Merton, London (parish)
The village of Merton had a linear focus, stretching westwards from the Roman road Stane Street which connected London to Chichester.
The Abbey provided the education of Saint Thomas Becket and, it is believed, also Nicholas Breakspear, the only English Pope.
The abbey joined almost all others in ending its existence in 1538, during Henry VIII's reign, having held land throughout the area in volume, such as holdings in Cuddington and tithes in Effingham, due to the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
The River Wandle flowing north towards Wandsworth had for centuries driven watermills and provided water for a number of industrial processes.
In 1764 the merchant Richard Hotham, a member of the East India Company, purchased Moat House Farm, a property to the south of Merton High Street.
Despite the industrial development along the Wandle, Merton was, at the beginning of the 19th century, still primarily a rural farming community.
The population has seen spurts of rapid growth, largely accompanied by housing and shown to the right: approximately doubling from 1811 to 1841, then relatively static for 40 years, almost trebling in the 10 years to 1911, and finally, already suburban more than doubled from 1921 to 1951, creating a largely urban core.
In 1803, the Surrey Iron Railway opened between Wandsworth and Croydon, following the shallow Wandle valley and passing through Merton and Mitcham to the south.
Although horse-drawn, the railway provided a freight service for the industries along the shallow river to send their goods to wharves on the Thames.
Built around the beginning of the 18th century in a heavy, symmetrical square in the Queen Anne style, the home had fallen into a state of terrible disrepair, but Nelson, against the advice of his solicitor, refused to put in a lower offer, borrowing money from a friend to pay for it.
Between trips to sea, Nelson lived at Merton Place with Emma and Sir William in a ménage à trois, although the married couple also kept a London home in Piccadilly, and Emma took a smaller home nearby after Sir William's death in April 1803.
The part of the Merton Place estate immediately south of the High Street was developed as small-scale housing and became known as Nelson's Fields.
Part of the route was later reused by the Wimbledon and Croydon Railway when it opened in 1855 through Merton, Morden and Mitcham.
Close by, the firm of Edmund Littler at Merton Abbey Mills was known for its high-quality printing and was by the 1890s sending its entire production to Liberty & Co. in Regent Street.
Following the earlier lead of neighbouring Wimbledon, Merton underwent a transformation in the first two decades of the 20th century that saw its fields developed from east to west.
The combination of tram services and the extension of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London's City & South London Railway through Colliers Wood and South Wimbledon to Morden, in 1926, destroyed demand for passenger services on the Merton Abbey branch line and these were ended in 1929.
The section of the TM&WR route east of Morden Road was used to construct Merantun Way (A24) in the early 1990s.
During the 20th century, the waters of the Wandle became less important to the industries remaining in the Merton Abbey complex and, in the 1980s and 1990s, the majority of these closed down or moved elsewhere.
The Sainsbury's Savacentre occupies part of the site and the Mill buildings were refurbished and developed as a popular heritage and craft centre.
In 1881, all but one of the main concentrations of the surname Merton in Great Britain were in cardinal compass points other than the south-east, with the sole exception being in the DA postcode area; this demonstrates that the surname derives from places other than the Merton now in Greater London.
