Thornton Heath is an area of South London, England, and makes up a part of the London Borough of Croydon.
Pre-history The London suburb of Thornton Heath sits at the base of the southern slopes of the Norwood Hills in a glacial valley which was formed during the last ice age. The River Graveney, a tributary of the River Wandle, is the remnant of the original waterway.
In the pre-historic period (before AD 43) Thornton Heath is believed to have formed part of a dense forest that lay to the North of Croydon, and was therefore an unsuitable area for human settlement. Remains of pre-historic animals have been discovered, including mammoth cones and teeth, and a tooth of an early horse.'Thornton Heath', Croydon Libraries 1993
Pre-Roman, Roman, and Saxon history Signs of a Neolithic settlement, including flint axe-heads, were discovered and recorded in the area now known as Thornton Heath Pond during 19th century excavations to build a tram terminus for the developing suburb.
The London to Sussex road was originally a Roman construction that passed via Thornton Heath to Croydon along a section still called Roman Way. Parts of the original structure were said to have been visible close to the Thornton Heath area as late as 1800. Another Roman road, from a settlement two miles (3 km) to the west joined at the horse-pond in west Thornton Heath, and this became a junction around which the early hamlet grew. When Thornton Heath High Street was being laid in the 19th century, to the east of the Pond area, hoards of coins were found spanning the Roman occupation of the area from 69 to 138 AD. There is no other record of human habitation in the Roman period.
An ancient matrix for suburban growth can be found in Thornton Heath's old byways. The four lanes that crisscrossed the valley in Saxon times survived to form principal routes of ribbon development in the 19th century, their names surviving the passage of time: Green Lane, Whitehorse Lane, Colliers Water Lane, and Bensham Lane. A hoard of Saxon, Frankish and oriental coins was found by navvies cutting the railway in the 1860s. Perhaps this was an indication of early commerce… or crime. These discoveries demonstrate how urban development can reflect a continuing cycle of settlement.
Medieval history Bensham Lane retains the area's ancient name, "Benchesham", the history of which had repercussions on the 19th-century suburb. In the medieval era it was one of seven boroughs paying tribute to the See of Canterbury at Croydon. The first mention of it comes shortly after the Norman conquest when the tithes of Benchesham were passed to Rochester Monastery. On at least two occasions the monks of Rochester had to prove it belonged to them and not to their Kentish rivals. Confirmation was made in a charter of 1145 which ended: "Those who presume to tamper with this charter shall suffer eternal damnation with the traitor Judas", and again in 1199, when it was said to have belonged to the monks: "for a very long time". With further claims and disputes over the years, the area was much valued, and Benchesham belonged to a line of illustrious owners, including a knight of the garter, a lord mayor of London, two Bishops of London, an Archbishop of Canterbury, Henry V, Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary I. There was a manor house at Benchescham, and the road that led from the original gate is still called Bensham Manor Road, but there are no records of feudal courts or other privileges.
In the late 13th century Benchescham was divided into northern and southern districts (possibly because the monks of Rochester had given up their claim, or possibly owing to a local stand-off during the Barons Wars in 1264). North Benchescham became "Northborough" and then Norbury (some local histories claim the name derives from being the "north borough of Croydon" when actually it is from its situation as the north part of the borough of Benchescham, i.e., old Thornton Heath). Norbury was bought by the powerful Carew family in whose possession it remained for over 500 years (except for a short time in the 16th century when Nicholas Carew was executed and the land seized by Henry VIII). While the rest of the district was being developed in the 19th century, the Carew land remained farmland. The southern part of the borough (for a while known as Suthbenchesham) was leased to Walter Whitehorse, shield bearer to Edward III and Parliament's first "Black Rod". Bensham Manor was renamed Whitehorse Manor in his honour, and is remembered today in Whitehorse Manor School, which stands on the site. In 1511, there is the first mention of a tract of common land forming the southernmost part of Norbury and extended along the Sussex road to the Pond: "Thornton Heathe". The heath itself consisted of 36 acres (146,000 m2): this was the common grazing land for the manor of Norbury.
17th- and 18th-century history Until the arrival of the railway, Thornton Heath was focused on an area 1.5 miles (2.4 km) south west of the manor house, at the locality on the main Sussex road A23 known as Thornton Heath Pond. Between the manor house and Pond was an isolated farmhouse. Eventually it would become the site for the railway station and the main expansion hub. The curious history of this farmhouse seems to reflect the two principal activities that dirtied the hands of the locals in the early modern period: coal and crime. The colliers of this area burnt wood from the Norwood Hills in kilns cooled by water from the river Graveney which runs through the district. It was a main supply of charcoal to London (when the railway station first opened it was named Colliers Water). Smoke and high prices made the Thornton Heath colliers unpopular. With their dark complexions, they were often portrayed in the popular imagination as the devil incarnate. The first recorded inhabitant of the farmhouse was the aptly named Frank Grimes, who caricatured as Grim, became a regular in Restoration theatre. It is said his grave was still visible in the 1890s, before the farm and the manor house were demolished in the High Street's widening scheme.
