Wimbledon, London Spencers attempted to get parliamentary permission to enclose the common as a new park with a house and gardens and to sell part for building. Following an enquiry, permission was refused and a board of conservators was established in 1871 to take ownership of the common and preserve it in its natural condition. Transport links improved further with railway lines to Croydon (Wimbledon and Croydon Railway, opened in 1855) and Tooting (Tooting, Merton and Wimbledon Railway, opened in 1868). The District Railway (now the London Underground District line) extended its service over new tracks from Putney in 1889. In the
Upminster Hall Upminster Hall Upminster Hall is a historic house in Upminster, London, England. It is now the clubhouse of the Upminster Golf Club. King Harold II gave the manor of Upminster Hall to the abbotts of Waltham Abbey in around the year 1050. The present house, which dates from circa 1500, remained in the ownership of the abbey until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536, when King Henry VIII gave it to Thomas Cromwell. It was then occupied by the Latham family from 1543 until it passed to Edward Noel, later 1st Earl of Gainsborough, in 1677. It was then