Space to Visit

This public recreation ground provided by Wandsworth Council and opened in 1924. The area now south of Tooting Common was gradually developed for housing from the late C19th onwards, and the name Furzedown recalls the former heathland. Furzedown Training College, near the recreation ground, has as its core Furzedown House of c.1800 which stood in its grounds. It was purchased by Philip Flower in 1862, developer of the Park Town Estate in Battersea, and the house was extended in the 1860s by James Thomas Knowles including the addition of the conservatory, and Furzedown Lodge to the north. Furzedown Drive marks the old drive between House and Lodge, the rest of the former grounds largely built over and numerous buildings added for the college around the House, particularly in the 1960s, although some remnants of C19th planting survive.