchids, Rollissons’ fern collection was one ‘of the best in the trade’ their elaborate catalogues ‘the best then sent out by any firm’. They also did a great trade in the mid-century in perlagoniums, fuchsias, petunias and new roses. Propagating houses, pits and frames were situated outside the walks on the west side. ‘Roses and rhodedendrons were grafted here by the thousand, the former making fine saleable plants, fit to be sent out by the month of May. Thousands of rhodedendrons were raised annually from seed in this department. The seeds were sown in six inch pots in peaty soil and placed in cold frames to germinate. When the plants were large enough to be bedded out in nursery rows they were removed to their grounds at Beddington (the soil of which was more suitable to their growth than that of the home nursery). I have never seen such fine healthy batches of seedling hybrid rhododendrons as those raised here anywhere since. The climate and treatment they received at the Tooting Nursery seemed to suit them admirably. The seeds germinated like grass and the foilage assumed that bright glossy colour peculiar to plants in robust health. Hardy herbaceous and Alpine plants and indeed all the newer kinds of flowering shrubs and conifers were propagated here in great quantities. The craze for plants with variegated foilage had set in and there was a growing demand for trees and shrubs of all kind with ornamental foilage. Collectors ware rummaging everywhere abroad in search of novelties and some of the best plants now in commerce were introduced by the Rollisons’.
The nursery at Beddington referred to by Pettigrew was almost certainly what was known as the ‘American Nursery’. In December 1872 notice was given that the Rollissons intended to sell off their entire stock there. This included 5000 Rhodedendrons, 2000 Kalmia Latifolia and 1000 choice hardy heaths. A further notice in February the following year gave notice of an auction to sell the premises of the American Nursery, the package included ‘many thousands of choice hybrid rhodedendrons and other choice American plants’.
Probably the most distinctive reminder of the Rollisson’s Nursery, preserved as a playing field to this day and much loved by its community is Fishponds Field, entered via Hebdon Road. On all the maps from the 1860s/1890s, this stands out alongside a cluster of other water features as a large rectangular lake. The ground is still soft as anyone playing football there through the winter months will testify. I can vouch for that as well, on a daffodil-planting exercise a few years back, I dug down into the rich moist soil only for water to bubble up and almost fill some of my holes! Very hidden away with only one discreet entrance on a quiet road, many local people were unaware of the Field’s existence. Over the last few years, thanks to the work of a dynamic community group ‘Forever Fishponds’ public access to this very unique place is improving all the time.
The ’ponds’ probably date from monastic Norman times and the settlement in the area of monks from Bec Abbey in France. Further generations would adapt them as a decorative attraction to lavish gardens attending their Manor houses. Queen Elizabeth the First may even have gazed across the waters during her stay at one of these in 1600. The innovative Rollisons were unlikely not to put the main pond to good use when their turn came to be its custodian.
‘The pond for growing aquatic plants and the marshy ground for osiers lay between the rhododendron propagating houses and the fruit tree and shrub department. The pond of nearly an acre was used for growing aquatic plants, of which there was a good collection, including the rarest kind. Adjacent to it was a good breadth of marshy land for osiers which were made into baskets, crates and hampers, used in the trade for despatching orders to all parts’.
Those blackberries, figs and grapes I mentioned may be a legacy of this fruit tree department; ‘Apples, pears, plums, cherries, peaches, nectarines, apricots, medlars, mulberries, gooseberries, raspberries, currants, almonds, filberts, walnuts etc. Great pains were taken in growing, training and keeping the best type of fruit trees true to name and none but the best and those that could be thoroughly relied upon were sent out to the purchaser.’
‘Few gardeners over the last 35 years will have not been familiar with the name Rollisson if by nothing else than for growing their famous Telegraph Cucumber’ said Pettigrew. Originally cultivated in India, the cucumber was a favourite of Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII’s first wife. Apparently by the eighteenth century people had grown suspicious of vegetables which couldn’t be cooked but in the 1860s, the Rollissons helped by Heinz introducing it as a key ingredient in their pickles had helped re-established its popularity.
The obsessive search for a straight cucumber had gripped Victorian gardeners and the Rollissons once again came up with the goods. In 1868 their ‘Telegraph Improved Cucumbers’ were reported to be up to 26 inches in length. ‘It is extremely productive, each plant being able to carry as many as six to eight fruit. The skin is smooth and glossy; the flesh white, crisp and firm. Once grown…any gardener will not want to grow any other sort’. The variety is still available today.
Also revived in Tooting around this time was the daffodil flower. The Rollisons overlapped for a decade or so with Peter Barr ‘The Daffodil King’ who lived at various points along Garratt Lane and at Bells Farm, located roughly opposite the main entrance of Streatham Cemetery. Its quite likely that he collaborated with William and George in their later years. It is so fitting that a wonderful local organisation called ‘Friends of Streatham Cemetery’ have such a presence in this very special place. Since 1892 it has been a place where people are laid to rest but the spirit of the nurserymen and gardeners who once toiled here is very strong. It is one of the most tranquil retreats in this busy corner of London and a haven for nature and wildlife.
