The planning, by the architect Edward l’Anson, and building of The Toast Rack by Mr Charles Kynock
This series of blogs in our From The Archives series is intended as a resource for schools and local residents who are interested in researching local history.
We are very happy to help schools with access to relevant materials. However, the images that are reproduced here should be assumed to be the copyright and may not be reproduced without license from the archives and commercial use is therefore strictly prohibited.
Planning the Toast Rack Development
A beautiful but undated map of Wandsworth Common and the surrounding area survives in The Metropolitan Archives. The date of the map can be estimated from the existence of both of the railway lines (1869), The Royal Patriotic Asylum (1859) and the undeveloped state of The Toast Rack (developing from 1882 onwards), marked as market gardens. You can also see The Black Sea later to be filled into to become Spencer Park.
We suspect that the map, printed by Cook & Hammond who were well regarded specialist map printers, was commissioned in connection with and probably after the passing of the Wandsworth Common Act of 1871. It is printed using an unusually high quality and expensive photo lithographic process for the time and has been printed on rag paper for durability. It is also printed with the Metropolitan Board of Works title block indicating that it was a special print run for them and is specifically entitled, “Plan Shewing [showing] Wandsworth Common.” The borders of Wandsworth Common are also clearly marked and the common is the only area coloured green. Additionally there is a note stating “Dark green margin shews [shows] Wandsworth Common boundary.”
We have been unable to understand the purpose of the curious pencil circle that looks like it was traced around a tin can with the off-centre X in the middle of it. One theory put forward, was that it was in easy walking distance of the station. We would be interested to hear your theories on this and how it came to be marked on this file copy!
The first application was approved by the Metropolitan Board of Works Building Act Committee, on 11th December 1868, made by Edward l’Anson on behalf of Magdalen College Oxford.
This application approved the formation of four roads for The Toast Rack, being Routh Road, Henderson Road [originally to have been called Magdalena Road], Magdalena Road [originally to have been called Sheppard Road and was later renamed Nicosia Road presumably to avoid confusion with Magdalen Road], and Patten Road. Both Magdalena and Henderson Road were to have extended to the other side of Wandsworth and Tooting Lane [now called Trinity Road]. This scheme excluded Baskerville Road. We know the original intended names as they are crossed out on the application drawing which is in the LMA archives as well as there being some letters to and fro on the road namings.
A drawing of the, unbuilt, 1868 Toast Rack scheme as formally approved. You can see the road names which were altered are crossed out on the plan.
At this point in time Trinity Road is still called Wandsworth and Tooting Lane.
Things were not to be so simple as you can see from the annotations to the covering folder.
It is very likely that the Magdalen College decided to sit on their permission to develop All Farthing Piece until to the ruckus over the 1871 Wandsworth Common Act died down.
Magdalen College archives contain a fascinating bound volume entitled “Wandsworth Common Protection Association – Publications relative to the protection and improvement of Wandsworth Common – 1886 -1891”. The volume is very strangely bound making imaging it very difficult – some of the pages are interleaved and therefore appear out of order. Open the full multi page PDF here.
Bound volume entitled ‘Wandsworth Common Protection Association – Publications relative to the protection and improvement of Wandsworth Common – 1886 -1891. By kind permission of the President and Fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford. MP1/199(b).
This would appear to indicate that Magdalen College, Oxford were keeping a very careful eye on the situation and the general sense of surviving correspondence was that the college didn’t want to get involved with the argument.
There was then some gentle development around the Trinity Road, or as it was known slightly prior to this, Wandsworth to Tooting Lane, as evidenced by this undated drawing. At this point in time the development was being called The Burntwood Estate, possibly to draw attention away from All Farthing Piece and the enclosures/common saga.
It is worth considering that the widening of Wandsworth to Tooting Lane [the old name for Trinity Road] was to only 20 feet which is the half the usual width of the 40 foot new roads that MBW insisted on. This was not intended to be a major road at this point in time.
The creation of drains was, in this case, rather important, as an attempt had been made in 1880 to start building before the drains were approved never mind built! Given that this was the era of sorting out The Great Stink the Wandsworth Board of Works objected to this in a letter to The Metropolitan Board of Works dated 16th December 1880. Interestingly the builders name is a Mr George so seemingly this was an effort to start development before Mr Charles Kynock was on the scene. Kynock had recently built the new HQ for The Wandsworth Board of Works [WBW] – now called Book House, at the top of East Hill, and so was well connected.¹
Dates for the approval of the formation of road [List of Streets and Places, London County Council, 1929].
Dorlcote Road 1882; Baskerville Road 1882; Henderson Road 1868 & 1882; Bagdalena Road (a typo for Magdalena Road); Nicosia Road (in prior version of the plan(s) named Sheppard Road or Magdalena Road) 1882; Patten Road 1868, 1882 & 1890
Magdalen Road is formed in sections 1868, 1876 & 1884 (the 1884 is shown in brackets).
The development proceeds at a reasonable pace as we can see from these two plans which set out the dates of the development of the houses on The Toast Rack.
The Toast Rack – evidence from deeds.
Wandsworth Heritage Service in Battersea Library have a good selection of deeds and plans that shed a light on this development and these are open for general consultation.
The Magdalen College, Oxford Archives, have a very good set of deeds, maps and plans.
The Toast Rack side of Trinity Road was developed in a slightly unusual manner. Magdalen College leased the lands to Mr Charles Kynock initially. Kynock then developed the property.
What is slightly odd is that the lease was granted by Magdalen College itself even though the lease does not appear to have been surrendered by Kynock. In fact Kynock countersigns the leases.
What is also not clear is how Kynock got paid for his part of the bargain. For instance, 5 Nicosia Road an initial 99-year lease which was granted directly to Kynock [Deeds reference numbers, where quoted, are to the Wandsworth Heritage Service collections].
1 Patten Road – 11th August 1884 – granted by The President & Scholars of Magdalen College Oxford – to Mr James Duncanson for the term of 99 years – at £10 per annum. Deeds/73.
5 Nicosia road – 29th September 1880 – granted by The President & Scholars of Magdalen College Oxford – to Mr Thomas Hutchinson for the term of 99 years – at £9 per annum. Deeds/1783.
2 Baskerville Road – 15th March 1884 – granted by The President & Scholars of Magdalen College Oxford – to Mr Charles Kynock for the term of 99 years – at £12 per annum. Curiously this deed is unsigned. Deeds/1377
Kynock became bankrupt before the last wrinkles of The Toast Rack development were resolved and this lead to Magdalen College having to resolve some issues with the setting out of Dorlcote Road where Kynock appears to have infringed on the common lands. A deal was done to the satisfaction of Magdalen College and The Metropolitan Board of Works’ successor body, London County Council.
The Dorlcote Road of today certainly is not a standard 40′ wide road MBW standard road! Looking at the two tracings below we can see what was intended from the top image [deed plan B of the lands Magdalen College archives MP4.61a] One of the principles of the common, set out in the 1871 Wandsworth Common Act, was that land taken from the common had to be put back such that the size of the common lands were never reduced. So, the likely meaning of the blue shaded area is the land taken from the common and the area in pink shaded area is the land to be given back to the common.
However, Mr Kynock seems to have ignored this and enlarged the lands for the house making Dorlcote Road narrower and then resorted to borrowing more lands from the common that was agreed or intended.
Read on The planning and building of The Magdalen Estate with Holloway Bros
¹P. Thomas, ‘Henry George Hills (1843-1931) Wandsworth’s first Town Clerk [,Wandsworth Hist 48 (1986) pp14-24.