Clapham Common, Area Post Code SW4 (Clapham)
Clapham Common
Type	Historic common
Location	Clapham
Coordinates	51°27′28″N 0°08′58″W / 51.4578°N 0.1494°W / 51.4578; -0.1494
Area	220 acres (0.8 km²)
Operated by	Lambeth LB Council
Open	All year

Clapham Common is an 89 hectare (220 acre) ^[1] triangular area of grassland situated in south London, England. It was historically common land for the parishes of Battersea and Clapham, but was converted to parkland under the terms of the Metropolitan Commons Act 1878.

43 hectares (108 acres) of the common are within the London Borough of Wandsworth and 46 hectares (112 acres) within the London Borough of Lambeth. Although the Common is wholly managed and maintained by the London Borough of Lambeth, the policing of the open space is divided between the Wandsworth and Lambeth borough "commands" of the Metropolitan Police, which follow the local government boundaries. The roads surrounding the Common fall within the SW4 post code.

Clapham Common is also the name of an electoral ward in the London Borough of Lambeth encompassing most of the area to the southeast of Clapham Common Southside until King's Avenue.

Features of the Common[link]

The Common contains three ponds, which are historical features, and a more modern paddling pool known as Cock Pond.

Eagle Pond and Mount Pond are used for angling and contain a variety of species including carp to 20 lb, roach, tench and bream. Eagle Pond was extensively refurbished in 2002 when it was completely drained, landscaped and replanted to provide a better habitat for the fish it contained. Long Pond has a century-old tradition of use for model boating.

The common is surrounded by many fine houses, built from the 1790s onwards, which became fashionable dwellings for wealthy business people in what was then a village detached from metropolitan London. Some were members of the Clapham Sect of evangelical reformers, including Lord Teignmouth and Henry Thornton, the banker and abolitionist. As London expanded in the 19th century Clapham was absorbed into the capital, with most of the remaining palatial or agricultural estates replaced with terraced housing by the early 1900s.

There are two mounds on the Battersea Rise side of the common, the remnants of World War II storage bunkers built on the common.

Holy Trinity Church (1776) is close to the North Side of the common. An Anglican church, it hosts its fete on the common every summer.

Clapham Common tube station and Clapham South tube station are on the edge of the common at its easternmost and southernmost points respectively. Both stations are served solely by the Northern Line.

A memorial tree to actor Jeremy Brett - who had lived locally for many years prior to his death in 1995 - was planted on 30 March 2007.

A 270 degree panoramic view of Clapham Common

The bandstand[link]

In the centre of the Common is the Clapham bandstand constructed in 1890. It is the largest bandstand in London and a Grade II Listed Building. For many years it was also erroneously thought to be one of the bandstands first erected in 1861 in the Royal Horticultural Society's gardens in South Kensington, which would have made it the oldest surviving cast iron bandstand in Europe. However, recent research has shown that these bandstands went to Southwark Park and Peckham Rye, and it appears that the Clapham bandstand was fabricated to a very similar design almost thirty years later. ^[2]

Clapham Common bandstand after renovation in 2006

The bandstand's maintenance had been neglected by Lambeth Council for thirty years, and by 2001 it was thought to be in danger of collapse and had to be shored up with scaffolding for five years. In 2005-2006, a full restoration of the bandstand and surrounding landscape took place, partly funded by an £895,000 lottery grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund matched by £300,000 from Lambeth Council and a further £100,000 from local fundraising efforts and the proceeds of the Ben and Jerry's Summer Sundae event held on the Common. The drainage bund around the bandstand is being restored with granite setts during the summer of 2011 at a cost of £12,000 ^[3] to resolve design faults in the earlier works.

In the news[link]

Former Welsh Secretary in the UK government Ron Davies had a "moment of madness"^[4] in 1998 in an incident that took place on the Common. He was robbed at knife point on the Common and met some strangers to whom he gave a lift; those same people took his car, wallet and phone. Davies resigned, repeatedly denying the incident had anything to do with drugs or sex.^[5] Newspapers have since reported that Mr Davies admits being bisexual and has "been successfully treated for a compulsion to seek out gay partners".^[6]

Some parts of the common are used by men seeking anonymous sex with other men in public places ("cruising"). However, despite past incidents, including an attack on 14 October 2005 in the vicinity of the common^[7] during which Jody Dobrowski was badly beaten and later died,^[7] Clapham Common has been a relatively safe area with better policing from both Lambeth and Wandsworth Police Authorities.

