Tag Archives: 1920

Kings College Sports Ground

Sports and athletic grounds that were owned by King’s College, London, between 1920 and the late 1980s. The grounds were bounded by Western Road, Lavender avenue and Steers Mead.

1938 OS Map, via National Library of Scotland (CC-BY)

According to Eric Montague’s Mitcham Histories : 14 Upper Mitcham and Western Road Appendix IV

The former Hay Furlongs fields where bought in 1920 when King’s College, London, raised £6,000 for the purchase and a further £2,200 for the laying out and equipping of an Athletic Ground as a War Memorial to College members who fell in the Great War.

Development for housing along the Western Road in the late 1980s reduced the size of this open space, and what remains today is called Lavender Park, and includes the pavilion near the corner of Steers Mead and Lavender Avenue. It was officially reopened by Merton Council in April 1991.


Maps are reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland.

Poplar Avenue

A cul-de-sac road off of the west side of London Road, opposite Figges Marsh, built around 1919/1920.

1953 OS map

The houses are numbered sequentially, clockwise, from number 1 on the south side to number 20 on the north side. They all have the postcode CR4 3LH.

According to Tom Francis, it was named after the Poplars School that was situated there, facing the Figges Marsh. This school was demolished after the outbreak of fever.

Occupants from the 1925 street directory

South Side

1, Stanley BACON
2, James R HUNT
3, Thomas HUMPHRIES
4, Arthur McGAHEY
5, Joseph Walter THOMPSON
6, Benjamin YEOMANS
7, Chester James CAPON
8, Alfred HEALY

West Side

9, Charles GALE
10, Joseph BAMFORD
11, Godfrey STONE
12, Charles Thomas UTTON

North Side

13, Mrs M. UTTON
14, Percy John LAMB
15, Frederick John CHARD
16, John James MEPHAM
17, Thomas PARKER
18, Albert Henry HOOPER
19, Samuel HART
20, Leonard George DREWETT

News Articles

Gloucester Citizen – Saturday 25 June 1927

DOUBLE MOTOR FATALITY

Mr John J. Mepham, Poplar-avenue, Mitcham, died on Friday from injuries received in a motor crash at Godstone, which his wife was killed.

1st September, 1944
Mitcham Man’s Gallantry – Awarded the M.M.


The name of the road was suggested in a Housing Committee meeting of the Mitcham Urban District Council, dated 7th September 1920, volume V, page 202. It was part of the post-WW1 housing scheme on London Road, which included Lavender Avenue, Rose Avenue, Camomile Avenue and Biggin Avenue.


Maps are reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland.