Place Name
Ashen Grove a small woodland of ash trees (hence the name) stood to the west of the 200 acre Wimbledonpark Farm, which was purchased along with a large area of Southfields soon after the Spencer family inherited Wimbledon Park manor in 1744. Richard Milward in Wimbledon Past explains: “The farm had been developed just before the Civil War and had been owned by the Spencers only since the 1750s… Wheat, barley, oats, hay, and turnips were grown in fields near the Wandle, while a large flock of sheep and ‘a choice stock of dairy cows’ grazed in Ladder Stile Field and Vineyard Hill nearer the lake.” After several failed tenants, the earl installed Benjamin Paterson to run the business, which he did to great success, passing it on to his son when he retired. But with London encroaching, the writing was on the wall for agriculture. With Wimbledon Park development already taken as a name, the farm name was changed to Ashen Grove in the 1880s when the District Line was driven through its fields. Soon afterwards, the farm and woodland were given up and new roads making the Southfields Grid were laid out in the early 1900s with this road adopting the farm’s name.
