Clapham, SW4

Clapham is a neighbourhood primarily in the London Borough of Lambeth, South London, England.

Clapham dates back to Anglo-Saxon times; the name is thought to derive from the Anglo-Saxon word for "Clappa's farm". In the late seventeenth century large country houses began to be built there, and throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth century it was favoured by the upper classes, who built many large and gracious houses and villas around Clapham Common and in the Old Town. Samuel Pepys spent the last two years of his life in Clapham, living with his friend and former servant William Hewer, until his death there in 1703.

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the Clapham Sect were a group of upper class (mostly evangelical Anglican) social reformers who lived around the Common. They included William Wilberforce, Henry Thornton and Zachary Macaulay, father of the historian Thomas Macaulay, as well as William Smith, M.P., the dissenter and Unitarian. They were very prominent in campaigns for the abolition of slavery and child labour, and for prison reform. They also promoted missionary activities in Britain's colonies.

After the coming of the railways, Clapham developed as a suburb for daily commuters into central London, and by 1900 it had fallen from favour with the upper classes. Most of their grand houses had been demolished by the middle of the twentieth century, though a few remain around the Common and in the Old Town, as do a substantial number of fine late eighteenth and early nineteenth century houses. In the twentieth century, Clapham was seen as an unremarkable suburb, often cited as representing the ordinary people: the so-called "man on the Clapham omnibus".

Today Clapham covers a largish area surrounding Clapham Common, with Holy Trinity Church (1776) close to the North Side. The Old Town and High Street to the east of the Common have a lively set of restaurants and shops. At the end of the twentieth century and beginning of the twenty-first, local property prices rose steeply, and Clapham is now home to a rather homogeneous grouping of affluent young white collar workers in their twenties and thirties; the "man on the Clapham omnibus" is nowadays likely to be a trainee accountant, lawyer or investment banker. Most of the High Street's bars and restaurants cater for them and are packed to the rafters at weekends. However to some degree the area retains a vestige of its formerly mixed character, with different social and ethnic groups living alongside each other.

The other side of the Common, encompassing Battersea Rise, the valley with Northcote Road running along its bottom and the area known as "Between the Commons" - the other common being Wandsworth Common - is popular with young middle-class professional families. Such is the density of "yummy mummies" in the area that it is popularly known as "Nappy Valley", a variation on Napa Valley, the Californian wine-growing region whose produce is presumed to be drunk in large quantities at residents' dinner parties. Although this area is often referred to as Clapham, it is in SW11 and is, in fact, in Battersea - part of the London Borough of Wandsworth, not Lambeth.

Useful Links:
My Clapham
Clapham Art Gallery
Clapham Park
London Borough of Lambeth

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