Tag Archives: Mitcham Common

A letter from 1935 – an enjoyable week in Mitcham

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Dear Uncle Tom,

— At last I am writing to you again.

I have really been waiting until I had saved my 200 farthings, but it is surprising what a long time it takes. I had hoped to be able to send them long before this. I am looking forward to next summer as last year I had some lovely holidays. Very soon after we broke up I went to Mitcham for a week and did I enjoy myself? I should say so. I went out on the common every day and as it was so hot I saw a great many heath fires.

After this I spent another enjoyable week in Worthing, near Brighton, but best of all was the fortnight in Malines, Belgium.

I went to the Brussels Exhibition and spent the whole day there. It was all very interesting. Another day I went to Antwerp. I went over the river Scheldt in a boat and came back under the river through tunnel which was a mile long. I went into the Museum Steen and saw all the old-fashioned furniture and old implements of torture.

I also went into the dungeons underground, and in some of them only about three little holes as big as a penny were used to let air and light come in. When we had finished dinner we went the Zoo. I went to a great many other places besides but I have no time to tell you about them to-day.

Your loving niece, JUNE.
66, Dolphins Road,
Folkestone.

Source: Folkestone, Hythe, Sandgate & Cheriton Herald – Saturday 16 November 1935 from the British Newspaper Archive (subscription required)

Dust Destructor Chimney

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From the Mitcham and Tooting Advertiser, 15th September, 1955.

A LANDMARK familiar to thousands of Mitcham residents disappeared last Thursday with the felling of the 125 ft. high refuse destructor chimney at Phipps Bridge.

This was the first major step in clearing the area adjoining Homewood Road for Mitcham Corporation’s proposed £1,750,000 redevelopment scheme to house 636 families.

During the previous week-end, two steeplejack brothers Mr. Arthur Collard and Mr. John Collard. began work on what was for them the end of another chimney. By Thursday they had cut away half the 18-ft. wide base, leaving timber props in place of the 3-ft. 6-in. think brickwork.

At 2.26 p.m. the props, soaked in 20 gallons of paraffin, were set alight. As flames leapt high, the 21 year old chimney belched smoke for the last time. Nine minutes later, it heeled over with a muffled roar 460 tons of brickwork fell to the ground beneath a vast cloud of dust.

The deputy borough engineer, Mr. W. B. W. Wignall, and a number of Mitcham councillors, including the chairman of the Housing Committee, Ald. D. W. Chalkley, watched the chimney crash down a few yards from their feet.

“PERFECT DROP”

And from his New Close home which overlooks the site Mr. Tom Good, now in his seventies, saw the end of the chimney he had helped to build.

“It was a perfect drop.” said Mr. Arthur Collard. With him was Alec, his 13 year old son, “who always comes to watch the interesting jobs.”

Built in 1934, in the last year of the old Mitcham Urban District Council, the chimney and destructor cost £9,869. A council spokesman told “The Advertiser” afterwards: “It would probably cost three times that sum to build at present-day
costs.”

The destructor was last used at the beginning of 1953. The amount of refuse handled by the corporation had grown so much that it was decided to tip all refuse on Mitcham Common.