Place Name
While the hamlet or village of Tooting stretches back to Saxon times, first recorded in AD675, the addition of Bec was only added much later. It followed the Norman Conquest when Tooting, now covering a much larger footprint was divided into two manors. Upper Tooting, or Tooting Bec, was held by the Benedictine abbey of St Mary of Bec-Hellouin in Normandy, one of the most influential abbeys of the 12thCentury Anglo-Norman kingdom. The manor’s name was written down as Totinge de Bek in 1255. As for the abbey itself it derives from the bec, or stream, that runs nearby. The word derives from the Scandinavian root, bekkr. Lower Tooting was owned by Richard de Gravenel from 1215, whose family most likely came from Graveney, written as Thoting Gravenel in 1272.