Sport and other events[link]

Events held on the Common include:

• Since 1977 the Latin American football League has played organised football on the red car pitches located on the south side of the common
• British Australian Rules Football League Grand Final, for which it is the traditional venue
• Colourscape Music Festival (one venue) since 1995
• Lesbian & Gay Pride festivals since 1996 and 1997
• The music festival Get Loaded In The Park
• Large scale music events, including 'Picnic Rocks' held by Action Against Hunger
• The South West Four music festival each year
• Every Easter and February George Irvin's Funfair visits the Common

References in popular culture[link]

It is mentioned in the 1970s television programme Are You Being Served? by the character Mrs Slocombe: "I haven't forgotten being flung flat on me back on Clapham Common by a land mine--and the German Air Force was responsible." to which Mr Lucas ripostes: "All the other times she was flat on her back the American Air Force was responsible."

It is cited in Morrissey's song "Mute Witness":

And her silent words

Describing the sight of last night

4 A.M. Northside, Clapham Common

Oh, god, what was she doing there ?

It is also referred to in Squeeze’s 1979 single “Up the Junction,” which opens:

I never thought it would happen,

With me and the girl from Clapham,

Out on the windy common,

That night I ain’t forgotten.

On the second season of the television comedy Peep Show, the character of Mark Corrigan makes a reference to Ron Davies, stating "This is my moment of madness, my Clapham Common."

It also features in Agatha Christie's story The Adventure of the Clapham Cook.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Friends of Clapham Common - Voluntary organisation committed to the protection and improvement of Clapham Common

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Coordinates: 51°27′48″N 0°08′02″W / 51.46323°N 0.13394°W / 51.46323; -0.13394

Clapham
Clapham  Clapham shown within Greater London
OS grid reference	TQ2966375422
London borough	Lambeth
Ceremonial county	Greater London
Region	London
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	LONDON
Postcode district	SW4
Dialling code	020
Police	Metropolitan
Fire	London
Ambulance	London
EU Parliament	London
London Assembly	Lambeth and Southwark
List of places: UK • England • London

Clapham is a district in south west London, England, within the London Borough of Lambeth.

Clapham covers the postcodes of SW4 and parts of SW8, SW9 and SW12. Clapham Common is shared with the London Borough of Wandsworth, although Lambeth has responsibility for running the common as a whole. According to the 2001 census Clapham (and Stockwell) had a joint population of 65,513^[1] inhabitants. Clapham is made up of two wards Clapham Common and Clapham Town and Thornton ward which forms the southern part of Balham. Parts of Clapham also lie within the Brixton ward of Ferndale and the Stockwell ward of Larkhall.

Clapham is well known for its extensive green space Clapham Common, which features three ponds and is overlooked by Victorian mansions, and the village-like atmosphere of its historic Old Town. Clapham is famous^{[citation needed]} as the home of Holy Trinity Clapham the Georgian Church on Clapham Common, from where The Clapham Sect led by William Wilberforce and a group of upper class evangelical Christians campaigned for the abolition of the slave trade in the 19th century. Abbeville or the Village is an affluent district within Clapham lying between Clapham Common South Side and Clarence Avenue and is synonymous with the Clapham Common Ward. The area is centred around small parades of upmarket independent shops and renowned restaurants within a longer otherwise residential road and has a village-like feel.

Clapham has excellent transport links to the rest of London and the UK. Three tube stations - Clapham North, Clapham Common and Clapham South - serve the area, in addition to the Victoria Line stations in nearby Stockwell and Brixton. There are railway stations at Clapham High Street and Wandsworth Road which link Clapham to Victoria, London Bridge and Clapham Junction. The Overground East London tube line is due to be extended to Clapham High Street and Wandsworth Road on the 9th December 2012^[2]. This will link Clapham to places like the Docklands, Shoreditch, Highbury and Islington. Although mostly known for its wealth, Clapham is home to several large housing estates confirming that the area is most certainly not imune from high crime and gang related incidents.

