Tooting is a district in

South London South London is the southern part of Greater London, England, south of the River Thames. The region consists of the Districts of England, boroughs, in whole or in part, of London Borough of Bexley, Bexley, London Borough of Bromley, Bromley, Lon ...

, forming part of the

London Borough of Wandsworth Wandsworth () is a London boroughs, London borough in South West (London sub region), South West London, England. It forms part of Inner London and has an estimated population of 329,677 inhabitants. Its main communities are Battersea, Balham, P ...

. It is located south south-west of

Charing Cross Charing Cross ( ) is a junction in Westminster, London, England, where six routes meet. Since the early 19th century, Charing Cross has been the notional "centre of London" and became the point from which distances from London are measured. ...

History

Tooting has been settled since pre-

Saxon The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony () which became a Carolingian " stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like th ...

times. The name is of Anglo-Saxon origin but the meaning is disputed. It could mean ''the people of Tota'', in which context Tota may have been a local Anglo-Saxon chieftain. Alternatively it could be derived from an old meaning of the verb ''to tout'', to look out. There may have been a watchtower here on the road to London and hence ''the people of the look-out post.'' The Romans built a road, which was later named Stane Street by the English, from

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

(Londinium) to

Chichester Chichester ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and civil parish in the Chichester District, Chichester district of West Sussex, England.OS Explorer map 120: Chichester, South Harting and Selsey Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher ...

(Noviomagus Regnorum), and which passed through Tooting. Tooting High Street is built on this road. In Saxon times, Tooting and

Streatham Streatham ( ) is a district in south London, England. Centred south of Charing Cross, it lies mostly within the London Borough of Lambeth, with some parts extending into the neighbouring London Borough of Wandsworth. Streatham was in Surrey ...

(then Toting-cum-Stretham) was given to the Abbey of Chertsey. Later, Suene (Sweyn), believed to be a

Viking Vikings were seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded, and settled throughout parts of Europe.Roesdahl, pp. 9� ...

, may have been given all or part of the land. In 933, King Æthelstan is thought to have confirmed lands including Totinge (Tooting) to Chertsey Abbey. Tooting appears in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

of 1086 as ''Totinges'': Lower Tooting was held from

Chertsey Abbey Chertsey Abbey, dedicated to St Peter, was a Benedictine monastery located at Chertsey in the English county of Surrey. It was founded in 666 AD by Saint Erkenwald who was the first abbot, and from 675 AD the Bishop of London. At the same ti ...

by Haimo the Sheriff (of

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

) when its assets were 1 church, ploughlands of land and of

meadow A meadow ( ) is an open habitat or field, vegetated by grasses, herbs, and other non- woody plants. Trees or shrubs may sparsely populate meadows, as long as they maintain an open character. Meadows can occur naturally under favourable con ...

. Its people were called to render £4 per year to their overlords. Later in the Norman period, it came into the possession of the De Gravenel family, after whom it was named Tooting Graveney. Until minor changes in the 19th century it consisted of . The ancient parish of Tooting Graveney included the southern part of what is now Streatham. Upper Tooting, or Tooting Bec (for centuries administered as part of Streatham), appears as a manor held by the Abbey of Hellouin Bec, in Normandy, thus acquiring the "Bec" in its name. Its Domesday assets were 5 hides. It had ploughlands and so was assessed as rendering £7. As with many of South London's suburbs, Tooting developed during the late Victorian period. Some development occurred in the Edwardian era but another large spurt in growth happened during the 1920s and 30s. * 1902: Tooting Library opened as a one-storey structure. A second storey was added in 1906. In 2012 the library was extended and refurbished * 1906: Tooting Bec Lido opened * 1930: St Benedict's Hospital established by the

London County Council The London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today ...

* 1931: Granada cinema opened with the film ''

Monte Carlo Monte Carlo ( ; ; or colloquially ; , ; ) is an official administrative area of Monaco, specifically the Ward (country subdivision), ward of Monte Carlo/Spélugues, where the Monte Carlo Casino is located. Informally, the name also refers to ...

