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'Mysterious Mitcham' is the online sequel to 'Strange Mitcham':
Second (2011) edition now available.
'MYSTERIOUS
MITCHAM'
Contents:
Front Cover
Introduction
Receive Updates
Map
Part 1 - Mitcham:
The Phantom Cyclist
of Mitcham Common
(update to Strange
Mitcham)
A Dark Figure on
Mitcham Common
Tales from the Vestry
Hall
'Calico Jack': The
Playful Ghost of
Lacks the Drapers
The Faces on the
Walls: Hancock's
Cottages
The Haunted Cottages
in Tramway Path
The 'Haunting' of Hall
Place
The Legend of
Mitcham Fair
Remember the Grotto
The Phantom of the
'Folly'
An Apparition at
Woof & Sabine
Haunted Rooms at Fry
Metals
The Phantom Cat
Mitcham's (not so)
Haunted Mansion
The Kingston Zodiac
The 'Ghost Tree'
Ghostly Gardeners,
Medicinal Plants and
A Magical Tree
The 'Thing'
The Wrath of God
A Ghostly Experience
in Morden Road
Mitcham Clock Tower:
When Time Ran
Backwards
The Rosier Family
Legend
The 'Ball of Fire'
UFO over Mitcham
Common, 2004
UFO over Tooting
Bec Common, 1990
Part 2 - South of
Mitcham Common:
Carew Manor
The Ghosts of
Beddington Park
Beddington Parish
Church & Churchyard
The Figure in the
Alley
Under Beddington
A Spectral Cavalier
Other Information:
Author's website
The Mitcham Ghost
Ride
Strange Mitcham
(2002): Errata
Strange Mitcham
(2011)
Haunted Wandsworth
(2006)
Covers the London Borough of Wandsworth (Balham, Battersea, Putney, Tooting & Wandsworth):
Haunted London
(2007)
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Remember the Grotto
Older residents may recall the grottoes that would appear in and around Mitcham during the weeks leading up to Mitcham Fair. Some readers may even have built these themselves.
This tradition began to die out during the Second World War and the last grottoes were probably built during the 1950s and 1960s. Once, however, the practice was as popular among local children as 'trick-or-treating' is today.
Grottoes were usually mounds of earth anything up to four feet high and often with caves scooped out of them. They were also made in various shapes: a heart, for example, or an anchor. Built beside roads, they were decorated with pebbles, fragments of broken pottery, candles, perhaps a piece of mirror to simulate a pool of water, and - when they could be found - shells. Sometimes, a few flowers were pinched from a nearby garden and added for effect, a practice which resulted in more than one clipped ear. When finished, the candles were lit and the little builders sat beside their creations, pleading with passers-by to 'spare a copper' for them to spend at the Fair.
Penny Parker, in Mitcham - A Historical Glimpse, records a typical rhyme recited by such hopeful children:
Please remember the grotto; it's only once a year
Please give me a ha'penny to spend at Mitcham Fair
Father's gone to sea; Mother's gone to fetch him back
So please remember me.
A Connection To St James?
The custom of building grottoes may derive from the celebration of St James's Day (25 July). James was martyred in Jerusalem between AD 42 and AD 44, after which his remains are said to have been taken to Compostela in Spain. During the Middle Ages, his shrine there became one of the chief destinations for Christian pilgrims.
Above: 'Madonna' by Carol Crivelli, c.1480. The figure in this portrait is wearing a scallop shell on his cloak.
There is a legend that James once encountered a drowning Portuguese man. Thanks to his intervention, the man and his horse were both saved and they emerged from the water covered in scallops. Ever since, the scallop shell emblem has been associated with the saint, and pilgrims returning from Compostela often carried shells so that everyone would know where they had been.
This association between St James and shells led to the building of shell-covered 'shrines' and it is to these that the Mitcham children's money-raising grottoes are believed to owe their ancestry.
[Source: Parker, Penny, Mitcham - A Historical Glimpse, Merton Library Service, 1988.]
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