COMMONS 6? 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 
