208 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 1414, 
