Tag Archives: Streatham Road

Christ Church, Colliers Wood

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sketch of the church from the May 1926 issue of their magazine

Church, on Christchurch Road, which was built in 1874.

Its address is 58 Christchurch Rd, Colliers Wood, London SW19 2NY

It was originally in the Mitcham parish and was built to cater for the increasing population in north Mitcham. The area covered by the church was described in the London Gazette, see District Chapelry of Christ Church.

From The Builder magazine, 4th July 1874:

Church-Building News
Mitcham.

The new church at Singleton has been consecrated by the Bishop of Winchester. The edifice, which containes 550 sittings, has been built from designs by Messrs. Francis, of London, the total cost being £4,283. The chief part of this sum has been the joint contribution of Mr and Mrs Harris, of Gorringe Park, Mitcham, who have also erected, at their sole cost, a parsonage and mission-room, on the adjoining ground. The amount of their gift is between £6,000 and £7,000. The site has been in part the gift of Emanuel College.

Note the spelling Singleton should have been Singlegate.

Eric Montague said, in his book Mitcham Histories 2 : North Mitcham, page 93, that in 1968, on his suggestion, the chapelry boundary stone that was in Streatham Road, opposite the east lodge of Gorringe Park House, be moved to the church for safe keeping.

In this OS map of 1895, the church was surrounded by fields, with watercress beds opposite.

1895 OS map

See also the history of Christ Church on the church’s website.

Photos taken 15th April, 2019

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

Framfield Road

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Framfield Road is off the west side of Streatham Road opposite The Driftway. It leads into St James’s Road. The reason for the name is unknown, however next to it is Uckfield Grove, and the town of Uckfield in Sussex has a town of Framfield two miles to the east of it.

Possibly built around 1928 as in that year mortgages were provided by the Mitcham Urban District Council, under the Small Dwellings Acquisitions Act, for houses valued at £625 each.

As approached from the Streatham Road end, the houses on the left are arranged in blocks of six, numbered odd from 1 to 107. On the right side the houses are numbered even from 2 to 88. Extra houses were built on plots near the St James’s Road end that had garages. A number of houses have since been divided into flats.

The Royal Mail website says that there three postcodes in use in this road, namely CR4 2AL, 2AU and 2AW.

News Items

From the Manchester Evening News – Monday 11th January 1943, via the British Newspaper Archive

Home Guard Fell in River At Night

While two Home Guards were patrolling on the Thames quayside at Wandsworth, one of them, William Edward Field (41), of Framfield Road, Mitcham, fell into the river in the darkness and was drowned.

At the Battersea inquest to-day the Coroner (Mr. Hervey Wyatt) recorded a verdict of accidental death. He said that Field’s companion, Ernest William Horsman, who climbed down a wire and made two unsuccessful rescue attempts, had every reason to congratulate himself on his fine effort to help his friend.

According to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission entry for W.E. FIELD, he was in the 52nd County of London (Wandsworth Gas Co.) Battalion of the Home Guard. He was the son of Edward and Daisy Field, of Mitcham and husband of Elsie Catherine Field, of Mitcham. Although his grave is in the London Road Cemetery, it is not in the ‘War Graves’ section that has the graves of the local Home Guard that died in 1941. It is in plot 9, which is near the Victoria Road entrance.

Edward Pullen gets MBE in 1961 but missed DCM in 1916