Place Name
Takes its name from Heathfield Cottages, which stood overlooking Wandsworth Common from the first half of the 19thCentury, where today’s Heathfield Gardens is laid out. They themselves were probably named after the area, which Paul Cavill in his New Dictionary of English Field Names, the standard reference on the subject, says means “uncultivated and unproductive land, overgrown with heather and scrub”. Towards the end of the century the houses were enlarged and the reference to cottages was dropped. As if to confirm the land’s worthlessness in agricultural terms, Wandsworth Prison (which was constructed in 1851 as the Surrey House of Correction and remains one of the UK’s largest prisons) was built here.
