Description
Clapham Common is a big triangle of grass, trees and ponds in south London, 89 hectares in the heart of Clapham: a neighborhood park for picnics, football and running, edged by Georgian and Victorian mansions.
At its center stands the bandstand of 1890, the largest in London, a listed Victorian landmark restored in 2006. Three ponds dot the grass: anglers fish for carp in Eagle Pond and Mount Pond, and Long Pond has served model boats for a century. On the north side is Holy Trinity Church of 1776.
The ponds even have a place in science. In the 1770s Benjamin Franklin poured a teaspoon of oil on one of its ponds and watched it calm the water over several square meters, a trick he later performed with oil hidden in his cane.
From the 1790s wealthy families built fine houses around the common; some belonged to the Clapham Sect, the evangelical reformers who fought slavery, among them William Wilberforce. Graham Greene, who lived on North Side, set "The End of the Affair" in the area.
At its center stands the bandstand of 1890, the largest in London, a listed Victorian landmark restored in 2006. Three ponds dot the grass: anglers fish for carp in Eagle Pond and Mount Pond, and Long Pond has served model boats for a century. On the north side is Holy Trinity Church of 1776.
The ponds even have a place in science. In the 1770s Benjamin Franklin poured a teaspoon of oil on one of its ponds and watched it calm the water over several square meters, a trick he later performed with oil hidden in his cane.
From the 1790s wealthy families built fine houses around the common; some belonged to the Clapham Sect, the evangelical reformers who fought slavery, among them William Wilberforce. Graham Greene, who lived on North Side, set "The End of the Affair" in the area.