For many years, I criss crossed Wimbledon Common admiring the big houses and sumptuous gardens, up and down Marryat Road with a view of the City of London skyscrapers. Never for a moment did I think this area was so connected to the transatlantic slave trade and that some of its most notable players had a very personal connection. Yet its one that is enshrined in the very fabric of Wimbledon as their names lives on in roads and closes; Drax, Marryat, Burghley - it all takes on a different feel once you know. In a nutshell, over a 300 year period, this was where the trade of enslaved people was planned, where the wealth it brought was so visibly displayed through grand houses and gardens. It was also where ultimately it was ferociously defended. Local resident Peter Walker has done much to tell this story more widely in recent years.
Five years ago I devised a lockdown walk around leafy Wimbledon Village and discovered there was a whole lot more to an area I thought I knew pretty well. I'd love to share it with you and surely no better time than when its at its late summer finest. Indeed it feels especially timely given the controversy about the All England Club's expansion plans. All welcome to join me, starting from St Mary's Church on the hill overlooking Wimbledon Park (the one the cameras always pull away to at the end of the highlights programme).
Nestling rather furtively next door is 'The Old Rectory' once the site of Wimbledon Manor, home of William Cecil AKA Lord Burghley. Queen Elizabeth's chief advisor for 40 years, he persuaded her to finance a Plymouth merchant called John Hawkins who from 1562 was trading in enslaved people from West Africa. This laid the foundations for the English triangular slave trade. One name that will feature heavily are the Marryats of Wimbledon House. With plantations in Jamaica and Grenada, Joseph Marryat, a former chairman of Lloyd's of London owned 1,466 slaves. His family made a vast fortune out of the compensation awarded as a consequence of the 1837 Act. Pioneers of the British slave economy with plantations in Barbados, Drax is another name frequently in the news, mainly due to the outrage when it became knowh that Richard Drax, until recently a tory MP still held extensive properties on the island. Cannizaro House, Chester House and The Keir are other houses whose history is tinged with the legacy of this trade. We'll also hear about Robert Knox whose book very likely influenced Daniel Defoe's story of Robinson Crusoe. Remarkably, William Wilberforce had a local connection, a house where he lived for some time faced Marryat's across Wimbledon Common. Some of the sumptuous gardens assembled there by Joseph's wife Charlotte Marryat are now part of the extraordinary Buddhapadipa Thai Temple on Calonne Road. Her novelist son Frederick brought treasures back from his naval adventures in Burma.
Other 'Village People' will also feature; Boris Becker, Richard Rogers, Ethel Mannin, Haile Selassie, Herbert Lom, Sister Nivedita, Capability Brown, Joseph Bazelgette, Sophar Rangoon, the kidnapping of Muriel McKay and the man who invented the twiglet, are just a few pointers. Its all fascinating stuff and on top of all the history, this is a truly beautiful area, no better seen than now at its high-summer best whilst sipping a cool pint on the grass outside the Hand in Hand.
How to get there, bike is best but try the 493 bus for starters or its a 15 minute walk up the hill from Wimbledon Park tube. My plan is to finish in the village (near the Dog and Fox). From here its only a 5 minute walk back to where we started.