William Rollison died in 1872 in his 73rd year. With other members of the family he is buried in West Norwood Cemetery. The Gardeners Chronicle describes him as ‘A genial, unassuming man, kind and considerate towards all about him and though advancing in years had shut him out from taking an active part in business matters, he will pass away amidst the keen regrets of a wide circle of friends’. George was very sadly also not a well man. The same source reported his death in 1880 as ‘a happy release from a state of paralysis and unconsciousness in which he had been lying for 14 years – long enough for him fortunately to have been in ignorance of the recent break-up of the world famous establishment of which he had been one of the chiefs’. Such a very sad conclusion to the Rollisson story. It appears that George was out of circulation from 1866 and also never knew about his brother’s death.
The break up referred to appears to have started in November 1873 with an auction notice advertising the five day sale of literally hundreds of thousands of plants and ferns. The reason was in ‘consequence of a great portion of the Freehold being required for building purposes’. This included ‘about 40 acres of valuable nursery stock, comprising 10,000 border shrubs, 10,000 Cupressus Lawsoniana, 5000 deciduous flowering shrubs, 4,500 roses, 35,000 fruit trees, 40,000 ornamental trees including a fine collection of weeping willows, 14,000 polars, 4,000 limes, 14,000 oval-leafed and common privet, 150,000 climbers.’ Over the next few years the Nursery maintained a strong presence on the pages of the gardening press with a notable advertising campaign in 1877. They continued to win prizes and a Thomas Rollisson, William’s son is mentioned as superintending one show. There were still over 50 hothouses in place at the time of George Rollisson’s death, but its best years were now behind it.
William Hugh Gower is indicated as the Rollisson manager at this time and with George incapacitated he must have played a large role at the company for much of the 1870s after William’s death. He was previously a foreman in the orchid and ferns department at Kew which he left in 1865. Whilst there his specialist orchid knowledge saw him chosen to help select plants for Charles Darwin. His interest in orchids at the time lead to the book ‘The Various Contrivances by Which Orchids Are Fertilised by Insects’ in 1862 which paved the way for the publication of ‘On the Origin of Species’. Gower also worked as a collector for Benjamin Samuel Williams of the Victoria and Paradise Nursery. He was a prolific contributor to The Garden magazine. He died of influenza in 1894.
Another notable nurseryman who collaborated with Darwin was Robert Parker whose Exotic Nursery was based the other side of Garratt Lane in an area between Smallwood and Fountain Road. Its legacy endures with some stunning front garden displays. Much smaller than Rollissons, it did however punch above its weight and was acclaimed for its orchids and German irises. It was sold off at the same time as Rollisson’s and the name of one of the roads which replaced it, Rostella Road surely alludes to its orchid-growing heritage. The rostellum, a small projection in the flower which prevents self-fertilisation is the part of the orchid that so fascinated Charles Darwin. In the last few years, the discovery that prolific Royal Horticultural Society orchid artist Nelly Roberts is buried in nearby Lambeth Cemetery has revived interest in local orchid activity.
Things did indeed come to a conclusion very quickly for the Tooting Nursery. Throughout 1878 and 1879 there were notices of impending liquidation. Some of them indicate a determination to find a buyer who might continue a nursery business on the site of a distinguished company that was ‘enjoying a worldwide reputation and considered to be one of the leading nurseries in the kingdom’. In a rapidly changing world that was always going to be a tall order.
In July 1880 The Gardener’s Chronicle reported that ‘one of the most successful sales of building land that has hitherto been held in that locality took place last Monday at the Castle Tavern, Tooting’. The estate of six acres, the nursery stock, greenhouses and other erections. All the plots were sold for a total of £8,500. The last word should go to Andrew Pettigrew. ‘But alas! This once famous nursery with all its manifold advantages has succumbed and the place where it once stood and flourished is built over with houses and nothing of it is left but the name of Rollisson. A name that will long be remembered and esteemed in the gardening world as the gentlemen of the trade’.
Along with Andrew Pettigrew, no one has contributed more to preserving this history than Graham Gower who so kindly shared his papers and extensive research on this area with us. Without his generosity none of this could have happened. Most memorable of all was a wonderful Walk we did with Graham and the children of Broadwater Primary School, now sadly itself soon to be consigned to history. I am also very grateful to everyone at The Herbarium, Kew Archives, the Lindley Library and RHS Library in Wisley who were so helpful when researching both the Tooting Nursery and Peter Barr. Thanks also to the Hicks family for the photo of their ancestor, William Rollisson. Please do support our campaign for a blue plaque so all of this history can be more widely known and appreciated.