'' * 1954: St George's Hospital begins to relocate to Tooting from

Hyde Park Corner Hyde Park Corner is between Knightsbridge, Belgravia and Mayfair in London, England. It primarily refers to a major road junction at the southeastern corner of Hyde Park, that was originally planned by architect Decimus Burton. The juncti ...

, taking over the old Grove Fever and Fountain Hospitals * 2003: Redevelopment of St George's Hospital buildings completed

Politics

The Member of Parliament for Tooting is Dr Rosena Allin-Khan of the Labour Party, who was first elected in a 2016 by-election to represent the parliamentary constituency of Tooting. This followed the election of her predecessor

Sadiq Khan Sir Sadiq Aman Khan (, ; born 8 October 1970) is a British politician serving as Mayor of London since 2016. He was previously Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for Tooting (UK Parliament constituency), Tooting ...

to the role of

Mayor of London The mayor of London is the chief executive of the Greater London Authority. The role was created in 2000 after the Greater London devolution referendum in 1998, and was the first directly elected mayor in the United Kingdom. The current ...

in May 2016. Since the creation of the Tooting seat, it has been held by Labour, often with a marginal result against a Conservative Party challenge. Although the constituency boundaries include wards represented by both Labour and the Conservatives, the Tooting ward itself can be regarded as a Labour stronghold, electing a full slate of councillors from the party.

Demographics

Tooting has a large

British Asian British Asians (also referred to as Asian Britons) are British people of Asian people, Asian descent. They constitute a significant and growing minority of the people living in the United Kingdom, with a population of 5.76 million people or 8.6 ...

community and has gained the nickname "land of the curry mile" due to the concentration of South Asian restaurants. In the 2011 census, Tooting was

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

White British White British is an ethnicity classification used for the White population identifying as English, Scottish, Welsh, Cornish, Northern Irish, or British in the United Kingdom Census. In the 2011 census, the White British population was 49 ...

(47%), Asian or Asian British (28.8%),

Black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...

Black British Black British people or Black Britons"Black Briton, N." ''Oxford English Dictionary''. Oxford UP. December 2024. https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/1136579918. are a multi-ethnic group of British people of List of ethnic groups of Africa, Sub-Saharan ...

(15.5%), Mixed/multiple ethnic groups (5%), and Other ethnic group (2.9%). The largest single ethnicity is White British (32.4%). The main spoken first languages are English, followed by

Urdu Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...

, Punjabi, Polish and Gujarati.

Transport

Tooting is positioned on the

Northern line The Northern line is a London Underground line that runs between North London and South London. It is printed in black on the Tube map. It carries more passengers per year than any other Underground linearound 340million in 2019making it the bu ...

—with stations at the top and the bottom of the hill that slopes down the High Street, Tooting Bec and Tooting Broadway. Tooting is also served by

National Rail National Rail (NR) is the trading name licensed for use by the Rail Delivery Group, a group representing passenger train operating companies (TOCs) of England, Scotland, and Wales. The TOCs run the passenger services previously provided by ...

at Tooting railway station providing a direct link south to

Sutton Sutton (''south settlement'' or ''south town'' in Old English) may refer to: Places United Kingdom England In alphabetical order by county: * Sutton, Bedfordshire * Sutton, Berkshire, a List of United Kingdom locations: Stu-Sz#Su, location * S ...

via

Wimbledon Wimbledon most often refers to: * Wimbledon, London, a district of southwest London * Wimbledon Championships, the oldest tennis tournament in the world and one of the four Grand Slam championships Wimbledon may also refer to: Places London * W ...

, and north to Farringdon, St Pancras and on to

Luton Luton () is a town and borough in Bedfordshire, England. The borough had a population of 225,262 at the 2021 census. Luton is on the River Lea, about north-west of London. The town's foundation dates to the sixth century as a Saxon settleme ...

. It also has several bus links, with routes to and from

Central London Central London is the innermost part of London, in England, spanning the City of London and several boroughs. Over time, a number of definitions have been used to define the scope of Central London for statistics, urban planning and local gove ...

, Richmond,

Croydon Croydon is a large town in South London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a Districts of England, local government district of Greater London; it is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater Lond ...

and

Kingston Kingston may refer to: Places * List of places called Kingston, including the six most populated: ** Kingston, Jamaica ** Kingston upon Hull, England ** City of Kingston, Victoria, Australia ** Kingston, Ontario, Canada ** Kingston upon Thames, ...

amongst others.

