Mitcham

The toponym "Mitcham" is Old English in origin and means big settlement. Before the Romans and Saxons were present, it was a Celtic settlement, with evidence of a hill fort in the Pollards Hill area. The discovery of Roman-era graves and a well on the site of the Mitcham gasplant evince Roman settlement. The Anglo-Saxon graveyard on the north bank of the Wandle is the largest discovered to date, and many of the finds therein are on display in the British Museum. Scholars such as Myres have suggested that Mitcham and other Thames plain settlements were some of the first populated by the Anglo-Saxons. What became the parish lands could have hosted the Battle of Merton, 871, in which King…

Mitcham is home to a large area (460 acres) of South London's open green space in the form of Mitcham Common, studded with a few ponds and buildings. The buildings comprising the Windmill Trading Estate have existed in one form or another since 1782. The Mill House Ecology Centre and the Miller & Carter steakhouse (previously Harvester, and the Mill House Brewers Fayre pub before that) are located near the site of an old windmill, the remnants of which still exist. The Seven Islands pond is the largest of all the ponds, created following gravel extraction of the 19th century. The most recent, Bidder's pond, was created in 1990 and named after George Parker Bidder.