Long Bolstead Recreation Ground

Long Bolstead Recreation Ground is a small public park created in the 1930s on a site that was a former field of Eastfields Farm, shown on the OS 25 ins Maps of 1894 (London CXLIII) and the revision of 1911 with a footpath crossing it. The land was once owned by the Mizen family, who were influential in the development of Mitcham in the late C19th and early C20th, and were prominent in local affairs. Edward Mizen, a market gardener and horticulturalist, had moved to Mitcham with his family in 1866, buying land that was formerly the Moore/Bridger physic gardens. Mizen's former farm in Battersea later became Battersea Park (q.v.). By the late 1880s Mizen's Eastfields Farm was extensive and by 1895 the family had established the Elm Nurseries. Following Edward Mizen's death in 1911 his three sons carried on the business under the name of Mizen Brothers, by 1928 owning over 128 acres in Mitcham and 120 acres in Streatham. They were also involved in house building, owning over 60 houses in Mitcham in the 1890s that still exist; their employees paid a discounted rent for their houses. Like his father, the youngest son Alfred (d.1945) was very active in local affairs; he was a member of Mitcham Common Conservators founded in 1891, was on Mitcham Parish Council from 1894-1915, and was elected member of Mitcham Urban District Council (UDC) when it was formed in 1915. He later represented Mitcham on Surrey County Council, was chairman of the County Education Committee and appointed a JP in 1925. Two of Arthur's daughters ran Eastfields Farm until 1960. His eldest brother Edward Johnson Mizen was also on Mitcham Parish Council and later Mitcham UDC, becoming its first chairman. The middle brother Edward Ernest was involved in the business and the local church of St Mark's, which was built on land donated by their father in 1897. Edward Mizen senior was also survived by two daughters, Alice and Elizabeth. After Alice's death in the 1920s, Elizabeth, a schoolteacher, donated a plot of land, Long Bolstead, to Mitcham UDC for a recreation ground in her sister's memory. This became Long Bolstead Recreation Ground. At that time there was scant housing development in the area.

In the early 1930s, the Recreation Ground is marked on the OS 25 ins Map Surrey VII.16 and Surrey VIII.13, revised in 1933/34, with a central oval area surrounded by a path, with a drinking fountain to the east, and a small building marked as Lavatories with planting shown at the east end of the park. By this time Woodstock Way and adjacent roads had been laid out to the north-east and Streatham Park Cemetery (q.v.) to the south. The OS 1:1250 Map TQ2869 - TQ2969 -BA surveyed 1951/2, shows detail of the layout of the small park, with the oval area surrounded by a path, and planting around the perimeter but by this time the toilets building is marked as a Ruin.

The OS 25 ins Map of 1894 (London CXLIII) shows the land to the south west of the future recreation ground as a Fireworks Factory, and to the north east was Lonesome Chemical Works. Pain's Fireworks had moved to Mitcham in 1872 from Brixton to avoid tighter regulations in the Explosives Act. The family had been involved in pyrotechnics from the C17th and were gunpowder suppliers to the Crown. In 1966 Pain's moved to Salisbury and the OS map marks the Fireworks Factory site as an empty site. It was later built over in the 1980s for the Eastfields housing estate that consisted of three-storey blocks of council housing set within landscaped areas. By 2021 the estate was deemed to have come to the end of its useful life, its housing now dilapidated, and the long-term solution was regeneration. Residents' consultation had taken place from 2013 and in 2023 owners of the estate, Clarion Housing, commenced a major programme to regenerate the estate, due for completion in 2025. New landscaping is included in the masterplan. 

Long Bolstead Recreation Ground consists largely of grass on undulating ground. Its layout is little changed from the 1930s, retaining the oval central area and paths, trees and shrubs, which are fairly dense in the east. A number of wooden sculptural pieces were placed within the park by 2002, but suffered vandalism; in 2008 a new play area was installed in the centre of the oval space.