Tooting Broadway tube station Tooting Broadway is a London Underground station in Tooting in the London Borough of Wandsworth, South London. It is on the Northern line between Tooting Bec tube station, Tooting Bec and Colliers Wood tube station, Colliers Wood stations, and ...

is currently being considered by TfL as a stop on the future Crossrail 2 development. In addition to relieving congestion on the Northern Line, this would provide Tooting with a rapid and direct connection to major London stations such as nearby Clapham Junction, Victoria, Tottenham Court Road and Euston.

Conservation area

Totterdown Fields estate was designated a

conservation area Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural or cultural values. Protected areas are those areas in which human presence or the exploitation of natural resources (e.g. firewoo ...

on 19 September 1978. It was the first

cottage estate built between 1901 and 1911, containing 1244 individual houses over . It was influenced by Ebenezer Howard's

Garden city movement The garden city movement was a 20th century urban planning movement promoting satellite communities surrounding the central city and separated with Green belt, greenbelts. These Garden Cities would contain proportionate areas of residences, i ...

and the

Arts and Crafts The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the Decorative arts, decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and ...

movement.

Social housing estates

As previously mentioned, Totterdown Fields estate has considerable historical significance, being the first "cottage estate" within London and later protected from redevelopment through its designation as a conservation area. Within the London Borough of Wandsworth, Tooting has the fourth-highest number of social housing accommodation after

Roehampton Roehampton is an area in southwest London, sharing its SW15 postcode with neighbouring Putney and Kingston Vale, and takes up a far western strip, running north to south, in the London Borough of Wandsworth. It contains a number of large counc ...

Battersea Battersea is a large district in southwest London, part of the London Borough of Wandsworth, England. It is centred southwest of Charing Cross and also extends along the south bank of the Thames Tideway. It includes the Battersea Park. Hist ...

and Southfields in that order. Notable large post-modern estates within the area are the: Aboyne/Holborn and Hazelhurst with smaller estates including: Bevill Allen Close, Burtop Road, Copeland House, Flowersmead, Newlands and Tooting Grove.

Open spaces

A large open area, popularly known as the Tooting Commons, lies at the northern end of Tooting. Historically this was two separate open spaces: Tooting Graveney Common (formerly part of Tooting Graveney parish), and Tooting Bec Common (formerly part of Streatham parish). The commons are home to Tooting Bec Lido, which is .

Sport

Tooting shares two football clubs with nearby

Mitcham Mitcham is an area within the London Borough of Merton in South London, England. It is centred southwest of Charing Cross. Originally a village in the county of Surrey, today it is mainly a residential suburb, and includes Mitcham Common. It ...

: Tooting & Mitcham FC and Tooting & Mitcham Wanderers FC. A greyhound racing track, the '

Wimbledon Stadium Wimbledon Stadium, also known as Wimbledon Greyhound Stadium, was a greyhound racing track located in Wimbledon in southwest London, England. It also hosted stock car and other small circuit motor racing events, and until 2005 hosted motorc ...

', was narrowly in Tooting on Plough Lane.

AFC Wimbledon AFC Wimbledon is an English professional association football club based in Wimbledon, London, Wimbledon, London Borough of Merton, London. The team competes in , the third tier of the English football league system. The club was founded in ...

moved to the site in 2021.

Markets

Tooting has two indoor markets, with numbers of permanent stalls. The entrances of both are situated on the same street, Tooting High Street, only a few metres apart. They both have many types of outlets, but since the 2010s have also developed a focus on street food stalls. Tooting Market is the smaller of the two; the other, The Broadway Market, is one of the largest of London's indoor markets, having more than ninety stalls, and has been active since 1936.

Notable people

* Stephen K Amos (b. 1967), comedian * Raymond Austin, aka Raymond DeVere-Austin, Baron of Delvin, film stuntman, actor, TV and film director, author * Darren Bent (b. 1984), professional footballer * Jamie Bulloch (b. 1969), translator *

Jeremy Bulloch Jeremy Andrew Bulloch (16 February 1945 – 17 December 2020) was an English actor. In a career that spanned six decades, he gained recognition for originating the physical portrayal of Boba Fett in the '' Star Wars'' franchise, appearing as ...

