Putney Vale

Description

Political geography

Putney Vale is part of the London Borough of Wandsworth and is currently within Roehampton ward and Putney Parliamentary constituency. In the Church of England, it has been a part of Roehampton parish since its separation from Putney parish in 1845.

Housing

Most of the housing is provided by an estate built in the mid-1950s, on land originally earmarked for a possible cemetery extension. It consists of local authority-built (mainly duplex, four-storey) maisonettes and short terraces. Many homes are now privately owned, with the balance owned and let by the Borough. The estate's curved access road, Stag Lane, has a row of shops.

There is further privately owned housing beside the A3, and on Friars Avenue – built in 1983 – adjacent to playing fields and Wimbledon Common.

Amenities

The non-denominational Putney Vale Cemetery and Crematorium, in which a number of well-known people are buried, is north and east of the housing estate. Covering 47 acres, it was established in 1891 and the crematorium in 1938.

Beaver's Holt Primary School on the estate was closed in 1992 due to falling roll numbers. It was then sold to the private Hall School Wimbledon to house its junior branch. In 2019 the site was sold to Thomas's London Day Schools to provide further teaching space for all four of its preparatory schools.

Kingston University's Roehampton Vale campus is situated beside the A3. It has facilities for students on engineering courses.

Shortly before the First World War, 175 acres were added to Wimbledon Common, including much of Newlands Farm, which had been here since the Middle Ages. The extension also created extensive playing fields at Putney Vale named the Richardson Evans Memorial Playing Fields in honour of the scheme's sponsor, Richardson Evans.

Allotment fruit and vegetable gardens, let by the Borough, are to the south-west of the housing estate.

An Asda superstore is situated beside the A3.

History

The lower part of Putney Vale, nearer Beverley Brook, was known as Putney Bottom until the mid-nineteenth century.

There are four Wimbledon Common rangers' cottages on Stag Lane and Friars Avenue. On the north east side of the playing fields, Stag Lane becomes a track called Kings Ride. The origin of the Kings Ride name is believed to date from when Henry VIII, while chasing deer from Richmond Park would pursue them onto the common before the wall to the park was built.

The first significant building in Putney Vale was the Halfway House, later the Bald Faced Stag, an Inn established about 1650 on the corner of Stags lane and the Portsmouth Road (now the A3).

In 1912 Kenelm Lee Guinness, a member of the brewing dynasty and a motor racer, acquired the by-then disused Bald Faced Stag inn, where he developed a more efficient sparking plug for use in car and aircraft engines. Small-scale production began at the former inn, and by 1914 Guinness was producing 4,000 plugs a week. The First World War led to an increase in demand, and in 1916 the company was incorporated as KLG. In 1917 larger premises, known as the Robin Hood Engineering Works, were opened to the east of the old premises. This employed over 1,200 mainly women workers, making the factory the largest employer in the area.

In 1919 Guinness sold the firm's distribution rights to S. Smith & Sons. In the inter-war years KLG sparking plugs made at Putney Vale were used in the majority of British cars. This included Henry Segrave's Golden Arrow and Malcolm Campbell's Blue Bird series, which set world land speed records.

Surroundings

Beyond relatively large green buffers – playing fields, a golf course, Richmond Park, Wimbledon Common and Putney Heath – and beyond adjoining Roehampton Vale, are:

• Roehampton Village
• Putney
• Kingston Vale, with Norbiton and Kingston upon Thames beyond
• Copse Hill, associated with Raynes Park
• Coombe Hill or Coombe, associated with New Malden
• Wimbledon Park, associated with Wimbledon Village

References

References

1. Garton Ash, Timothy. (8 December 2019). "On the streets of a marginal seat, I've seen how remain disunity could seal Brexit". [[The Guardian]].
2. (1912). "A History of the County of Surrey: Volume 4. Parishes: Putney". Chapman & Hall. (Republished online: Institute of Historical Research).
3. (2 March 2021). "Putney Vale, Wandsworth".
4. [http://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/Home/CommunityServices/Cemeteries/default.htm Wandsworth Borough Council website] {{webarchive. link. (8 November 2008)
5. Boggan, Steve. (7 September 1992). "Wandsworth school 'deal' angers residents". [[The Independent]].
6. (3 March 2021). "Thomas's Schools: History, 2019".
7. (17 April 2021). "Roehampton Vale campus".
8. (28 June 2021). "Richardson Evans Memorial Playing Fields".
9. (2021). "Putney Vale Allotments".
10. (1903). "The Fascination of London: Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney". A & C Black.
11. Early references to ''Putney Vale'' include property notices on front page of [[Morning Herald]]: 24 Nov 1849, 14 June 1850.
12. Donnelly, Tom. (2013). "[[Dictionary of National Biography#Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". Oxford University Press.
13. In 1927 ''Smith & Sons'' bought ''KLG'' and in the 1930s built a new spark plug factory, in an [[Art Deco]] style, on the Putney Vale site. The factory was demolished in 1989 and replaced by an Asda [[Big-box store. Brooklands Motor Museum]].''Staines & Ashford News''. 'Museum gets ''KLG'' gates.' 16 February 1989, page 8.