COMMONS & OPEN SPACES 207 



The ponds are the distinctive feature of the Common, 

 and there are several of them dotted about, the joy of 

 boys for bathing and boat-sailing. The origin of most 

 of them has been gravel pits dug in early days. There 

 is the Cock Pond near the church, the Long Pond, the 

 Mount Pond, and the Eagle House Pond, some of them 

 fairly large. The Mount Pond was at one time nearly 

 lost to the Common, as about 1748 a Mr. Henton 

 Brown, who had a house close by, and who kept a boat 

 on the water, obtained leave to fence it in for his own 

 private gratification. It was not until others followed 

 Mr. Brown's example, and further encroachments began 

 to frighten the parish, that it repented of having let in 

 the thin end of the wedge. A committee was formed 

 to watch over the interests of the Common lands, and 

 took away Mr. Brown's privileges ; but in spite of their 

 vigilance other pieces were from time to time taken away. 

 A little group of houses by the Windmill Inn are on 

 the site of one of these shavings off the area, for a house 

 called Windmill Place. The church was built on^ a 

 corner of the Common in 1774, and has a peaceful, solid, 

 dignified appearance, standing among fine old elms and 

 away from the din of trams, which rush in all directions 

 from the corner hard by. It was built to replace an 

 older parish church, which was described as "a mean 

 edifice, without a steeple" by a writer of the eighteenth 

 century, who admired the "elegant" one which took its 

 place. The present generation would hardly apply that 

 epithet to the massive Georgian edifice, but it seems to 

 suit its surroundings: substantial and unostentatious, 

 recalling memories of the evangelical revival, it seems an 

 essential part of the Common and its history. 



Away to the south-west of Clapham lies Tooting 



