Editing Wimbledon, London (section)

==History==
===Early history===
[[File:West end of Caesar's Camp, Wimbledon Common. - geograph.org.uk - 20689.jpg|thumb|Remains of the ditch between the two main ramparts of the Iron Age hill fort]]
Wimbledon has been inhabited since at least the [[Iron Age]] when the [[hill fort]] on [[Wimbledon Common]], the second-largest in London,<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=52MDAAAAYAAJ&q=Wimbledon+Common&pg=PA29 |title=The parks, gardens, etc., of London and its suburbs, described and illustrated, for the guidance of strangers|author=Edward Kemp|page=29 |publisher=John Weale, 1851 |access-date=20 February 2011 |author-link=Edward Kemp (landscape architect)|year=1851}}</ref> is thought to have been constructed. The original [[nucleated village|nucleus]] of Wimbledon was at the top of the hill close to the common – the area now known locally as "the village".

The village is referred to as "Wimbedounyng" in a charter signed by [[Edgar of England|King Edgar the Peaceful]] in 967. The name Wimbledon means "Wynnman's hill", with the final element of the name being the Celtic "dun" (hill).<ref>Room, Adrian: "Dictionary of Place-Names in the British Isles", Bloomsbury, 1988</ref> The name is shown on J. Cary's 1786 map of the London area as "Wimbleton", and the current spelling appears to have been settled on relatively recently in the early 19th century, the last in a long line of variations.

At the time the [[Domesday Book]] was compiled (around 1086), Wimbledon was part of the [[Manorialism|manor]] of [[Mortlake]], and so was not recorded.<ref name="Wimbledon">{{cite web |url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=45395 |title=Wimbledon |work=British History Online |publisher=british-history.ac.uk |access-date=21 February 2011 |archive-date=29 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110629193818/http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=45395 |url-status=dead }}</ref> The ownership of the manor of Wimbledon changed hands many times during its history. The manor was held by the church until 1398 when [[Thomas Arundel]], [[Archbishop of Canterbury]] fell out of favour with [[Richard II of England|Richard II]] and was exiled. The manor was confiscated and became crown property.

The manor remained crown property until the reign of [[Henry VIII]] when it was granted briefly to [[Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex|Thomas Cromwell]], [[Earl of Essex]], until Cromwell was executed in 1540 and the land was again confiscated. The manor was next held by Henry VIII's last wife and widow [[Catherine Parr]] until her death in 1548 when it again reverted to the monarch.

In the 1550s, Henry's daughter, [[Mary I of England|Mary I]], granted the manor to [[cardinal (Catholicism)|Cardinal]] [[Reginald Pole]] who held it until his death in 1558 when it once again become royal property. Mary's sister, [[Elizabeth I]] held the property until 1574 when she gave the manor house (but not the manor) to [[Christopher Hatton]], who sold it in the same year to [[Thomas Cecil, 1st Earl of Exeter|Sir Thomas Cecil]], [[Earl of Exeter]]. The lands of the manor were given to the Cecil family in 1588 and a new manor house, [[Wimbledon Manor House|Wimbledon Palace]], was constructed and gardens laid out in the formal [[Elizabethan]] style.

===17th century===
Wimbledon's proximity to the capital was beginning to attract other wealthy families. In 1613 Robert Bell, Master of the [[Worshipful Company of Girdlers]] and a director of the [[British East India Company]] built Eagle House as a home at an easy distance from London. The Cecil family retained the manor for fifty years, before it was bought by [[Charles I of England|Charles I]] in 1638 for his Queen, [[Henrietta Maria]].

Following the [[Execution of Charles I|King's execution]] in 1649, the manor passed rapidly among various [[roundhead|parliamentarian]] owners, including the [[Leeds (UK Parliament constituency)|Leeds]] [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Member of Parliament]] (MP) [[Adam Baynes]] and the [[English Civil War|civil war]] general [[John Lambert (general)|John Lambert]]; Lambert drafted the [[Instrument of Government]], the founding document of [[the Protectorate]], at Wimbledon. After the [[English Restoration|restoration of the monarchy]] in 1660, it was returned to Henrietta Maria (now as mother of the new King, [[Charles II of England|Charles II]]).

