Old Map of South West London in 1862 by Edward Stanford - Wimbledon, Merton, Summerstown

This sheet belongs to the same series of large-scale London district maps that Edward Stanford's Charing Cross firm was producing throughout the 1860s, each one covering a different slice of the rapidly growing capital in enough detail to show individual streets, commons, and estates. The southwestern sheet takes in ground that in 1862 was still only lightly built up, a mix of villages, market gardens, and open common land some distance from the crowded terraces further into London, though the railway had already reached the area and change was clearly coming.

Wimbledon appears centred on its historic common, still decades away from the tennis championships that would make its name famous worldwide, while Merton is shown around the site of the medieval Merton Priory and the calico-printing and hat-making works that had grown up along the River Wandle. Summerstown, a small riverside hamlet on the Wandle between Wimbledon and Tooting, sits quietly on the sheet much as it had for generations, and the map also takes in Mitcham with its lavender fields and Tooting Common further to the east.

Local historians and residents of Wimbledon, Merton, and the Wandle valley will find this an interesting record of the area shortly before suburban housing spread across it in earnest, while collectors of the Stanford district series can pair it with the neighbouring South East and Notting Hill sheets to build a fuller picture of Victorian London's edges. The map is reproduced at high resolution to retain its fine detail and is available in multiple sizes for wherever you'd like it displayed.