Wandsworth Society of Friends Burial Ground

The site of the Meeting House and burial ground was land originally bestowed by Edward the Confessor on the Abbots of Westminster, which was subsequently given to the Earls of Spencer after the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Copyhold on a small house, shop and three sheds on this land was held by Joan Stringer, a local Quaker, who in 1674 underleased this to the Society of Friends. The first Meeting House was built in 1674 and cost £202. Joan Stringer is buried in the burial ground, with a stone recording her as 'giver of the ground'. In 1778 the present Meeting House was built with the original flagstones kept to form a passageway; it was one of the first properties in the area to have a piped gas supply. The cottage on the street was probably here 300 years ago, now refurbished with a new façade in 1927; in c.1955 the side entrance was covered over. The burial ground has many of the old gravestones, including members of the Hanbury family; Thomas Hanbury had a house at Wisley that he later gave to the Royal Horticultural Society.

Sources consulted:

London Open House 2002 sheet; David M Batler, 'The Quaker Meeting Houses of Britain' Volume I, Friends Historical Society, 1999