Lyttelton's Britain (3 page)

T
HE
S
OUTH
L
ONDON
suburb of Croydon boasts a rich and varied history. Croydon was first noted as the London residence of the Archbishops of Canterbury, who lived at Addington Palace. When the palace needed to be refurbished in 1807, the Archbishop asked for Capability Brown, but the General Synod decreed he should have Dulux Satin El Paso Beige.

In 1953 Addington Palace became the home of the Royal College of Music, where they pioneered the use of hypnosis for the treatment of those performers who suffered stage fright. At their first concert, the conductor proudly counted his orchestra in, and the entire string section fell into a deep sleep.

Still preserved in the centre of Croydon are its famous Elizabethan Whitgift almshouses. When they were opened in 1599, the mayor proclaimed there was free food and shelter and invited the town’s poor, needy and impotent. Well, the poor and the needy arrived, but the impotent couldn’t come.

Croydon’s ancient parish church was rebuilt by the architect Giles Gilbert-Scott, who famously also designed our traditional red telephone boxes. Sadly Gilbert-Scott died before completion, but as a mark of respect at his funeral, male mourners patiently waited their turn to urinate in his tomb.

In the early 19th Century, Croydon was established as a suburb for middle-class commuters working in the city. And
when the East Croydon Railway opened in May 1839, its service reached London Bridge Station in 15 minutes. Just the once.

London’s first international aerodrome opened nearby soon after the First World War. However, by the 1950s it was realised that Croydon Airport was too small. A study was undertaken which proved the airport to be hopelessly unable to cope with either London’s modern air traffic or passenger numbers, and was therefore judged: ‘perfect’.

Long before Charles Darwin’s studies, a noted local biologist named Alfred Russell Wallace came up with an early theory of evolution. It was Wallace who coined the phrases ‘natural selection’ and ‘survival of the fittest’, to which, when Darwin’s book was published, he added ‘thieving bastard’.

Other famous names associated with Croydon include that of Matthew Fisher, the former keyboard player with Procul Harem. In a landmark court case in 2007, Fisher was judged to have been co-writer of their record ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’, and so immediately sought leave to appeal.

The cricketer Mark Butcher is from Croydon. Having played county cricket for Surrey for several seasons, in 1997 Butcher was selected to play test matches for England. After a few games, he became plagued by injury, his form declined badly and he was promoted to captain.

The international basketball player Luol Deng lives in Croydon. He arrived in South Norwood in 1998 as a young boy with his family, refugees fleeing civil war in Sudan. The family spent an uncertain six months applying for asylum before the Home Office agreed the situation there was so bad, they should be allowed to leave South Norwood.

Croydon’s Fairfield Halls found national fame as the home of professional wrestling. When ITV decided to stop broadcasting wrestling, the Fairfield Halls claimed they were badly hurt by the loss of revenue, but they weren’t really. More recently the Fairfield Halls appeared briefly in the movie of the
Da Vinci Code
. The halls and surrounding area were used to depict Notre Dame Cathedral and the Isle de la Cité in Paris, making that scene amongst the most convincing in the whole film.

Croydon is noted as home to the first ever self-service Sainsbury’s in England. When its doors opened in February 1958, thousands of Croydon’s eager residents rushed in to clear the shelves of an unimagined range of goods, thus heralding the golden age of shoplifting.

The winner of ‘Weight Watcher of the Year’, 1967, leaving Croydon Town Hall

W
IMBLEDON
is a vibrant borough located at the very heart of London’s glitzy outskirts. It also has a rich and vibrant history.

The original village first became known in Tudor times, when, in 1587, the Earl of Exeter established the Royal College of Tennis in Wimbledon in an attempt to fulfil Queen Elizabeth I’s wish to see an English player compete in a singles final. It is obviously far too soon to say whether his efforts will be rewarded. The Earl himself, however, did go on to achieve his ambition of entering Queens.

Wimbledon village and 400 acres of prime land were under the ownership of the Cecil family until 1638, when King Charles I bought the property as a birthday present for his wife, Henrietta Maria. Sadly, it was not only the wrong size and colour, but it also made her bum look big.

In Regency times, the village became a fashionable haunt for the likes of Lady Hamilton, who scandalised polite society with her many suitors. This held dire consequences for Lord Nelson when he wagered drunkenly at the gaming table: ‘If Lady Hamilton isn’t completely faithful to me, and me alone, you can pull my arm off and poke me in the eye with it.’

