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

Beddington   was first recorded in an early tenth century Anglo-Saxon charter as Beaddinctun, from the  Old English personal name Beadda (and medial connective – ing),  and tun, meaning farmstead or estate.   It remained essentially rural until the manorial estate was broken up in the late nineteenth century, and it combined with Wallington to become an Urban District in the early twentieth.    In 1915,  a Royal Flying Corps  base was established here for the air defence of London during the First World War.  After the war, in 1920, the base  became Croydon Aerodrome.

Archaeological evidence indicates that the area had earlier been at least intermittently occupied from Stone Age to Roman times.  The River Wandle, a tributary of the Thames, which rises nearby,  would have provided  a ready source of fresh water – and power for water-mills – in olden  times.

Church of St Mary

The church of St Mary was originally  built here in the Norman period, and subsequently substantially rebuilt in the later Medieval, and restored in the nineteenth century.

In the interior are a Norman font and a number of later  Medieval memorials to the Carew family, which included the Lords of the Manor (the formerly two manors were  united into one by Nicholas Carew in 1381).  Also an organ screen by William Morris.

Carew Manor

Carew Manor was originally built here by the Carew family in the later Medieval period, and subsequently substantially rebuilt at least three times, currently housing  Carew Manor School.  The Great Hall, with a fine hammer-beam roof, survives from the Medieval incarnation; the remains of a garden, including a grotto, from the post-Medieval.