206 LONDON PARKS © GARDENS 
appear larger than Tooting, which is really only io acres 
less, but of more rambling shape. The Common has 
suffered much less than most of its neighbours from 
enclosures. It was shared between two manors, Battersea 
and Clapham, and the rival lords and commonalities, each 
jealous of their own special rights, were more careful to 
prevent encroachments than was often the case. At one 
time Battersea went so far as to dig a great ditch to 
prevent the cattle of the Clapham people coming into 
its part of the ground. The other parish resisted and 
filled up the ditch, and was sued for trespass by Battersea, 
which, however, lost its case—this ended in 1718. The 
Common has an air of dignified respectability, and is still 
surrounded with some solid old-fashioned houses, although 
modern innovations have destroyed a great number of 
them. A nice old buttressed wall, over which ilex trees 
show their heads, and suggest possibilities of a shady 
lawn, carries one back to the time when Pepys retired 
to Clapham to “ a very noble house and sweete place, 
where he enjoyed the fruite of his labour in great 
prosperity ”; or to the days when Wilberforce lived 
there, and he, together with the other workers in the 
same cause, Clarkson, Granville Sharp, and Zachary 
Macaulay, used to meet at the house of John Thornton 
by the Common. 
There is nothing wild now about the Common, and 
the numbers of paths which intersect it are edged by high 
iron railings, to prevent the entire wearing away of the 
grass. The beauty of the ground is its trees. They 
proclaim it to be an old and honoured open space, and 
not a modern creation. Only one tree has any pretentions 
to historical interest, having been planted by the eldest son 
of Captain Cook the explorer, but only a stump remains. 