In Victorian times, both Liberty and William Morris produced fabrics in Wimbledon, while Lord Cardigan fought a duel on
the common to promote his range of popular knitwear. Subsequently he went on to manufacture the cosy woollen headgear developed during the Crimean War which he named in memory of the Battle of Bobble Hat.

One of the most infamous duels to be fought on Wimbledon Common was in 1803 when the town’s MP, Sir Francis Burdett, was challenged by the Duke of York. Burdett was offered the choice of rapier or pistol, and, as an accomplished swordsman, chose the rapier. It didn’t do him much good. The Duke chose the pistol.

May Sutton, the first foreign player to win at Wimbledon

By the 1890s, Wimbledon was well established as a commuter town, with regular horse buses running to the city. However, when the electric tramline arrived in 1907, the horses went to London on that instead.

Wimbledon is probably most famous for its tennis tournament, which began in 1877. Until 1905, players were exclusively English, but then a 14-year-old American girl, May Sutton, was allowed an entry and, at her first attempt, won the Ladies’ Singles, the Men’s Singles, the Men’s Doubles, the Ladies’ Doubles, the Mixed Doubles and the Meat Raffle.

During the war, Wimbledon’s Centre Court was dug over as
part of the ‘dig for victory’ campaign, and groundsmen report that vegetables occasionally pop up even to this day. A small turnip which appeared on the baseline in 1998 was blamed for putting Tim Henman out of the quarter finals, when it beat him three sets to love.

In 1985 Boris Becker created a record when he became the first unseeded player to win the men’s title. Becker’s last match was in 1999, when he was again unseeded, this time by a Russian model in a broom cupboard.

The inventor of the milk carton, Arthur Reynolds, had a small mill in Wimbledon producing cardboard. After devising the new carton, Reynold’s business expanded rapidly and he built a large, new factory and warehouse. Sadly, he died at the grand opening, when half the contents spilled out on top of him.

During the 1960s, the French philosopher and dramatist Jean-Paul Sartre came to live and work in Wimbledon. An exponent of atheistic existentialism, it was during his time in the borough that Sartre wrote
Les Chemins de la Liberté
and
Les Wombles de la Commonne de Wimbledon
. He left England shortly after, complaining he’d been plagiarised by a TV series, called
Les Chemins de la Liberté de Noddy et Big Ears
.

Wimbledon was also the birthplace of Samuel Cunard, of shipping line fame. Cunard left school at the age of 12 but could find no work. Finding an abandoned rowing boat on the Thames at Mortlake, he repaired it and began ferrying passengers across for a penny a time. With the cash he bought more old rowing boats and patched them up, until after twenty years of tirelessly repairing and rowing, working sixteen-hour days, seven days a week, Cunard’s rich uncle died and left him a shipping line.

R
ICHMOND
is one of London’s most outlying boroughs, situated as it is in North Yorkshire. This interesting community was described in 1945 by the British Council Guide as: ‘the most typically British town’. Bearing in mind that in 1945 most British towns had typically been reduced to rubble, this is some compliment indeed. Richmond today is a thriving, bustling place mainly concerned as it is with the thriving bustle manufacturing industry.

Just across the River Thames from the town proper, is the site now famous as the place where it was decided Henry VIII would have his magnificent Hampton Court. On hearing this, the Royal Tailor thought to put an extra gusset in Henry’s new trousers. Henry took the Palace from Wolsey to provide a home for his new wife Anne Boleyn. However, she was never comfortable there, complaining that the ceilings were too low. Structural alterations were found to be impossible, as the building was Grade II listed by the English Council for the Preservation of Modern Buildings, and so the king took the only alternative, which was to have Anne Boleyn shortened by a foot or so.

H
AMMERSMITH
is the West London borough boasting a certain amount of history. Actually, the very name ‘Hammersmith’ has an interesting derivation. Local historians have discovered it comes from an early Saxon word ‘Hamm-oder-stythe’, which literally means ‘Hammersmith’. Early in 2008, archaeologists had to be summoned when repair work on the A4 slip road unearthed evidence of a pre-Christian pagan temple of unusual provenance. Believing their rituals would bring them fertility and favour from their pagan gods, ancient Hammersmith peasants in tall, pointed masks waved flaming torches as they danced around naked virgins smeared with the blood of freshly slaughtered swans. Obviously, the archaeologists had to ask them to stop while they looked at the temple.