(1945–2020), actor, best known for playing Boba Fett in the early ''

Star Wars ''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera media franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and Cultural impact of Star Wars, quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop cu ...

'' films * Dave Clement (1948–1982), professional footballer * George Cole (1925–2015), actor * Sadie Crawford (1885–1965), stage musician * Fuse ODG (b. 1988), rapper * Girlschool, band * Milton Jones (b. 1965), comedian * Rachel Agatha Keen, (b. 1997), also known as ''Raye'', Pop & R&B singer, notable for songs like " Escapism (song)" & " You Don't Know Me" *

(b. 1970), Labour politician (Mayor of London, former Tooting MP) * Ramona Marquez (b. 2001), actress *

Tony Meo Anthony Christian Meo (born 4 October 1959) is a retired English snooker player. He won the 1989 British Open by defeating Dean Reynolds 13–6 in the final, and was runner-up to Steve Davis at the 1984 Classic. He won four World Doubles C ...

(b. 1959), professional snooker player * Paul Merton (b. 1957), comedian * Clinton Morrison (b. 1979), professional footballer *

New Musik New Musik were an English synth-pop Musical ensemble, group active from 1977 to 1982. Led by Tony Mansfield, they achieved success in 1980 with the top 20 single "Living by Numbers" which was followed up with the top 40 hits "This World of Wate ...

, band *

Natasha O'Keeffe Natasha Dervill O'Keeffe (born 1 December 1986) is a British actress. She is known for her roles as Abbey in the E4 (TV channel), E4 series ''Misfits (TV series), Misfits'' (2012–2013), Fedora in the ITV (TV channel), ITV series ''Jekyll and ...

(b. 1986), actress * Gino Rea (b. 1989), motorcycle racer * Leroy Rosenior (b. 1964), professional football coach * Sangharakshita, writer, Buddhist commentator, and founder of the Triratna Buddhist Community, born Dennis Lingwood in Tooting * Bas Savage (b. 1982), professional footballer *

Tony Selby Anthony Samuel Selby (26 February 1938 – 5 September 2021) was an English actor. With a career that spanned 71 years, he was known for his roles as Corporal Percy Marsh in the ITV (TV network), ITV British sitcom, sitcom ''Get Some In!'' (1975� ...

(b. 1938), actor * Paul Sinha (b. 1970), comedian and broadcaster *

Snakefinger Philip Charles Lithman (17 June 1949 – 1 July 1987), who performed under the stage name Snakefinger, was an English musician, singer and songwriter. A multi-instrumentalist, he was best known for his guitar and violin work and his collab ...

(1949–1987), musician * Richard Strange (b. 1951), musician * Jay Tabb (b. 1984), professional footballer * Quade Taylor (b. 1993), professional footballer *

UK Subs U.K. Subs are an English punk rock band, among the earliest in the first wave of British punk. Formed in 1976, the mainstay of the band has been vocalist Charlie Harper, originally a singer in Britain's R&B scene. One of the first hardcore pu ...

, band * Henning Wehn (b. 1974), comedian *

Jimmy White James Warren White (born 2 May 1962) is an English professional snooker player who has won ten ranking events. Nicknamed "The Whirlwind" because of his swift and attacking style of play, White has reached six World Snooker Championship finals ...

(b. 1962), professional snooker player *

Matt Willis Matt Willis (born 8 May 1983) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, television personality and actor. He is known as co-founder, bassist and co-vocalist of the pop-punk band Busted (band), Busted. Willis released his debut solo album ''Do ...

(b. 1983), musician * Alan Gowen (1947-1981), musician

Cultural references

André Charlot Eugène André Maurice Charlot (26 July 1882 – 20 May 1956) was a French-born impresario known primarily for the musical revues he staged in London between 1912 and 1937. He later worked as a character actor in numerous American films. Born in ...

's West End

revue A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatre, theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance, and sketch comedy, sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural pre ...

