Tag Archives: Arneys Lane

Notes on Mitcham Common by H.G. Winbow

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Published in the South Warder, the newsletter of the South Ward Residents Association in August 1962.

Recently the question arose about the origin of the footpath near the Garden Village from Cranmer Bridge to Mitcham Junction. This path is on the site of the old road and when the London and Portsmouth Railway was constructed across the Common in 1863, the present Cranmer Road was realigned, owing to the sharp curve made to approach the junction of the Wimbledon/West Croydon line which was constructed in 1844.

Recently cars appeared to be using this footpath as a short cut from Willow Lane to Cranmer Bridge, and it is satisfactory to note that the Conservators agreed to the Preservation Society’s request to erect posts here.

Walking round the Common, you notice several old cart tracks, one just the other side of the bridge at Mitcham Junction led to a farm near the railway, this is now known as Aspen Gardens. Further on we come to the concrete road, which is called Drakes Road but nobody seems to know how this road got its name, except that it was the entry to the gravel pits which were worked here for many years.

A short distance from here we see another rough track across the Common, this is called Arneys Lane. At one time this went across the fields to some old cottages near the River Wandle. This track now stops at the footpath which runs along the rear of the houses; the footpath is believed to be on the site of the Surrey Iron Railway branch to Hackbridge.

Not far from here is the “Goat Inn”. Beyond here this part of the Common is called Mill Green and is maintained by Beddington and Wallington Borough Council. But opposite this inn there is another track which follows the southern boundary of the Common. This track ends at the railway, but there is a footbridge here, so one can continue the walk on to Beddington Lane Halt. This is one of the best parts of the Common, right away from any roads.

Some years ago a small area was added, so one can now walk through the avenue of trees to the footpath to Beddington Lane, a very pleasant walk in the summer. From here there is no need to follow the road to the Windmill House, but walk across the Common past the one-island pond, and across the Croydon Road to Commonside East,

Proceeding westwards, we come to the new factory of Tower Creameries, this is on the site of the old workhouse which was built about 1790 and for many years was used by the Woodite Rubber Company’s works. Sections of the first Atlantic submarine cable was supposed to have been made here.

Just near here we see two old cart tracks crossing the recently reclaimed part of the Common, these were used as the entrance to Sherwood Farm.
Crossing Manor Road we come to the rough road which runs along the Common to Commonside East; many years ago some wooden cottages stood here, which might explain how this road came into existence.

Owing to building development on the boundary of the Common, these old cart tracks present a problem. As they are all on Common land the question of keeping them in repair is a difficult point.

Further along Commonside East there is a small pond, known as “Pinnocks Pond”. Years ago opposite here there was a small cottage and market gardens, owned by a Mr. Walsh and later by a Mr. Pinnock; this explains how the pond became known by this name. The road from here across the Common to the “Blue House”, now called Cedars Avenue, was called the New Road by the old inhabitants. The end of this road, of course, brings us to the roundabout and the old wooden cottages, shown on old maps as “The Blue Houses”. It has been said that employees of the Surrey Iron Railway stabled their horses here. This could be true because these cottages are not far from the site of the old iron road.

The old “Ravensbury Arms” was the same as these cottages, the present public house was built in 1906. But a shorter walk can be made by taking the footpath from Beddington Lane over the Common and following the railway, this brings us out via the Golf Club House to Carshalton Road.

This is a nice walk, but I would not advise this way in wet weather as this part of the Common is very rough, owing to the extensive gravel digging that took place here before the Common was controlled by the Conservators. Along this path is where the new footbridge over the West Croydon line has been erected by the Golf Club and which is open to the public.

Arney & Co., gelatine manufacturer

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In the 1851 directory listed Arney & Co., as patent gelatine makers, Common, Upper Mitcham.

In the 1846 Repertory of Patent Inventions, Gerard Andrew Arney is listed as a gentelman, living at Mare Street, Hackney, and his patent for …

Improvements in the preparation of gelatine, and Improvements in finig or clarifying liquids. Sealed January 20, 1846.

The London Gazette, Publication date:23 April 1852 Issue:21312 Page:1163 says that the firm was a partnership name Hammond, Arney and Co. and that this partnership was dissolved:

WE hereby give notice, that the Partnership heretofore subsisting between us the undersigned, under the firm of Hammond, Arney,and Co. Gelatine Manufacturers, of Mitcham Common, Surrey, was, on the 26th day of March last, dissolved by mutual consent.

— Dated this 17th day of April 1852. Edward Hammond, Gerard Andrew Arney.

In the London Gazette later that year, the Patents Act published the patent as number 375 awarded to:

Gerard Andrew Arney, of Mitcham, in the county of Surrey, Gelatine Manufacturer, for the invention of improvements in coating or enamelling pictures, prints, paper, and other surfaces.

London Gazette, Publication date:29 October 1852 Issue:21374 Page:2843

Eric Montague, in his Mitcham Histories: 13 Willow Lane and Beddington Corner, page 98, said:

The gelatin works, remembered by Cecil Cox from his childhood in the 1840s and 50s, were leased from Cox by Gerard Arney, who, with his mother, Mrs Maria Arney, lived at Willow Lodge at the end of what today is now Arney’s Lane. The factory in 1853 had a wheel developing six hp driven by water conducted from the Wandle at Beddington Corner. Frederick Braithwaite, who visited the premises in the early 1850s, described the arrangements for supplying water to the factory as commencing with two small culverts passing underground before flowing into broad ditches to the north of a triangular island used as an osier bed. There was a fall of 18 inches which, with surface water draining from adjoining land, supplied the mill head. Arney and Company, patent gelatine makers do not seem to have lasted beyond the early 1860s, and the OS map of 1867 marks merely Willow Cottage and what appear to be two small cottages at the end of the lane from the Carshalton Road. All had disappeared completely by the 1970s, when the site was occupied in part by MJ Gleeson Ltd, builders, and partly by C Barber and Sons, haulage contractors.