Wallington

Some information on the history and interesting buildings in the Wallington area

Wallington was originally centered around what is now called Wallington Green.  This was probably not an ancient village green as there was no sign of medieval houses in an archaeological excavation on the site of the hotel extension to the Duke's Head. On early maps it is labelled as the bowling green and this may have been its original purpose.The oldest parts of the Duke's Head Hotel on the south side of the green appear to be early 19th century but there has been a pub on this site for much longer.

Wallington Green Displays a larger version of this image in a new browser window
Wallington Green

The Green in the early 20th century. The Dukes Head is in the centre with a row of cottages to the right.

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Wallington Green 2

The south-west corner of the Green in the early 20th century with Wright's Row on the right. This road and the cottages were developed by Major Wright in the late 18th century to house workers from the local mills.

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Wallington Green 3

In 1944 a V2 flying bomb landed on the Green and did a lot of damage to the trees and the surrounding houses. Notice the damage to the house roofs.

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Wallington Green 4

Trees destroyed by the bomb blast. The cottages in the background - along the south side of the Green next to the Dukes Head, were also damaged and were later demolished.

A tour of old Wallington Hamlet

Although most local people consider Wallington to lie around the Public Hall, the original Wallington Hamlet lay further north, beyond Wallington Green, up to and beyond Wallington Bridge. The settlement has its origins in geology: like the parishes of Croydon, Beddington, Carshalton and Cheam, Wallington is a spring-line settlement, where man settled close to the clear springs which spurt out of the chalk, and the road leading to London crossed the Wandle River.

Victorian Wallington and Holy Trinity Church

Although there are a few examples of speculative building from the late 18th century in Wallington, such as Wright's Row, speculative development on a large scale came only with the opening of Carshalton (now Wallington) Station in 1847, and the inclosure of lands (1853).

Wallington Town Hall

After the First World War, the population of Wallington increased rapidly and the local Urban District Council outgrew its various offices and so, in 1929, purchased an old house, Sunny Bank, in Woodcote Road and decided to commission a new Town Hall, to be built on Sunny Banks site.

Wallington: A brief history

The early history of Wallington is exceptionally problematic. The village was part of Beddington Parish until 1867 but it must have been an important place in the Saxon period since it gave its name to the local hundred a subdivision of the county.

Wallington in the Domesday Book

Wallington is listed in the Domesady Book.