Drinking Fountain, Parkside

Drinking Fountain, Parkside
Originally uploaded by Jessicamulley

Dear Mum,

This elegant drinking fountain stands at the edge of Wimbledon Common, along a road called Parkside. Small steps up to the fountain, now sadly defunct, provide for shorter inhabitants to reach the fountain, and there's even provision for dogs to drink via a small tap at base. The fountain was installed the Metropolitan Free Drinking Fountain Association (I've yet to establish a date). The cattle trough in front of the fountain came from the same association but carries its later name of the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association, which suggests that it was installed at a later date.

The decoration on the top of the fountain reminds me of the £ sign, giving the whimisical the impression that the fountain has been recruited to the cause of those opposed to the introduction of the Euro - Wimbledon Prefers the Pound, perhaps? - but in fact appears to be original to the design.

Early Morning at Bluegate Gravel Pit

Early Morning at Bluegate Gravel Pit
Originally uploaded by Jessicamulley

Dear Mum,

As I'm sure I've mentioned before, one of the things I love most about living in Wimbledon is the remarkable combination of town and country that it offers. I can be at work in central London in 35 minutes, or in a shopping centre in 10 minutes. But one minute's walk from my front door and your onto the large expanse on Wimbledon Common.

On warm and sunny days the part of the Common closest to the village can be very busy but stroll for only a few minutes into in the common, break off the well-worn paths and you can find yourself utterly alone and surrounded by rural scenes as far as the eye can see.

Bluegate Gravel Pit is at the edge of the Common, along Parkside, but even so it's almost always a quiet retreat for flora and fauna as well as humans. An early morning walk earlier this week was rewarded with a shock of yellow rushes around the lower edge of the Pit.

King of Denmark

King of Denmark, Ridgway, Wimbledon Village
Originally uploaded by Jessicamulley

Dear Mum,

After a long campaign resisting development by local residents lasting more than two years, the Planning Inspectorate have finally given permission for the demolition of the King of Denmark pub on Ridgway, in the heart of the West Wimbledon Conservation Area. It is expected to be replaced by a new building resembling the next door shops. There's to be a 'gastro pub' at street level and offices above.

In the end the local residents group conceded that the building was 'not of such architectural quality that we could sustain an objection to the principle of demolition". Got to agree with them there - although in fairness, it seems the objections were based not so much on the demolition of the existing building but reservations about the design quality of the successively proposed alternatives for the site.

Notes for a guided walk around Wimbledon suggest the pub was established around the 1860s but I have no idea how good a source that it. According to the current owners of the site, the building we see today (but perhaps not for much longer?) was purpose built as a public house with a saloon bar in 1933. I have seen a photo of the Ridgway taken just before the first world war which shows the King of Denmark but the building is very different - at that time it sold 'Maidstone Ales' (see Richard Milward's Historic Wimbledon).

It is said that the King of Denmark used to be part of the (in)famous 'Wimbledon Eight' pub crawl - a favourite pass time of the talented actor and renoun drinker, Oliver Reed.

Postcards from Wimbledon - Now and Then

Dear Mum, I thought you might enjoy these old postcards of our local High Street which arrived in yesterday's post. The picture on the right shows my attempt to take a photograph from the same stop as the later of the two postcards. I didn't get it quite right and I think the original photographer must have used a wider angle lens than the one I had to hand but nevertheless the comparison is telling. Setting aside the differences in traffic, one of the first things I noticed was the increase in street furniture - road signs, lampposts and the like - which seem to serve to make the place look cluttered, uncared for and untidy.

The top photograph is the earliest. The name given to the bank shown in the foreground on each photograph gives some clue as to the date. The first is likely to have been taken at some point between 1909, when the London, County and Westminster Bank was created as the result of a merger between the London and Westminster Bank and the London and County Bank and 1918 when the Bank's name became London, County, Westminster and Parr's Bank. The Bank changed its name to the Westminster Bank - as shown in the second postcard - in 1923, although of course there's no guarantee that the sign writers kept up-to-date with the name changes. My photograph - taken in May 2009 - shows the premises occupied by the Natwest Bank therefore indicating that, taking account of mergers and buy-outs, the same bank has traded on the site for the last 100 years or so.

All three photos show a cattle trough in front of the bank: in the 2009 shot it is being used as a flower planter. The inscription on the side of the trough reads "Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association". Originally called the Metropolitan Free Drinking Fountain Association, it was established in 1859 by Member of Parliament Samuel Gurney and a barrister, Edward Thomas Wakefield, to provide clean water for Londoners. Its first fountain was installed on Holborn Hill, close to St Sepulchre church on Snow Hill, in 1859. Richard Milward records in his excellent Historic Wimbledon that this particular trough was installed in 1893.