Lodge Farm

A farm on the Morden side of St. Helier

By Rosemary Turner

Early history

This farm was originally called Spital and was owned by Merton Priory until the dissolution of the monastery in 1538. It has had various owner since then, including Sir Richard Garth who was Lord of the Manor in the 1600s. It is not known when its name changed to Lodge Farm.

From the late 1700s to the early 1900s, the farm was owned by various members of the Hoare banking family but they only lived there during the first half of the 1800s. The farm at that time was run by their bailiff.  In the latter half of the 1800s the land was divided and leased to various farmers.

In the 1838 Tithe Apportionments and the 1910 Valuation Records the land is recorded as a mixture of arable, grass, orchards and market gardening.

The farm buildings

This coloured plan from the 1864 Tithe Apportionments shows the farm buildings and mansion of Lodge Farm. Pink denotes the buildings for accommodation but in some cases it refers to lofts over farm buildings.

The building in the pictures is the farm cottage and is on the right of the plan. In the 1910 Valuations the cottage is described as being of timber with a pantile roof. It had two bedrooms, a sitting room, kitchen and wash room. It also had an outside WC also a garden.
The farm buildings in 1910 were similar to those in the 1864 plan and consisted of:  Two timber and slate fowl houses. Timber and pan tiled calf pen, cartshed, 12 cowstalls with loft over, 3 cowstalls,  2 open cow stalls, 4 calving pens and 2 old calving pens. Timber & plain tile granary. 3 farm yards. Timber and open cow stall and an old timber and slate granary.

Stables – Built of brick, slate roof, paved, containing 6 stalls, 2 loose boxes, double & single coach houses, mans[?] Harness rooms loft over, fair order

Green house & garden frames, bad order.

Later use of the farm site

The land for Morden Recreation Ground, which covers part of the farm land, was given by Gilliat E Hatfeild and the Ground was opened in April 1926.

In 1928 Vincent Lines, a local Morden artist who drew pictures of some of the farm buildings, recorded in the Wimbledon Borough News the construction of the St Helier Estate on the site of the recently demolished farm buildings. There was a public footpath through the farm estate which went from Central Road (formerly Morden Lane) to Bishopsford Rd (formerly Sutton Road). The section from Central Road to the farm was called Farm Lane and was originally the carriageway to the mansion. Farm Road was not built on until 1931.