102 THE BRIGHTON ROAD 



Streatham — the Ham (that is to say the home, or 

 the hamlet) on the Street — emphatically in those 

 Saxon times when it first obtained its name, the Street 

 — was probably so named to distinguish it from some 

 other settlement situated in the mud. In that era, 

 when hard roads were few, a paved way could be, and 

 very often was, made to stand godfather to a place, 

 and thus we find so many Streatleys, Stratfords, 

 Strattons, Streets, and Stroods on the map. Those 

 " streets " were Roman roads. The particular " street " 

 on which Streatham stood seems to have been a Roman 

 road which came up from the coast by Clayton, St. 

 John's Common, Godstone, and Caterham, a branch 

 of the road to Portus Adumi, the Old Shoreham of 

 to-day. Portions of it were discovered in 1780, on 

 St. John's Common, when the Brighton turnpike road 

 through that place was under construction. It was 

 from 18 to 20 feet wide, and composed of a bed of 

 flints, grouted together, 8 inches thick. Narrowly 

 avoiding Croydon, it reached Streatham by way of 

 Waddon (where there is one of the many " Cold 

 Harbours ' associated so intimately with Roman 

 roads) and joined the present Brighton Road midway 

 between Croydon and Thornton Heath Pond, at what 

 used to be Broad Green. 



There are no Roman remains at twentieth-century 

 Streatham, and there are very few even of the 

 eighteenth century. The suburbs have absorbed the 

 village, and Dr. Johnson himself and Thrale Place are 

 only memories. " All flesh is grass," said the Preacher, 

 and therefore Dr. Johnson, whose bulky figure we may 

 put at the equivalent of a truss of hay, is of course but 

 an historic name ; but bricks and mortar last 

 immeasurably longer than those who rear them, and 

 his haunts might have been still extant but for the 

 tragical nearness of Streatham to London and that 

 " ripeness " of land for building which has abolished 

 many a pleasant and an historic spot. 



But while the broad Common of Streatham remains 

 unfenced, the place will keep a vestige of its old-time 