In the 18th century, the farmhouse became known as Dick Turpin's cottage, as the most notorious of all highwaymen is said to have lived here as a guest of his aunt. The cottage was subsequently believed to have been in the possession of the infamous John Gilpin, subject of a ballad by Cowper. The Turpin legend reflected the lawless nature of the area at the time, which attracted all manner of banditry. However, retribution was not far away. The plot of land at the Pond became known as Hangman's Acre. Immense gallows loomed on John Ogilby's Britannia maps of 1675, and were still present in a later edition in 1731. Indeed, the district appears simply as "Gallows Green" on maps from 1690 to 1724. A coaching inn was built here in the mid-18th century, also providing a court and cells. Croydon Parish records note the executions: "highwayman, executed Aug 14, 1720"; "six highwaymen, all hanged Mar 31, 1722"; "four highwaymen, all hanged Apr 27, 1723". There were fortunates too, a local contemporary news report notes: "a man escaped death when the noose broke and he ran off through Thornton Heath". Around the coaching inn a small hamlet developed, but it was isolated and there was no indication of any further development. So the pre-19th-century picture of Thornton Heath is of a desolate valley with lonely farmsteads sheltering desperate outlaws, with the hangman's noose the only recognised authority.
The 18th century also saw the beginning of a classic form of suburban ribbon development in south London. Continuous avenues of housing which characterised main roads and provided the main communications link between city and suburb. Referred to in this period by Daniel Defoe as a "monster", London expanded along the Sussex road (now the A23), swallowing the villages of Kennington, Brixton and Streatham in the process. Thornton Heath lay in its path as it made the push towards Croydon: "large and full of citizens from London, which makes it so populous."
To Thornton Heath's advantage was its position on the Sussex road. Early improvements to this route made full use of the gravel pits in the Thornton Heath area. In 1619 Sir William Walters left land near Thornton Heath to provide gravel to mend the ways between London and Croydon. Defoe wrote in the 1720s: "the great Sussex road, which was formerly insufferably bad, is now become admirably good; and this is done at so great an expense, that they told me at Strettham, that 1 mile between the two next bridges south of that town (Thornton Heath) cost a thousand pounds repairing… the materials are very near hand, and very good all the way to Croydon".
Early 19th-century development Generally, growth and expansion were limited in Thornton Heath for three reasons. Firstly, the 1797 enclosures meant that just 23 persons between them owned 300 workable plots, and the Carews retained almost a quarter of the farmland. Secondly, the impact of the Industrial Revolution: in 1803, the horse-drawn Surrey Iron Railway opened (the world's first public railway), connecting Croydon with Wandsworth. Six years later, the Croydon Canal was linked with the Surrey Docks in Rotherhithe. These two man-made avenues bordered Thornton Heath to the west and east, respectively, and were physical barriers to expansion. Thirdly, the Norwood hills to the north formed a natural barrier. With Croydon to the south, Thornton Heath was effectively squeezed into just over 1.5 square miles (3.9 km2) of land. Its size and shape are limited, but as any further development of Croydon would naturally lean towards London, its future as a suburb is inevitable.
After the government enforced land enclosures in 1797, the crucial plots in Thornton Heath's future development belonged to John Bennington and Thomas Farley. Bennington had Colliers Water Farm, where the station would later develop, and his son was happy to sell to the railway company. Farley, a member of various local boards, owned much of the Pond area. The original intention of the enclosures was to divide and rail on land to improve agricultural yield. However, Farley converted allotments of land and sold them as freehold property. As a result, by 1818, the hamlet around the Pond had become a considerable village containing 68 houses.
Little by little, the ribbon development along Sussex Road continued to form in short, unconnected strands towards Croydon rather than London. In this period, J.C. Anderson (1882) estimated that there were not more than three houses and a handful of cottages between the Pond and Broad Green. Surrey magistrate Thomas Cole had several "neat villas" here. In the caption to an engraving of one such villa in 1817, this area of Thornton Heath was still described as "a rural bijou." In contrast, William Cobbett (Rural Rides; 1830) commented: "London to Croydon is as ugly a bit of country as any in England."
The Highways Surveyors Board controlled Croydon's roads from 1836. The Sussex Road was a priority as it came from London. The composer, Samuel Coleridge Taylor, living near the Pond, remembered: "All the manifold traffic of this main road from London to Brighton rattled and rumbled by with brief intermission all through the 24 hours." However, most roads in the Thornton Heath area were not given proper surfaces until development was almost complete. The road from the Pond to the station was not "tarmaced" until the trams arrived in 1900 when the High Street was also widened. As late as 1904, the other link between Thornton Heath and Streatham, Green Lane, was still described as: "a rural road impassable to vehicles."
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