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
Wimbledon and Sutton Railway any construction and so extensions to the earlier acts were granted each year from 1918 to 1922 to give a final date of 26 July 1924 for completion of the compulsory purchase. In November 1922, notices of new bills to be placed before Parliament were published by the W&SR, and by the UERL's subsidiaries the London Electric Railway (LER) and the City and South London Railway (C&SLR, now part of the London Underground's Northern line). Taken together, the bills brought significant changes to the plans for the Wimbledon to Sutton line. The C&SLR was an underground railway running in deep