03 Oct
Window blinds
Isleworth - TW7
Enquiry from: Soheir E
Start Date: Immediate
Property: semi detached
Balham
Balham is a district in south London in the London Borough of Wandsworth. The settlement features within the Domesday Book as Belgeham. Bal signifies ‘rounded enclosure’ and ham a homestead, village or river enclosure. The area has been settled since Saxon times, and Balham Hill and Balham High Road follow the line of the Roman road Stane Street to Chichester.
Balham encompasses the A24 north of Tooting Bec and the roads coming off it. The southern area of Balham which is near Tooting Bec includes a block of 1930s Art Deco flats named Du Cane Court. There's also the Heaver Estate which is in Tooting, which comprises substantial houses. It was built in the grounds of the old Bedford Hill House by local Victorian builder Alfred Heaver.
Balham lies amongst four south London commons, namely Clapham Common to the north, Wandsworth Common towards the west, Tooting Graveney Common towards the south along with the connecting Tooting Bec to the east.
During WW2, on 14th October 1940, Balham tube station was badly damaged by air raids on London. People sheltered inside the tube station throughout the raids, however a bomb fell in the High Road and through the roof of the Underground station, bursting a water and gas mains and killing around 64 people. Ian McEwan describes the event in his novel ‘Atonement’, published in 2001.