History[link]

Clapham dates back to Anglo-Saxon times: the name is thought to derive from the Old English clopp(a) + hām or hamm, meaning Homestead/enclosure near a hill.

The present day Clapham High Street is an ancient "diversion" of the Roman military road Stane Street, which ran from London to Chichester. This followed the line of Clapham Road and then onward along the line of Abbeville Road.^[3] The ancient status of that military road is recorded on a Roman stone now placed by the entrance of Clapham Library in the Old Town, which was discovered during building operations at Clapham Common South Side in 1912. Erected by vitus Ticinius Ascanius according to its inscription, it is estimated to date from the first century AD...^[4][5]

According to the history of the Clapham family maintained by the College of Heralds, in 965 AD King Edgar of England gave a grant of land at Clapham to Jonas, son of the Duke of Lorraine, and Jonas was thenceforth known as Jonas "de [of] Clapham". The family remained in possession of the land until Jonas's great-great grandson Arthur sided against William the Conqueror during the Norman invasion of 1066 and, losing the land, fled to the north (where the Clapham family remained thereafter, primarily in Yorkshire).

Clapham appears in Domesday Book as Clopeham. It was held by Goisfrid (Geoffrey) de Mandeville and its domesday assets were 3 hides; 6 ploughs, 5 acres (20,000 m²) of meadow. It rendered £7 10s 0d, and was located in Brixton hundred.^[6]

In the late seventeenth century large country houses began to be built there, and throughout the 18th and early nineteenth century it was favoured by the wealthier merchant classes of the City of London, who built many large and gracious houses and villas around Clapham Common and in the Old Town. Samuel Pepys spent the last two years of his life in Clapham, living with his friend, protégé at the Admiralty and former servant William Hewer, until his death in 1703.^[7]

Clapham Common was also home to Elizabeth Cook, the widow of Captain James Cook the explorer. She lived in a house on the common for many years following the death of her husband. Other notable residents of Clapham Common were Palace of Westminster architect Sir Charles Barry,^[8] Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg ^[9] and twentieth century novelist Graham Greene.^[10] John Francis Bentley,^[11] architect of Westminster Cathedral, lived in the adjacent Old Town.

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the Clapham Sect were a group of upper class (mostly evangelical Anglican) social reformers who lived around the Common. They included William Wilberforce, Henry Thornton and Zachary Macaulay, father of the historian Thomas Macaulay, as well as William Smith, M.P., the Dissenter and Unitarian. They were very prominent in campaigns for the abolition of slavery and child labour, and for prison reform. They also promoted missionary activities in Britain's colonies.

After the coming of the railways, Clapham developed as a suburb for commuters into central London, and by 1900 it had fallen from favour with the upper classes. Many of their grand houses had been demolished by the middle of the twentieth century, though a number remain around the Common and in the Old Town, as do a substantial number of fine late eighteenth and early nineteenth century houses. Today's Clapham is an area of varied housing from the large Queen Anne, Regency and Georgian era homes of the Old Town and Clapham Common to the grids of Victorian housing in the Abbeville area. As in much of London, the area has its fair share of council-owned properties on estates dating from the 1930s and 1960s.

Clapham was located in the county of Surrey until the creation of the County of London in 1889. It became part of the new Metropolitan Borough of Wandsworth in 1900. In 1965, the old Metropolitan Borough of Wandsworth was divided and almost all of the historic parish of Clapham was transferred to the London Borough of Lambeth.

