We discovered that the main road is roughly along the alignment of the old Roman Road from London to Brighton although no roman artefacts have been recovered in the area. Apparently the local church about a mile and a half up the road occupies a site where a church has stood since the the thirteenth century. Streatham apparently remained a small colection of buildings throughout the Middle Ages. A map from 1745 however shows a muber of interesting features.
Streatham Common was already a cleared open area of land. The Duke of Bedfordshire had a large mansion up the road opposite what was to become Streatham station and is now the site of a council estate. Up the road beside the Common was a large mansion house which was to become the home of the Tate family whose name is given to the Tate Galleries in London. Our plot shown in the red star was just farmland.
A map from 1857 shows that Streatham Common had now become bordered by roads and an India Rubber factory was in place up the road at what is now the local supermarket. (yellow arrow) The long building shown indistinctly between the labels on the map is still there and now houses some offices and the Sainbury Cafe. Our house was still just farmland (red arrow).
By 1898 however suburbia was encroaching and our road had now been developed and built out. Interesting just around the corner the Guildersfield Fish pond is shown in the map of this date. I wonder whether it was recreational pond for the Victorians to amble around; however it seems to be set in the rear garden of a large building so perhaps it was not open to the public. I wonder then why it was labelled on the map. And as a result of this map we know our house dates from at least 1898.
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