2o8 LONDON PARKS & GARDENS 



(why does the very name sound comic, and invariably 

 produce a laugh ?), another Common, nearly as large, and 

 much more wild and picturesque. Clapham is essentially 

 a town open space, like an overgrown village green ; but 

 on Tooting Common one can successfully play at being 

 in the country. The trees are quite patriarchal, and have 

 nothing suburban about them, except their blackened 

 stems. There are good spreading oaks and grand old 

 elms, gnarled thorns, tangles of brambles, and golden 

 gorse. The grass grows long, with stretches of mossy 

 turf, and has not the melancholy, down-trodden appear- 

 ance of Clapham or Peckham Rye. 



Fine elm avenues overshadow the main roads, and no 

 stiff paths with iron rails, take away from the rural effect. 

 Even the railway, which cuts across it in two directions, 

 has only disfigured and not completely spoilt the park- 

 like appearance. The disused gravel-pits, now filled with 

 water, have been enlarged since the London County Council 

 had possession ; and if only the banks could be left as wild 

 and natural, as nature is willing to make them, they may 

 be preserved from the inevitable stamp which marks every 

 municipal park. The smaller holes, excavated by virtue 

 of the former rights of digging gravel, and already over- 

 grown, assist rather than take away from the charms of 

 the Common. 



Tooting Common consists of two parts, belonging to 

 two ancient manors. The smallest is Tooting Graveney, 

 which derives its name from the De Gravenelle family, 

 who held the manor soon after the Conquest, on the 

 payment of a rose yearly at the feast of St. John the 

 Baptist. The larger half, Tooting Beck, takes its name 

 from the Abbey of Bee in Normandy, which was in 

 possession of the Manor from Domesday till 14 14, 



