Wimbledon (London)
Coordinates: 51 ° 25 ′ 18 " N , 0 ° 12 ′ 28" W.
Wimbledon [ ˈwɪmbəldən ] is a district of London . It belongs to the London Borough of Merton in Greater London and is around eleven kilometers southwest of Charing Cross in the city center. Wimbledon is known worldwide as the venue for the Wimbledon Championships .
history
Until the end of the 16th century
The original meaning of the name is unclear. The spelling used today only caught on in the early 19th century. In a document signed by King Edgar in 967 the village is referred to as Wimbedounyng , and on a map of the London area that appeared in 1786 as Wimbleton .
Wimbledon had been inhabited since at least the Iron Age when the Hillfort was built on Wimbledon Common. In 1087, Wimbledon was listed in the Domesday Book as part of the Mortlake Manor . The manor Wimbledon, which was later split off from it, often changed hands. It was owned by the Church until 1398 when Thomas Arundel , Archbishop of Canterbury , lost the king's favor and was exiled. The manor was confiscated and was now owned by the crown.
King Henry VIII briefly turned Wimbledon over to Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex . After his execution in 1540, the property belonged to Heinrich's last wife and widow Catherine Parr and returned to the monarch in 1548. From 1550 to 1558 Wimbledon was owned by Reginald Pole . Queen Elizabeth I gave the manor (but not the land) to Christopher Hatton in 1574 , who sold it to Thomas Cecil, 1st Earl of Exeter , in the same year . Cecil acquired the land in 1588 and had a new Elizabethan style manor built.
17th and 18th centuries
Wimbledon's proximity to the capital meant that other wealthy families also moved here from the early 17th century. In 1638 Charles I bought the manor back from the Cecils as a residence for Queen Henrietta Maria . After the king's execution in 1649, it belonged to various supporters of the victorious parliament in the English Civil War , including General John Lambert . After the Stuart Restoration , the property returned to Henrietta Maria in 1660. The royal widow sold the manor in 1661 to George Digby, 2nd Earl of Bristol , who commissioned John Evelyn to redesign the site according to the latest fashion, with grottos and fountains. After Digby's death, the manor was sold to Thomas Osborne, 1st Duke of Leeds , then Lord High Treasurer .
In 1712 Theodore Janssen, a director of the South Sea Company, bought the property. He began to build the manor house built by Cecil with a new building. But after the spectacular bursting of the South Sea Bubble in 1720, this project had to be interrupted. The next owner was Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough , who expanded the property, continued the work started by Janssen and had the new building completed. After her death in 1744 the property passed to her grandson John Spencer, 1st Earl Spencer .
Meanwhile the village near the manor grew and stagecoaches ran regularly . The manor house burned down in the 1780s and was replaced by Wimbledon Park House in 1801 under John Spencer, 2nd Earl Spencer . The first reliable population data are available from this year, the village of Wimbledon had 1591 inhabitants.
19th century
| Population development (since 1981 the figures are no longer collected according to the old municipal boundaries) |
|
|---|---|
| year | Residents |
| 1801 | 1,591 |
| 1821 | 2,195 |
| 1841 | 2,630 |
| 1861 | 4,644 |
| 1881 | 15,951 |
| 1901 | 41,652 |
| 1921 | 61,418 |
| 1951 | 58.141 |
| 1971 | 53,844 |
| 1981 | 47,834 |
The first decades of the 19th century were relatively quiet, the rural population of the village lived next to the increasing number of nobles and wealthy traders from London who moved here. In 1838 the London and South Western Railway (L & SWR) opened a station on the London− Portsmouth line , southeast of the village at the foot of Wimbledon Hill. The focus of further growth shifted away from the village center towards the new station district.
For a number of years Wimbledon Park was leased to Edward St Maur, 11th Duke of Somerset , who briefly employed the young Joseph Paxton as a gardener in the 1820s . Around 1840 the Spencer family sold parts of the park as building land. When the Spencers wanted to sell more parts of the park in 1864, they were not given a permit and the site was transferred to a committee to preserve its natural state.
With the opening of further railroad lines to Croydon (1855) and Tooting (1868), Wimbledon turned into a transport hub. In 1889 the Metropolitan District Railway was added (now the District Line of London Underground ). In the second half of the century, the population increased by around 15 times, and Wimbledon grew from a village to a medium-sized city. The road towards Merton developed into a shopping area. The first police station was opened in 1870 and the library in 1887. In 1894 the township of Municipal Borough of Wimbledon was established within the county of Surrey .
