Category Archives: People

Greenview, 6 Cricket Green

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House at no. 6 Cricket Green, which is next door to the cricket pavilion and was built in 1903 for Lt. Col. Stephen Chart, son of Robert Masters Chart.

clip from 1910 postcard on Merton Memories, photo reference Mit_Streets_LOV_LOW_41-11

From the Mitcham Cricket Club Yearbook of 1955, page 61, when he was the President of the Mitcham Cricket Club:

Col. Chart recalls the story of the two trees standing opposite his house which obscured the view across the Green. By arrangement, these trees were removed by permission of the Conservators and two new trees were supplied by Mr. R. M. Chart and planted by him at a site opposite the Town Hall, outside the boundary of the cricket ground, where they flourish to this day.

R. M. Chart. J.P., father of the President, was at that time secretary of the Green Protection Society, a body which was formed about 1875, “… to preserve the Green from coconut shies and grazing horses “.

It was during his term of office in 1894 that the Surrey Club contributed £25, half the cost, towards a better system of drainage on the Green. In dry weather in the Summer the
direction of the drains can be clearly seen against the background of dry grass. Fred Gale, who was a great supporter of Mitcham cricket had the Green “Bush drained” some years
previously.

1890 : Church denied share of profits from Mitcham Common gravel extraction

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From the Huddersfield Daily Chronicle – Thursday 17th July 1890

A CURIOUS CASE.

Mr. Justice Kekewich, on Wednesday, decided a curious case raised by the Ecclesiastical Commissioner, who, in 1862, were made lords of the manor of Vauxhall, who now brought an action against the devisees of James Bridger, lord of the manor of Biggin and Tamworth. and also the lords of the manor of Mitcham and Ravensbury, to recover one-fourth of the profits derived by the defendants from the gravel digging on Mitcham Common. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners contended that they were successors of the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury. the title being traced back to the reign of Edward I., who granted the manor to the Black Prince, who transferred it to the convent of Christ Church, Canterbury, and on the dissolution of the monasteries it was vested in the Crown in the reign of Henry VIII. The plaintiffs urged that the manor extended to Mitcham Common, which belonged to them and the other lords of the manor as tenants in common, and that, therefore, they were entitled to take their share of the gravel. His lordship gave judgment against the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, with costs, holding that they had failed to make out their case.