20th and 21st centuries[link]

In the early twentieth century Clapham was seen as an ordinary commuter suburb, often cited as representing ordinary people: hence the so-called "Man on the Clapham omnibus". By the 1980s the area had undergone a further transformation, becoming the centre for the gentrification of most of the surrounding area. Clapham's proximity to the traditionally upper-class areas of Sloane Square and Belgravia, which became increasingly unaffordable to all but the very wealthy in the boom years of the 1980s and 1990s, led to a colonisation of the area by the middle classes. Today Clapham is an affluent multi-cultural neighbourhood, home to middle-class British professionals, overseas (Irish, African, Caribbean, South-American, European, Australian and North-American) residents, middle-class people of BME origin and a vibrant Gay community choosing to live there. Many young university graduates and students also choose to live in the Clapham area, a tradition carried over from the days when some University of London halls of residence were situated there. Most recently, there has been a surge in the numbers of young, highly educated Irish settling in the area.

Clapham shares a border with neighbouring Lambeth, part of which runs along the middle of Hazelbourne Road and which was famously used by the Conservative government on billboards during their 1983 general election campaign, as the Conservatives controlled Clapham council at the time while Lambeth was controlled by Lambeth, pointing out that the Labour-controlled council's taxpayers paid higher rates than those living in the Conservative authority.^[12]

Clapham has a large number of restaurants, bars, cafes, boutiques, wine bars and leisure facilities. As a result it is now regarded as a fashionable and desirable place to live for the British middle classes and is within easy commuting distance of the City of London and West End and the main railway termini for transport to airports at Heathrow and Gatwick and the south of England.^{[citation needed]}

Famous former and current residents[link]

Transport[link]

There are two railway stations in the area:

• Clapham High Street
• Wandsworth Road

Clapham Junction, in neighbouring Battersea is Clapham's nearest major rail station.

London Underground's Northern Line runs through the neighbourhood, with three stations. From north to south these are:

• Clapham North (opened as Clapham Road in 1900, changed to its current name in 1926).
• Clapham Common
• Clapham South

Shopping[link]

There are a number of shopping areas in or near Clapham, including:

• Clapham High Street
• Clapham Old Town, home to the 30 year old North Street Potters, The Sun, a welcoming Free House and Trinity, a critically acclaimed restaurant.
• Abbeville Road (and Clapham South)
• Northcote Road (Between Clapham and Wandsworth Commons)
• Nightingale Lane (near Clapham South)
• Clapham Junction (Battersea)
• Brixton/Brixton Market (Brixton)
• Queenstown Road/Lavender Hill(Battersea)
• Balham High Road/Bedford Hill (Balham)
• Kings Road (Chelsea)

Nearest places[link]

• Balham
• Battersea
• Brixton
• Chelsea
• Clapham Junction
• Stockwell
• Streatham
• Tooting
• Vauxhall
• Wandsworth

Sport[link]

• Football club Clapham Rovers F.C., winners of the FA Cup in 1880, were based in Clapham.

See also[link]

• Clapham Park
• Clapham Sect
• London Riot 2011
• The man on the Clapham omnibus

References and notes[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Clapham

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Jeremy Brett (3 November 1933 – 12 September 1995), born Peter Jeremy William Huggins, was an English actor, best known for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in four Granada TV series.

Early life[link]

Peter Jeremy William Huggins was born at Berkswell Grange in Berkswell in December 1933.^[1] He was the son of a Lord Lieutenant of Warwickshire and an heir of the Cadbury chocolate family. Educated at Eton College, he claimed to have been an "academic disaster", attributing his learning difficulties to dyslexia.

Although he eventually developed precisely honed diction, he was born with "rhotacism", a speech impediment which prevented him from pronouncing the "R" sound correctly. He underwent corrective surgery as a teenager and followed it with years of practicing. Much later he claimed that he practiced all of his speech exercises daily, whether he was working or not.^{[citation needed]}

However, while at Eton he excelled at singing and was a member of the college choir. He trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama^[2] in London, graduating in 1954, but his father had demanded that he change his name for the sake of family honour.^[3]

Career[link]

Stage and screen[link]

Brett made his professional acting debut at the Library Theatre in Manchester in 1954, and made his London stage debut with the Old Vic company in Troilus and Cressida in 1956.^[4] Brett had his first appearance in a major film with War and Peace (1956), which starred Audrey Hepburn.