20th century
At the beginning of the 20th century, Wimbledon's population continued to grow. In 1905 the municipality received the right to elect a mayor. Around 1910 the Wimbledon College of Art , the first cinema and a theater were built. After the First World War , the city administration moved to a new town hall next to the train station.
The population peaked in the late 1920s and the focus of growth shifted towards Morden after the construction of the Northern Line , which until then had remained rural. The Southern Railway rebuilt Wimbledon station and opened a new railway line to Sutton in 1930 . The destruction of numerous buildings during World War II resulted in one final major construction phase when many Victorian houses were converted into smaller units or demolished and replaced with apartment blocks.
With the London Government Act 1963 , the Municipal Borough of Wimbledon, the Merton and Morden Urban District and the Municipal Borough of Mitcham were merged to form the new London Borough of Merton . Wimbledon had thus become a part of London. The borough council was initially housed in Wimbledon Town Hall, but was moved to the 14-story Crown House in Morden in the early 1990s. The Center Court shopping center was built next to the train station .
Sports
Shooting sports
In the 1860s, the newly formed National Rifle Association (NRA) held its first competitions on Wimbledon Common , the common land of the village. The importance of the association and the annual shooting sports competitions grew rapidly and at the beginning of the 1870s, shooting ranges were set up on the site. In 1878 the competition lasted two weeks; Over 2500 riflemen took part, who were housed in temporary tent camps on the commons. In the 1880s, rifles had developed so much that competitions in this increasingly densely populated area were no longer considered safe. After the last competition in 1889, the NRA moved to Bisley, Surrey, where the national shooting sports center is still located today.
tennis
In the early 1870s, the All-England Croquet Club began holding its annual championships at the foot of Wimbledon Hill on a piece of land between the railway line and Worple Road. But the importance of the croquet quickly declined as tennis grew in popularity. The club called itself All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club and in July 1877 held the first tennis championships, the Wimbledon Championships . In 1922, the popularity of tennis had grown so much that the small club area could no longer accommodate the crowds and the club moved to the area at Wimbledon Park, which is still in use today.
Soccer
For a short time, Wimbledon was also known as a football stronghold. Wimbledon FC, founded in 1889 , initially played as an amateur club, was accepted into the Football League in 1977 and rose to the highest league in 1986. The greatest success was winning the FA Cup on May 14, 1988 with a 1-0 final victory over Liverpool FC . The immediate vicinity of Chelsea and Fulham FC and the low capacity of the stadium meant that Wimbledon FC was unable to create a large enough fan base to remain in the top division.
In 2000, with relegation from the Premier League, the rapid decline began. A Football Association commission gave the owners permission to move the club to Milton Keynes in 2002, despite violent protests . Since then he has been playing under the name Milton Keynes Dons and has given up all ties to Wimbledon. Disappointed fans then founded the AFC Wimbledon .
run
In 1792 the Reverend Daniel Lysons published a pamphlet in which he described all the villages and towns within twelve miles of London. He knew about Wimbledon that at the beginning of the 18th century horse races had taken place at Wimbledon Common . However, he did not provide any further details, so it is not known how successful the event was or how long it was held.
Speedway races, i.e. motorcycle races on an unpaved oval course , were held between 1928 and 2005 at Wimbledon Stadium on the industrial eastern edge of the district. The stadium continues to host stock car races and greyhound races .
traffic
The Wimbledon station is one of the major traffic hubs outside the city center of London. It is on the main railway line from Waterloo in the south west of England and is served by the railway companies South West Trains and Thameslink . Wimbledon is the terminus of a branch of the District Line towards Earl's Court and the Tramlink tram towards Croydon .
Other stations are Wimbledon Chase and Raynes Park , other underground stations are Wimbledon Park on the District Line and South Wimbledon on the Northern Line .
The nearest airport to Wimbledon is London Heathrow.
Famous residents
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literature
- Richard Milward: Historic Wimbledon, Caesar's Camp to Center Court . The Windrush Press and Fielders of Wimbledon, 1989, ISBN 0-900075-16-3 .
- John W. Brown: Lysons's History of Wimbledon . Local History Reprints, 1991, ISBN 1-85699-021-4 .
Web links
- London Borough of Merton (English)
- Detail from a map (1786). (JPG; 421 KB) Archived from the original on February 4, 2012 ; accessed on January 29, 2018 .
