What links St. Mary the Virgin Church, Wimbledon to Australia? Answer below.

We are lucky enough to spend part of the dark British winter in your lovely warm country, visiting our daughter and her Australian family. On the last occasion we visited, I was chatting with your editor and I heard myself say, “Maybe, I could write something for your paper? About life in suburban South London?” “Good idea,” he said. So…

A marketing fellow once told me that I live in the “Waterloo Wedge”, a phrase coined to describe this mostly affluent part of SW London, whose trains terminate at London’s Waterloo Station. The “Wedge” includes leafy suburbs like Richmond, where “Ted Lasso” was set, Twickenham, famous for its rugby stadium, and possibly best known of all, Wimbledon, my hometown.

Though I’m a Londoner who loves his birthplace, I confess that Europe’s third most populous city – Istanbul and Moscow, since you ask – is a bit “tired around the edges”. Pleasant suburbs like ours often border districts that real estate agents like to call “up and coming” but which are often just run down and shabby. You pay a price for living in a bustling metropolis, both actual and personal. Some higher than others. Fortunately for us, our suburb of a busy town within a bustling city is tranquil. Rus in urbe.

But what, apart from the tennis, might interest you here? Our professional football team, AFC Wimbledon, is, optimistically, just two promotions away from the Premier League. New Wimbledon Theatre is the eighth largest in London. William Morris, the artist, poet and textile designer of Arts and Crafts movement fame, had his printworks here. Near to them lie the foundations of the 12^th Century Merton Priory, which was a significant site in English history. The young King Henry VI had a crown wearing ceremony in 1437 there and, a hundred years later, Henry VI’s unrelated namesake, Henry VIII, dissolved all Catholic monasteries and flattened the Priory. Its foundations, larger than those of Westminster Abbey, now mostly lie underneath a 1980s superstore. Two acts of historical and cultural vandalism, 450 years apart.

Historic St Mary the Virgin Church is a short stroll from my house. Admiral Lord Nelson worshipped there with his, ahem, friend, Lady Emma Hamilton. And the church is the link to Australia, as it is the site of Isaac Smith’s tomb, which was commissioned by Elizabeth Cook, the widow of Captain James Cook. She was also Smith’s cousin. Isaac Smith was the first European to set foot in eastern Australia at Botany Bay.

Richard Perrins

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