Also in 1956 he appeared on Broadway as the Duke of Aumerle in Richard II.^[5] He played many classical roles on stage, including about a dozen Shakespearean parts at the Old Vic, in New York and four while Brett was a member of the National Theatre Company from 1967 to 1970.^[6]

From the early 1960s, Brett was often on British television. He starred in several serials, including as d'Artagnan in an adaptation of The Three Musketeers (1966). His highest profile film appearance was as Freddie Eynsford-Hill in My Fair Lady (1964), which reunited him with Audrey Hepburn. Although his singing voice was dubbed in the film, Brett could still sing, as he later demonstrated when he played Danilo in a BBC Television broadcast of The Merry Widow (Christmas Day 1968).

Some of his appearances were in classical comedic roles, such as Captain Absolute in a television version of The Rivals (1970) and Bassanio in William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice (1970) in a National Theatre Company production directed by Jonathan Miller which also featured Laurence Olivier (as Shylock) and Joan Plowright (as Portia). This was adapted for television in 1973 with the same three leads. Brett joked that, as an actor, he was rarely allowed into the 20th century and never into the present day. He did though appear in a few contemporary guest roles, in a couple of the ITC series such as The Baron (1967) and The Champions (1969) where he was cast as swarthy, smooth villains. Brett also appeared in The Incredible Hulk ("Of Guilt, Models and Murder", 1977).

Jeremy Brett's final, posthumous film appearance was an uncredited bit part as the artist's father in Moll Flanders, a 1996 Hollywood feature film starring Robin Wright Penn in the title role. The film (not to be confused with the 1996 ITV adaption starring Alex Kingston) was released nearly a year after Brett's death.

As Sherlock Holmes[link]

Although Brett appeared in many different roles during his 40-year career, he is best remembered for his performance as Sherlock Holmes in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a series of Granada Television films made between 1984 and 1994. These were adapted by John Hawkesworth and other writers from the original stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Even though he reportedly feared being typecast, Brett appeared in 41 episodes of the Granada series, alongside David Burke and, latterly, Edward Hardwicke as Dr Watson.

After taking on the demanding role ("Holmes is the hardest part I have ever played — harder than Hamlet or Macbeth"^[7]) Brett made few other acting appearances, and he is now widely considered to be the definitive Holmes of his era, just as Basil Rathbone was during the 1940s. Brett had previously played Doctor Watson on stage opposite Charlton Heston as Holmes in the 1980 Los Angeles production of The Crucifer of Blood, making him one of only four actors to play both Holmes and Watson professionally (the other three are Reginald Owen, as Watson in the 1932 film Sherlock Holmes and Holmes in 1933's A Study in Scarlet,^[8] fellow Old Etonian Patrick Macnee, who played Watson first in 1976's Sherlock Holmes in New York and Holmes in 1993's The Hound of London)^[9] while Carleton Hobbs who portrayed both roles on the radio.^[10]

Brett had been approached in February 1982 by Granada TV to play Holmes. The idea was to make a totally authentic and faithful adaptation of the character's best cases. Eventually Brett accepted the role. He wanted to be the best Sherlock Holmes the world had ever seen.^[11] He conducted extensive research on the great detective and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself, and was very attentive to discrepancies between the scripts he had been given and Conan Doyle's original stories.^[12] One of Brett's dearest possessions on the set was his 77-page "Baker Street File" on everything from Holmes' mannerisms to his eating and drinking habits. Brett once explained that "some actors are becomers — they try to become their characters. When it works, the actor is like a sponge, squeezing himself dry to remove his own personality, then absorbing the character's like a liquid".^[13]

Brett was obsessed with bringing more passion to the role of Holmes. He introduced Holmes' rather eccentric hand gestures and short violent laughter. He would hurl himself on the ground just to look for a footprint, "he would leap over the furniture or jump onto the parapet of a bridge with no regard for his personal safety."^[14]

