Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for PUTNEY

PUTNEY, a large village, a parish, and a sub-district, in Wandsworth district, Surrey. The village stands on the river Thames and on the Southwestern railway, opposite Fulham, 6¾ miles S W of St. Pauls, London; was known at Domesday as Putelei, and afterwards as Puttenheth; had importance, in early times, from a ferryat it over the Thames; communicates now with Fulham by a bridge; and has a railway station with telegraph, and two post-offices, ‡ in High-street and Upper Richmond-road, under London, S W. It used to consist chiefly ofone street; but it has undergone much recent extension and improvement; and it includes a new street, called Disraeli-road, planned in 1866. The bridge at it was firsterected in 1729, at a cost of £23, 976; was a woodenstructure 805 feet long, both ungainly and inconvenient; was purchased in 1864, for £40,000, to give place to a new bridge; and, by arrangement in Oct. 1866, was to stand two years from that date, to allow time for thecompletion of the new bridge. An aqueduct or pipe-bridge of the Chelsea water-works stands immediatelyabove; is a very ungainly structure of eight arches; and forms a link of communication between the works at Thames-Ditton, a reservoir on Putney-heath, and thesupply of the metropolis. The parish contains also the hamlet of Roehampton; and comprises 2, 136 acres ofland, and 40 of water. Real property, £48, 668. Pop.in 1851, 5, 280; in 1861, 6, 481. Houses, 1, 135. P. Park was once the seat of Christian, Countess of Devonshire; and is now the seat of R. Hutton, Esq. P. Heath House is a seat of the Marquis of Bristol. Other mansions are seats of Lady Webster, Lady Guilford, Col. North, and M. Drummond, Esq.; and numerous villasstand dispersed over much ground, but rather crowdthan embellish the landscape. The surface rises from the village southward; and commands, from its higherpoints, very fine views. P. heath was an importantmilitary station, in the civil wars of Charles I.; was the scene of a review in 1684, by Charles II.; and was theplace of not able duels in 1652, 1798, and 1809. Bowling-Green House was once the seat of Archbishop Cornwall is, and was the death-place of Pitt. Two rows of housesimmediately W of the bridge occupy the site of the College of Civil Engineers. A telegraph stood on P. heath; and a fire-house was there, in which Hartley, in 1776, tried his fire-resisting plates before George III. Thomas Cromwell, Bishop West, and the historian Gibbon werenatives. The living is a p. curacy united to the chapelry of P., St. John, in the diocese of London. Value, £362. Patrons, the Dean and Chapter of Worcester. The parish church dates from the end of the 15th century; waspartly restored, partly rebuilt, in 1836, at a cost of £8,000; retains piers and arches of the original structure, in later English; retains also the old tower, substantiallyrepaired; includes a chantry, in Tudor architecture, withelaborate groined roof, built by Bishop West, restored in 1836, and removed from the S W corner to the N E; and contains many brasses and monuments. The churchyardcontains the graves of John Toland, the author of " Pan-theisticon, " and Robert Wood, the author of " Ruins of Palmyra" and " Baalbec." St. John's church stands at Putney-hill; was built in 1859, at a cost of £4, 500; a tower and spire were added, at a cost of £1, 600, in 1865; and is a handsome edifice in the pointed style. The p.curacy of Roehampton is a separate benefice. Union chapel, in Upper Richmond-road, was built in 1862, at a cost of nearly £4,000. A new cemetery was laid out in 1856. There are national schools, a penny school, a free school for poor watermen's children, with endowed income of £278, and alms-houses for 12 persons, with £111. The hospital for incurables, which had 101 inmates at the census of 1861, has now removed to the new premises for it, in a mansion at West-hill, Wandsworth. An obelisk, to commemorate Mr. Hartley's experimentsfor the extinction of fires, is on P. heath. The sub-district is conterminate with the parish.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a large village, a parish, and a sub-district"   (ADL Feature Type: "populated places")
Administrative units: Putney Ch/CP       Putney SubD       Surrey AncC
Place names: PUTELEI     |     PUTNEY     |     PUTTENHETH
Place: Putney

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