Tag Archives: Commonside East

Air Raid shelters in 1948

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Mitcham Borough Council minutes, volume 15, 1948-49, page 95 :-

The Borough Engineer submitted the following report: –

December 3, 1948.

To the Chairman and Members of the General Purposes Committee.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Air Raid Shelters.

In accordance with the instructions of the Committee I give below a list of shelters which have not yet been demolished :—

  • Morden Road (Deer Park Gardens).
  • Commonside West.
  • Commonside East.
  • Manor Road.
  • Rowan Road.
  • Figges Marsh S.
  • Figges Marsh N.
  • Manship Road.
  • Moffatt Gardens.
  • Cranmer Road.
  • Fair Green.
  • Carshalton Road.

Home Office sanction to the making safe of the shelters has just been received and negotiations are proceeding with the contractors, Messrs. J. Sullivan, Ltd., whose tender (in the sum of £603 15s.) was forwarded, in July, to the Home Office for approval.

Personal note: I remember in the mid 1960s the air raid shelters at the southern end of Figges Marsh and on the north side of Cranmer Road near the junction with Carshalton Road.

Mitcham Workhouse Wall

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The last part of the crenellated wall from the Mitcham Workhouse on Mitcham Common has been demolished. This clip from the Tom Francis collection, available on Merton Memories, is from 1895 and shows the wall when the site was occupied by the Woodite company.

Clip from Merton Memories photo 33222, copyright London Borough of Merton.

These photos were taken on 5th July 2017, in Windmill Road, near the corner with Commonside East:

The Manager of Mitcham Common said in July 2017:

It’s my understanding that the remaining wall is unstable and will shortly be demolished and replaced by a wall and fence design very similar to the one that exists along the southern and eastern boundaries of The Meadows estate.

As far as I’m aware there was no condition placed on the planning consent which required the developer to maintain the extant crenellated wall.

The new wall was photographed on 6th September, 2017: