Mitcham Common, including Mitcham Golf Course

Mitcham Common adjoined Croydon Common, Beddington Farmlands and Waddon, and included the various greens that remain around Mitcham. There was a hunt here until the early C19th and James I complained that the 'lewd people of Mitcham did so much poaching that there was a great scarcity of game'. The Common suffered through lack of any overall control and in the later C19th local people, led by George Parker Bidder who lived at Ravensbury Park (q.v.), mounted a campaign that led to the Metropolitan Commons (Mitcham) Supplemental Act of 1891. There is a pond on the common named after Bidder and a memorial stone. The Act specified that the Common was to be administered by a Board of Conservators with representatives from neighbouring parish councils of Mitcham, Beddington, Wallington and Croydon. Today the LBs of Merton, Croydon, Sutton and the Corporation of London are involved in the preservation of the common, making an annual contribution to its maintenance costs. Some land has been lost to railway and roads over the years. In 1997 it was agreed that Mitcham Common and adjoining farmlands, and Beddington Park would form part of the larger Wandle Valley Country Park.

Playing of golf on Mitcham Common dates back to the early 1890s when the Board of Conservators agreed to allow part of the common to be set aside for an 18-hole golf course provided that the land was not enclosed and residents not deprived of their common rights to walk and exercise. The Princes Golf Club purchased this concession from Mr R H Cox on 9 November 1891; its first president was Lord Arthur Balfour, later Prime Minister, and among its members were Members of Parliament. The club was granted a 21 year lease in 1894 and two 18 hole courses were constructed, spanning both sides of Croydon Road. The original golf course was designed by Tom Dunn, Professional at Tooting Bec Golf Club, after Mitcham Common's suitability as a site for golf was approved by the renowned golfer Tom Morris, winner of four Open Championships. In c.1900 the club was purchased by Mitcham Court MP Harry Mallaby-Deeley and in the pre-war years its exclusivity grew, causing resentment from local residents until in 1907 Mitcham Village Golf Club was set up to enable local access to the course. However, playing hours were restricted, until 1910 when a successful action in the High Court brought them unrestricted rights to play golf on the common. Having lost exclusive use of the course, the Princes Club moved to Kent and Sir Harry terminated the lease, returning it to the Conservators in 1924, and Mitcham Golf Club was established. The two clubs continue to use the golf course. The original course covered a far greater area of the common prior to 1924 and it was then reduced to its current area by the Conservators although the course retains many of the original features. The clubhouse today is a replacement of an earlier clubhouse from the Royal Navy Exhibition in Chelsea that was built on land leased from the railway company but which burnt down in 1933.

Habitats on the golf course include acid grassland, seasonal ponds and ditches, and the largest areas of heathland and woodland on the Common. These support a host of plants and wildlife, some of which are rare. The golf course has received much upheaval in its history such as turf removal and extensive re-designing, but it is an area where golfers and walkers alike can get pleasure from what it has to offer.

A number of the ponds on the Common were created as a result of the gravel extraction, which continued until the 1980s, and some have since been infilled; among those that remain are Seven Islands Pond created post 1867; Bidder's Pond north of Croydon Road; and One Island Pond south of Croydon Road. During WWII ploughing took place in parts of the common and anti-aircraft batteries were temporarily installed here for the defence of London. There are a range of habitats with woodland and scrub, ponds and grassland. The Common was originally flatter than at present, some areas having been artificially landscaped, such as Tilbury Hill, which was completed in 1984, named after a former chairman of Mitcham Common Conservators. In 1995 Mill House Ecology Centre opened on the site of a C19th windmill, part of which remains in the grounds of The Mill House restaurant and pub, which also opened in 1995. The Ecology Centre has study facilities and is generally provided for educational use.

Since the 1980s the Mitcham Common Conservators have been following a management plan focussed on the conservation of the Common’s many important habitats. This plan prioritises the maintenance and enhancement of areas of acid grassland and heathland, because such habitats are increasingly rare, threatened with fragmentation and lost to agriculture or development.

The Friends of Mitcham Common was established in 2004, having evolved from the Mitcham Common Preservation Society, a pressure group formed in 1956 that campaigned to protect the Common against threats from rubbish dumping to road schemes.