Wandsworth

Coordinates: 51°27′52″N 0°11′33″W / 51.4644°N 0.1924°W / 51.4644; -0.1924

Wandsworth /ˈwɒnzwərθ/ is a district of south west London within the London Borough of Wandsworth. It is situated 4.6 miles (7.4 km) southwest of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.

Toponymy

Wandsworth takes its name from the River Wandle, which enters the Thames at Wandsworth. Wandsworth appears in Domesday Book of 1086 as Wandesorde and Wendelesorde. This means 'enclosure of (a man named) Waendel', whose name is also lent to the River Wandle. To distinguish it from the London Borough of Wandsworth, and historically from the Wandsworth District of the Metropolis and the Metropolitan Borough of Wandsworth, which all covered larger areas, it is also known as Wandsworth Town.

History

At the time of the Domesday Book (1086), the manor of Wandsworth was held partly by William, son of Ansculfy, and partly by St Wandrille's Abbey. Its Domesday assets were 12 hides, with 5½ ploughs and 22 acres (89,000 m²) of meadow. It rendered £9. Since at least the early 16th century, Wandsworth has offered accommodation to consecutive waves of immigration, from Protestant Dutch metalworkers fleeing persecution in the 1590s to recent Eastern European members of the European Union.

Trampoline

A trampoline is a device consisting of a piece of taut, strong fabric stretched over a steel frame using many coiled springs. People bounce on trampolines for recreational and competitive purposes.

The fabric that users bounce on (commonly known as the 'bounce mat' or 'trampoline bed') is not elastic in itself; the elasticity is provided by the springs that connect it to the frame, which store potential energy.

History

Early trampoline-like devices

A game similar to trampolining was developed by the Inuit, who would toss each other into the air on a walrus skin (see Nalukataq). There is also some evidence of people in Europe having been tossed into the air by a number of people holding a blanket; Mak in the Wakefield Second Shepherds' Play and Sancho Panza in Don Quixote are both subjected to blanketing – however, these are clearly non-voluntary, non-recreational instances of quasi-judicial, mob-administered punishment. The trampoline-like life nets once used by firemen to catch people jumping out of burning buildings were invented in 1887.