West Wickham Common

West Wickham Common is within the West Wickham and Coulsdon Commons group of 6 areas that are managed by the City of London Corporation. The name Hayes dates from 1177, from Anglo Saxon 'hoese' meaning 'a settlement in open land overgrown with shrubs and rough bushes'. Hayes Common (q.v.) and what remains of West Wickham Common are closely connected. West Wickham Common was wasteland of the Old Manor of West Wickham and Hayes Common that of the Manor of Baston. In the 1860s the Lord of both manors, Sir John Lennard, began to sell off plots of West Wickham Common for villas and it was feared that Hayes Common would go the same way. In c.1868 a large body of commoners organised opposition, which led in 1869 to Hayes Common becoming the first common in England and Wales to be given legal protection against enclosure under the Metropolitan Commons Act of 1866. After a major public campaign the final 26 acres of West Wickham Common were purchased in 1892 by the Corporation of London for public open space. There are some remnants of the 'tall iron railing spiked and close set' erected in the late 1800s that ultimately led to the Corporation acquiring the site.

The land forms a steep scarp face and a flat area on its crest, mainly formed in gravels of the Harwich Formation. There are conspicuous historic earthworks of various dates from Neolithic to 1580 on the common, and there are around 30 veteran oak pollards, some at least 600 years old. One of these was painted by Sir John Everett Millais in 1853 for his painting 'The Proscribed Royalist, 1651'. On 10 November 1992 3 beech trees were planted to commemorate the centenary of the purchase of the common by the City of London: one was planted by the Rt Hon Sir Brian Jenkins, Lord Mayor, another by H Derek Balls Esq, Deputy Chairman of Epping Forest and Open Spaces Committee, and the third by Cllr Mrs Dorothy Laird, Mayor of Bromley. The common is mainly oak woodland but attempts are being made to regenerate heather.