The [[Dowager Queen]] sold the manor in 1661 to [[George Digby, 2nd Earl of Bristol]], who employed [[John Evelyn]] to improve and update the landscape in accordance with the latest fashions, including [[grotto]]s and fountains. After his death in 1677, the manor was sold again to the [[Lord High Treasurer]], [[Thomas Osborne, 1st Duke of Leeds|Thomas Osborne]], [[Duke of Leeds|Earl of Danby]].

[[File:Stmaryswimbledonsw19.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[St Mary's Church, Wimbledon|St Mary's Church]]]]

===18th century===
The Osborne family sold the manor to [[Sir Theodore Janssen, 1st Baronet|Sir Theodore Janssen]] in 1712. Janssen, a director of the [[South Sea Company]], began a new house to replace the one built by the Cecils, but the spectacular collapse of the company meant it was never finished.

The next owner was [[Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough]], who increased the land belonging to the manor and completed the construction of a house to replace Jansen's unfinished effort in 1735. On her death in 1744, the property passed to her grandson, John Spencer, and subsequently to the first [[Earl Spencer (peerage)|Earl Spencer]].

The village continued to grow and the 18th-century introduction of [[stagecoach]] services from the ''Dog and Fox'' made the journey to London routine, although not without the risk of being held-up by [[Highwayman|highwaymen]], such as [[Jerry Abershawe]] on the [[Portsmouth]] Road. The stagecoach horses would be stabled at the rear of the pub in what are now named Wimbledon Village Stables.

The 1735 manor house burnt down in the 1780s and was replaced in 1801 by Wimbledon Park House, built by the [[George Spencer, 2nd Earl Spencer|second Earl]]. At the time the manor estate included Wimbledon Common (as a [[Heath (habitat)|heath]]) and the enclosed parkland around the manor house. Its area corresponded to the modern [[Wimbledon Park]]. The house stood east of [[St Mary's Church, Wimbledon|St Mary's church]].

Wimbledon House, a separate residence close to the village at the south end of Parkside (near Peek Crescent), was home in the 1790s to the exiled French statesman [[Charles Alexandre de Calonne|Vicomte de Calonne]], and later to the mother of the writer [[Frederick Marryat]]. Their association with the area is recorded in the names of nearby Calonne and Marryat roads. Directly south of the common, the early 18th-century Warren House ([[Cannizaro park|Cannizaro House]] from 1841) was home to a series of grand residents.

===19th-century development===
[[File:Wimbledon map.jpg|thumb|Wimbledon section of [[Edward Stanford]]'s 1871 map of London]]

The first decades of the 19th century were relatively quiet for Wimbledon, with a stable rural population coexisting alongside nobility and wealthy merchants from the city. Renewed upheaval came in 1838, when the opening of the [[London and South Western Railway]] (L&SWR) brought a station to the south-east of the village, at the bottom of Wimbledon Hill. The location of the station shifted the focus of the town's subsequent growth away from the original village centre.

For several years Wimbledon Park was leased to the [[Edward St Maur, 11th Duke of Somerset|Duke of Somerset]], who briefly in the 1820s employed a young [[Joseph Paxton]] as one of his gardeners, but in the 1840s the Spencer family sold the park off as building land. A period of residential development began with large detached houses in the north of the park. In 1864, the Spencers attempted to get parliamentary permission<ref name=Gazette1>{{London Gazette |date=25 November 1864 |issue=22915 |pages=5834–5835}}</ref> to [[enclosure|enclose]] the common as a new park with a house and gardens and to sell part for building. Following an enquiry, permission was refused and a board of conservators was established in 1871 to take ownership of the common and preserve it in its natural condition.<ref name=Gazette2>{{London Gazette |date=25 November 1870 |issue=23682 |pages=5244–5245}}</ref><ref name=Gazette3>{{London Gazette |date=18 August 1871 |issue=23768 |page=3643}}</ref>

In the second half of the century, Wimbledon experienced a very rapid expansion of its population. From under 2,700 residents recorded in the 1851 census, the population grew by a minimum of 60 per cent each decade up to 1901, to increase fifteen-fold in fifty years. Large numbers of villas and terraced houses were built along the roads from the centre towards neighbouring Putney, [[Merton Park]] and [[Raynes Park]].

Transport links improved further with railway lines to Croydon (Wimbledon and Croydon Railway, opened in 1855) and Tooting (Tooting, Merton and Wimbledon Railway, opened in 1868). The [[District Railway]] (now the [[London Underground]] [[District line]]) extended its service over new tracks from Putney in 1889.