Holmes' obsessive and depressive personality fascinated and frightened Brett. In many ways Holmes' personality resembled the actor's own, with outbursts of passionate energy followed by periods of lethargy. It became difficult for him to let go of Holmes after work. He had always been told that the only way for an actor to stay sane was for him to leave his part behind at the end of the day, but Brett started dreaming about Holmes, and the dreams turned into nightmares.^[15] Brett began to refer to Sherlock Holmes as "You Know Who" or simply "HIM": "Watson describes You Know Who as a mind without a heart, which is hard to play. Hard to become. So what I have done is invent an inner life".^[16] Brett invented an imaginary life of Holmes to fill the hollowness of Holmes' "missing heart", his empty emotional life. He imagined: "...what You Know Who's nanny looked like. She was covered in starch. I don't think he saw his mother until he was about eight years old..." etc.^[16] While the other actors disappeared to the canteen for lunch, Brett would sit alone on the set reading the script, looking at every nuance,^[17] reading Holmes in the weekends and on his holidays. A theatrical adaptation, The Secret of Sherlock Holmes, by Brett's friend playwright Jeremy Paul ran at Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End with Brett and Edward Hardwicke during 1988 and 1989; the production subsequently toured.^[6]

"Some actors fear if they play Sherlock Holmes for a very long run the character will steal their soul, leave no corner for the original inhabitant", he once said,^[18] but: "Holmes has become the dark side of the moon for me. He is moody and solitary and underneath I am really sociable and gregarious. It has all got too dangerous".^[7]

Private life and health issues[link]

Brett was bisexual, but intensely private. On 24 May 1958 he married the actress Anna Massey (daughter of Raymond Massey). Their son, David Huggins, born in 1959, is a British cartoonist, illustrator and novelist.^[19] Brett and Massey divorced on 22 November 1962 after she claimed he left her for a man.^[20][21] In the 1960s and early 1970s, Brett was in a romantic relationship with the actor Gary Bond.^[22] In the late 1970s he was involved with actor Paul Shenar.^[23] In 1976, Brett married Joan Sullivan Wilson, who died of cancer in July 1985.^[24]

In the latter part of 1986, Brett exhibited wide mood swings that alarmed his family and friends, who persuaded him to seek diagnosis and treatment of manic depression.^[25] Brett was given lithium tablets to fight his manic depression. He knew that he would never be cured; he had to live with his condition, look for the signs of his disorder and then deal with it.^[26] He wanted to go back to work, to play Holmes again. The first episode to be produced after his discharge was a two-hour adaptation of The Sign of the Four in 1987. From then on the difference in Brett's appearance slowly became more noticeable as the series developed. One of the side effects of the lithium tablets was fluid retention. Brett began to look and act differently. The drugs were slowing him down; he was putting on weight and retaining water.^[27] According to Edward Hardwicke, Brett smoked up to 60 cigarettes a day, which "didn't help his health."^[28] He also had heart troubles. His heart was twice the normal size,^[29] he would have difficulties breathing and would need an oxygen mask on the set. "But, darlings, the show must go on", was his only comment.^[30]

During the last decade of his life, Brett was treated in hospital several times for his mental illness, and his health and appearance visibly deteriorated by the time he completed the later episodes of the Sherlock Holmes series. During his last years, he discussed the illness candidly, encouraging people to recognise its symptoms and seek help.

Death[link]

Brett died on 12 September 1995 at his home in Clapham, London, from heart failure. His heart valves had been scarred by rheumatic fever contracted as a child.^[29]

Mel Gussow wrote in an obituary for New York Times: "Mr. Brett was regarded as the quintessential Holmes: breathtakingly analytical, given to outrageous disguises and the blackest moods and relentless in his enthusiasm for solving the most intricate crimes."^[31]

Filmography[link]

• Svengali (1954)
• War and Peace (1956) as Nikolai Rostov
• The Very Edge (1962)
• The Wild and the Willing (1962)
• Girl in the Headlines (1963)
• Act of Reprisal (1964)
• My Fair Lady (1964) as Freddy Eynsford-Hill
• Nicholas and Alexandra (1971)
• A Picture of Katherine Mansfield (1973) as John Middleton Murry
• The Picture of Dorian Gray (1976) as Basil Hallward
• The Medusa Touch (1978)
• Mad Dogs and Englishmen (1995)
• Moll Flanders (1996)

See also[link]

• List of actors who have played Sherlock Holmes

References[link]

General