Another in the occasional series on “Far-Flung Lost London” …

Wandsworth was first recorded in the eleventh century as Wendleswurthe, meaning an enclosed settlement belonging to  a man called Waendel.  By the later Medieval to post-Medieval periods, on account of the ready water supply afforded to it by its location on the River Wandle, it had became an important industrial centre,  specialising in  milling, dyeing, bleaching, and, later, cloth, clothing and hat manufacturing.  Huguenot hatters and metal-workers began to settle in the area in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685).  Many of them are buried in the parish cemetery known in the eighteenth century as Mound Nod.

Church of All Saints

The church of All Saints was originally built here sometime before 1234, although it has subsequently been considerably  modified, most notably in 1716 and 1779-80, and the oldest part that still survives is the tower, which  only dates as far back as  1630 (and was repaired and heightened  in 1841).

The interior contains memorials to Henry V’s Serjeant-at-Arms Nicolas Maudyt (d. 1420), Alderman Henry Smith (d. 1627/8) and Susannah Powell (d. 1630).