The commercial and civic development of the town also accelerated. Ely's [[department store]] opened in 1876 and shops began to stretch along Broadway towards Merton. Wimbledon built its first police station in 1870. Cultural developments included a Literary Institute by the early 1860s and the opening of Wimbledon Library in 1887. The religious needs of the growing population led to an [[Anglican]] church-building programme, starting with the rebuilding of St Mary's Church in 1849 and the construction of Christ Church (1859) and Trinity Church (1862).

Street names reflect events: Denmark Road, Denmark Avenue and the ''Alexandra'' pub on Wimbledon Hill mark the marriage of [[Edward VII|Edward, Prince of Wales]], to Princess [[Alexandra of Denmark]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.wimbledonguardian.co.uk/news/10267280.heritage-wimbledons-danish-link-and-where-our-pub-names-come-from/|title=Wimbledon's Danish link and where our pub names come from|website=Wimbledon Times|date=8 March 2013 |access-date=11 June 2022}}</ref>

The change of character of Wimbledon from village to small town was recognised under the [[Local Government Act 1894]], which formed Wimbledon Urban District with an elected [[Local Government in the United Kingdom|council]].

===Modern history===
[[File:ISH Wimbledon3.jpg|thumb|left|Wimbledon Hill Road, looking north-west from Wimbledon Bridge]]
[[File:Old Town Hall, Wimbledon (geograph 1919455).jpg|thumb|[[Wimbledon Town Hall]], now a shopping centre]]
Wimbledon's population continued to grow in the early 20th century, as was recognised in 1905, when the urban district was incorporated as the [[Municipal Borough of Wimbledon]], with the power to select a mayor.<ref name="gazette27798"/>

By 1910, Wimbledon had established the beginnings of the [[Wimbledon School of Art]] at the Gladstone Road Technical Institute and acquired its first cinema and the theatre. Unusually, the facilities at its opening included [[Victorian Turkish baths|Victorian-style Turkish baths]].<ref>[http://www.victorianturkishbath.org/_6DIRECTORY/AtoZEstab/London/Wimbl/1WimblEng.htm Wimbledon Turkish Bath].</ref>

By the 1930s, residential expansion had peaked in Wimbledon and the new focus for local growth had moved to neighbouring [[Morden]], which had remained rural until the arrival of the Underground at [[Morden tube station|Morden station]] in 1926. [[Wimbledon station]] was rebuilt by the [[Southern Railway (UK)|Southern Railway]] with a simple Portland stone facade for the opening of a new railway branch line from Wimbledon to [[Sutton railway station (London)|Sutton]] in 1930.

In 1931, the council built a new red brick and [[Portland stone]] [[Wimbledon Town Hall|Town Hall]] next to the station, on the corner of Queen's Road and Wimbledon Bridge. The architects were [[Bradshaw Gass & Hope]].

[[File:Centre court.jpg|thumb|right|Centre Court Shopping Centre]]

Damage to housing stock in Wimbledon and other parts of London during [[World War II]] led to a final major building phase when many earlier Victorian houses with large grounds in Wimbledon Park were sub-divided into flats or demolished and replaced with apartment blocks. Other parts of Wimbledon Park, which had previously escaped being built upon, saw local authority estates constructed by the borough council, to house some of those who had lost their homes.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Wimbledon town centre struggled to compete commercially with more developed centres at [[Kingston upon Thames|Kingston]] and [[Sutton, London|Sutton]]. Part of the problem was the shortage of locations for large anchor stores to attract customers. After some years in which the council seemed unable to find a solution, The [[Centre Court (shopping centre)|Centre Court shopping centre]] was developed on land next to the station, providing a much-needed focus, and opened in 1990.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.merton.gov.uk/assets/Documents/FW%20SPD%20Jan%202020%20LR.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201110102805/https://www.merton.gov.uk/assets/Documents/FW%20SPD%20Jan%202020%20LR.pdf |archive-date=10 November 2020 |url-status=live|title=Future Wimbledon: Supplementary Planning Document|publisher=Merton Council|access-date=15 April 2021}}</ref> The shopping centre incorporated the old town hall building. A new portico, in keeping with the old work, was designed by Sir [[George Grenfell Baines|George Grenfell-Baines]], who had worked on the original designs over fifty years before.