St Helier Estate including Moreton Green

This area was once ancient woodland and later in agricultural use. Moreton Green was land reserved by the LCC when it built the St Helier housing estate between 1929-36 on 334 hectares of former farmland, some of which had been used for Mitcham's herb and lavender industry. The estate spans two boroughs of Merton and Sutton and is named after Lady St Helier, an alderman of the LCC from 1910 to 1927 who had fought hard for the improvement of housing facilities in London, but who died in 1931 before the estate was completed. The area chosen in 1926, south of Mitcham and west of the River Wandle, was then part of the Urban Districts of Merton and Morden; Carshalton; and Sutton and Cheam. It was the largest of the L.C.C. estates south of the Thames, and the second largest overall. It was designed by the LCC Architects Department under G. Topham Forrest and aimed to provide re-housing for those in the Inner City and to be a self-contained community with shops, schools, churches, places of recreation and a railway station.  The architect included as many of the natural aspects as possible in the design plan, such as trees and hedges. Many of the mature trees from the pre-existing fields were retained and incorporated into the wide green verges of the roads, such as along Lilleshall Road where some fine mature oaks can still be seen.This was supplemented with new planting, shrubberies and greens to soften the effect.

The estate was constructed by C J Wills and Sons on a value-cost contract. 

The roads were named after monastic establishments and the estate was planned on garden city ideals, where possible retaining mature trees from the previous landscape in the verges of the roads, and providing greens and shrubberies.

Moreton Green is 4.6 hectares - this is one of the largest area of green within the estate in Merton and used to have numerous elm trees, now largely oak; it consists of well-mown grass as well as some clumps of planting and an area of woodland scrub in the centre. There has been some new tree planting in recent years.  Lilleshall Road passes across the green with areas of newer planting to the north and more established older woodland to the south. The smaller northern part used to consist of just mown grass with a few immature oaks, but the council has planted trees and relaxed the mowing regime in the immediate surrounds. From the higher, southern parts of Moreton Green, there are views to the towers of Docklands. Moreton Green is well used by local residents, particularly dog walkers. There are a number of informal paths through the wooded part, as well as one formal one.