Tag Archives: 1922

Connect House

Office building, 21 Willow Lane, Mitcham, CR4 4FL.

Bought on 29th January 2015 for £3,100,000 by CONNECT HOUSE LTD (Co. Regn. No. 9296558) of Unit 9, Ravensdale Industrial Estate, Timberwharf Road, London N16 6DB. Source: Land Registry, title number TGL100496, obtained November 2017.

The land was used to grow watercress by Gaston DUTRIEZ, who bought the property from William Francis Joseph SIMPSON in 1922. Source: Land Registry title and 1930 Commercial directory.

In 2012, Google Street View shows the building as Connect House Serviced Offices, by a company called Frendcastle. On 8th November 2017, BBC London reported that the building was being used by four local councils as temporary housing, with rooms costing between £30 and £40 per night. A Royal Mail postcode search for the address shows 84 flats.

2016 Street View

2012 Street View

1938 OS map


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

News of the World Houses

Houses built along Madeira Road and Commonside West, possibly between 1922 and 1926.

These photos, taken in May 2016, show houses along Commonside West. Most of the houses in Madeira Road have been extended to the front with porches etc.

Commonside West

Commonside West

Commonside West

Commonside West

This photo is from the 1926 article referred to below.

1926 NotW Houses

Architects CULPIN and BOWERS

COST: Approximately £600 per house.

MATERIALS: The external 9 inch brick walls are covered up to the cill levels of the first floors, above which the front has a projecting stucco band and a felt-floated cream-white plaster finish; the chimney stacks are faced with red sand-faced bricks; the window casements throughout are of wood; the halls and sculleries have red composition floors, and the roof is covered with variegated sand-faced plain tiles.

Source: an unnamed architectural magazine being sold on ebay


Building application no. 350 submitted by the News of the World for ’28 cottages, Commonside East (sic) and Madeira Road’ was approved by Mitcham Urban District Council on 12th September, 1922. Source: Proceedings of the council Volume VIII 1922 – 23.


Minutes of meetings held by the Mitcham Urban District Council are available on request from the Merton Heritage and Local Studies Centre at Morden Library.