CHAPTER VI. 



Plum stead and Tooting Commons. 



In the following year, 1871, decisions were arrived at 

 in the Courts with respect to two other Commons, 

 where inclosure had been effected shortly after the 

 Committee of 1865. The Plumstead Commons, though 

 little known as compared with Hampstead and others, 

 are of great importance to London, by reason of their 

 propinquity to the great working population of Wool- 

 wich and Deptford. They consist of three open spaces 

 Plumstead Common, of 110 acres; Bostall Heath, of 

 55 acres; and Shoulder of Mutton Green, of 5 acres. 

 They are all parts of the waste of the Manor of 

 Plumstead, and had existed in their present condition, 

 little reduced in area, from the earliest times. Bostall 

 Heath is a specially beautiful spot. It forms part of 

 the brow of high table-land which overlooks the Thames 

 Marshes below Plumstead. Its elevation gives it 

 command of a very extensive prospect of the valley 

 and shipping of the Thames, from Woolwich to Erith. 

 The summit is a bare flat of dry gravelly soil, high 

 and breezy. The surface soil had been nearly all 

 carried off, and what remained was a pebbly gravel, 

 covered with furze or stunted heath. 



The Manor is mentioued in Domesday Book as 

 belonging in part to the Monastery of St. Augustine, 



