Glebe Court Estate, including Glebe Square Estate

Mitcham is first recorded in an C8th charter of 727 and archaeological evidence indicates Roman and early Saxon activity here. In the Domesday Book 250 people are recorded living in Mitcham and Whitford (now Upper and Lower Mitcham) and by the mid C17th Mitcham was a properous agricultural village with wealthy merchants living here, such as Robert Cranmer who purchased the Manor of Mitcham Canons in 1653. The village was known as the 'Montpellier of England' due to its healthy air, and it was an important halting point on the London to Brighton road. Some of the commonland, including Lower Green West and Cricket Green, was in the ownership of the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury and thereby protected, but elsewhere the common was eroded by piecemeal enclosure until 1891 when all the commonland in Mitcham was vested in a Board of Conservators, including Lower Greens, Cranmer Green and Three Kings Piece. The rural character gradually changed from the C19th onwards, with wealthy owners of larger houses leaving the area and new industries being established while the old industries such as calico bleaching and horticulture declined. By 1910 Mitcham's population was nearly 30,000. However, much of the area retained its historic network of lanes and footpaths, which include Glebe Path and Church Path. The Glebe Court Estate was one of the first post-war social housing developments in England. Built by Mitcham Borough Council to provide high quality social housing, the estate has been praised for its good landscaping, with green space on the road frontage as a buffer to the main road, and landscaped areas between and behind the buildings. The estate was added to the Mitcham Cricket Green Conservation Area in July 2013.

Glebe Court Estate was built on land previously owned by the parish church and the OS 25in Map of 1866 shows extensive plots of 'Glebelands' between Mitcham's Upper and Lower Greens to the west of London Road; by 1894 houses had been built on the north side of London Road and also south of Love Lane although open land still persisted between the two (Surrey Sheet XIII.NE, published 1897 and Surrey XIII.4 published 1913). By 1932, this unbuilt land is shown as a Sports Ground and Tennis Courts but by 1953 the OS Map 1:1250 (TQ2768 NE, surveyed 1953) shows the site of the Sports Ground built over by Glebe Court housing. The later revision published in 1959 shows the full extent of the estate, with numerous trees marked and open spaces between the housing (OS 1:1250 TQ2768 - B, revised 1958). 

Glebe Court Estate was designed to provide 264 dwellings. The first part of the estate, Nos. 1-102, was completed by 1950 when the first residents moved in, and was nicknamed 'Dick Gifford's Folly' after the local councillor involved in the scheme, due to the high specifications of the accommodation despite it being a time of austerity, which included wooden floors, quarry tiling, hatches between lounge and kitchen, and fitted wardrobes. Nos. 103-106 were built as bungalows for the elderly. The estate provided 1, 2 and 3 bedroom flats, maisonettes and bungalows, comprised predominantly of 6-storey brick-built blocks that had distinctive panelled concrete balconies. The blocks were interspersed with bungalows and the overall estate was unified by the generous green space that surrounds the buildings and its boundary landscaping along London Road. The second part of the estate, Nos. 107-264, was built between 1951 and 1953, the properties now lacking the earlier 'luxurious' features; the buildings were also 2 bricks shorter in height than the first phase due to a shortage of bricks. This phase provided 8 more bungalows for the elderly.

The estate has long had an active Residents' Association, which in 1998 set up Glebe Court Management Organisation (GCMO) and took over management of the estate from the council, which it continues to do and includes gardening and caretaking. GCMO has also been active in a campaign against loss of trees on the estate. It was set up as a Tenant Management Organisation under the Housing (Right to Manage) Regulations 1994, which allows residents to collectively take on the running of their properties subject to training. There is an excellent play area on the estate that now has a football/basketball area as well as swings and springer toys for younger children. The play area is locked at dusk and opened each morning by our Caretaker / Committee Member.

On Saturday 18 February 1956, an official ceremony was held to commemorate the completion of Mitcham Borough Council’s 2,500th Post-War Dwelling at Glebe Square, a smaller estate on land to south-west of the Glebe Court Estate, which is also managed by Glebe Court Management Organisation. Present at the ceremony were the Mayor of Mitcham and other dignitaries, with the ceremony performed by the Rt. Hon Hilary Adair Marquand. Glebe Square comprises 36 properties, primarily 2-storey accommodation, with the ground floor provided for the elderly. The yellow-brick blocks are symmetrically arranged in a square surrounding a courtyard that provides a private central green space planted with grass and trees, set back from the road behind further landscaping facing onto Lower Green West.  Prior to this it was the site of Glebe Villas, pairs of semi-detached Victorian houses dating from c.1870s destroyed by a VI bomb in 1944. The western edge of the estate is Glebe Path, which is shown as a footpath across glebe fields on OS 6 ins map, Surrey XIII surveyed  1866/7. Today GCMO manages 300 flats, bungalows and maisonettes at Glebe Court and Glebe Square on behalf of LB Merton, of which around 200 are tenanted and the rest are leaseholders in a mixture of 1, 2 & 3 bedroom properties. Thompson Estate Maintenance (TEM) are the estate gardeners.