Heritage: Wimbledon's Gypsy past - London

From Your Local Guardian

Romany communities in much of Europe have been in the news lately but Gypsies were once a regular part of the scene in Wimbledon and surrounding districts.

In the mid 19th century they would set up their temporary dwellings every winter at Caesar’s Camp on Wimbledon Common.

At the time, the prehistoric Iron Age earthworks were still intact, surrounded by a deep trench and topped by mature oak trees (see Heritage story 13 April 2012).

The same families stopped there every year, often on their way to Wandsworth Common where they would join others to congregate in large numbers a week or two before Christmas, camping in their tents and caravans.

There was always excitement in Wimbledon Village when the Smith, Cooper and Lee families arrived at Caesar’s Camp.

They were welcomed by many local people and particularly the children, who sought to have their fortunes told.

The Gypsies also earned small incomes locally by selling brooms created from heather gathered on the Common.

For most of the year they were on the move. During the summer, they travelled between country farms, picking first fruit, then vegetables, hops, apples, pears and finally potatoes.

As a centre of herb – especially lavender - production, Mitcham especially attracted Gypsies who provided large temporary workforces to cut the flowers ready for distilling into oil.

Lavender was always a favourite for them as they would also acquire bunches to sell on the streets throughout the region.

When the harvesting seasons ended, they would head for common lands right across the southern outskirts of London.

Both Wimbledon and Mitcham Commons were favoured, especially when fairs were held where they could make the most of their skills at showmanship, horse-dealing, sales and hawking of various kinds. Women in particular would go from to door to door carrying baskets laden with clothes pegs, laces, cottons and wooden flowers carved by the men folk.

This would keep them going throughout the winter until it was time to return to the farms for the next growing seasons.

Apart from their unsettled lifestyle, they also differed from the ordinary folk of Wimbledon in their supposed lack of religion at a time when most residents were regular church-goers. This was something the wealthy ladies of Wimbledon felt they could address.

Mrs Charlotte Marryat of Wimbledon House, Parkside (see Heritage story 10 August 2012), and others would visit them on Sunday afternoons and read to them from the Bible.

One Gypsy woman named Mignonette Lee agreed to convert to Christianity on condition that it would not affect her open air lifestyle. She started attending St Mary’s parish church on Sundays, wearing multiple rows of coral beads.

But there was another side to the Gypsy lifestyle. Fortune telling was fun but they were also held responsible for large scale dumping of both human and animal waste on Wimbledon Common and elsewhere.

In 1864, Earl Spencer, Lord of the Manor, said the Commons had become unmanageable because of the “evils of drainage, rubbish dumping and Gypsy encampment”.

The Gypsies caused a "great nuisance” he said. He used this as an excuse to try enclosing the Common for his own interests (see Heritage story 16 November 2012) but this was opposed and eventually the 1871 Act of Parliament was passed, establishing the Conservators and protecting the Common forever.

But the traditional Gypsy visits were doomed anyway.

As the effects of enclosure on agricultural land generally reduced the ability to camp in different parts of the countryside, public tastes changed and old sources of income disappeared.

Many Gypsies adopted settled lifestyles and in some areas shanty towns of shacks, sheds and outhouses developed which raised serious sanitation questions.

Wimbledon was spared that but also lost what had been one of the year’s local highlights.