''The Charlot Show of 1926'',

Jessie Matthews Jessie Margaret Matthews (11 March 1907 – 19 August 1981) was an English actress, dancer and singer of the 1920s and 1930s, whose career continued into the post-war period. After a string of hit stage musicals and films in the mid-1930s, suc ...

and Henry Lytton, Jnr. sang "Silly Little Hill", which features the lyric "there's no fishing, there’s no shooting dear / and no cyclists fresh from Tooting dear", which they also recorded that year. The

Ealing Studios Ealing Studios is a television and film production company and facilities provider at Ealing Green in west London, England. Will Barker bought the White Lodge on Ealing Green in 1902 as a base for film making, and films have been made on th ...

film ''

Kind Hearts and Coronets ''Kind Hearts and Coronets'' is a 1949 British crime film, crime black comedy film directed by Robert Hamer. It features Dennis Price, Joan Greenwood, Valerie Hobson and Alec Guinness; Guinness plays eight characters. The plot is loosely based ...

'' (1949), starring

Alec Guinness Sir Alec Guinness (born Alec Guinness de Cuffe; 2 April 1914 – 5 August 2000) was an English actor. In the BFI, British Film Institute listing of 1999 of BFI Top 100 British films, the 100 most important British films of the 20th century ...

, references Tooting Bec as the residence of one of the characters. The

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

comedy Comedy is a genre of dramatic works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. Origins Comedy originated in ancient Greec ...

series '' Hugh & I'' (1962–67) was set in the fictional Lobelia Avenue in Tooting. The BBC comedy series ''

Citizen Smith ''Citizen Smith'' is a British television sitcom written by John Sullivan, first broadcast from 1977 to 1980. It starred Robert Lindsay as Walter Henry "Wolfie" Smith, a young Marxist "urban guerrilla" in Tooting, south London, who is attempti ...

'' (1977–80) was set in Tooting and popularised the cry "Freedom for Tooting!". The lead character in the series, Wolfie Smith ( Robert Lindsay), was the founder of a fictional revolutionary socialist political organisation, the Tooting Popular Front. The Kitchens of Distinction (who formed in the area) recorded "On Tooting Broadway Station" on their album '' The Death of Cool'' (1992). In 2005, a 28 km diameter

crater A crater is a landform consisting of a hole or depression (geology), depression on a planetary surface, usually caused either by an object hitting the surface, or by geological activity on the planet. A crater has classically been described ...

on Mars was named after Tooting. A

geological map A geological map or geologic map is a special-purpose map made to show various geological features. Rock (geology), Rock units or stratum, geologic strata are shown by color or symbols. Bed (geology), Bedding planes and structural features such ...

of Tooting Crater was published in 2015 by the

U.S. Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geography, geology, and hydrology. The agency was founded on March ...

. The phrase "Ting Tong from Tooting" is associated with the character Ting Tong from the UK comedy sketch show '' Little Britain''. Tooting was the setting for the eponymous 2013 British-Tamil

crime drama Crime film is a film belonging to the crime fiction genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and fiction. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine with many other genres, such as Drama (film and television), dr ...

'' Gangs of Tooting Broadway''. In the film '' Johnny English Reborn'', Agent Tucker lives in Tooting.

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

's award-winning documentary series '' 24 Hours in A&E'' was filmed at St George's Hospital in Tooting. In the BBC comedy drama '' Fleabag'', the title character's sister Claire says she is from Tooting. In the second season of

Apple TV Apple TV is a digital media player and a microconsole developed and marketed by Apple. It is a small piece of networking hardware that sends received media data such as video and audio to a TV or external display. Its media services include ...

comedy ''

Ted Lasso ''Ted Lasso'' ( ) is an American sports film, sports comedy-drama television series developed by Jason Sudeikis, Bill Lawrence (TV producer), Bill Lawrence, Brendan Hunt, and Joe Kelly. It is based on a character Sudeikis portrayed in a series ...

'', Tooting is referenced as the home of a fictional Greek restaurant called A Taste of Athens.Ted Lasso. It starts on the page
/ref>

References

External links

Tooting Newsie
{{Authority control Areas of London Districts of the London Borough of Wandsworth Major centres of London Former civil parishes in the London Borough of Wandsworth