Named after an Elizabethan poet. The square it surrounds is where a gravel pit once stood and was used to dump chemical waste from the Chemical Works of Typke & King. Mitcham Borough Council bought the site and excavated the pit, back-filling it with rubble.

1883 OS map

Source: Mitcham Histories:3 Pollards Hill,Commonside East and Lonesome by E.N. Montague; page 71.