Roehampton was originally a small village – with only 14 houses during the reign of Henry VII – with the area largely forest and heath.

The population gradually increased in the 18th and 19th centuries as it became a favoured residential outlying suburb for summer villas and larger houses set in parkland, following the opening of Putney Bridge in 1729.

From the winter of 1919 to the spring of 1920, Winston Churchill lived at Templeton House while it was owned by Freddie Guest and his wife Amy.

[11] During World War I there was a Royal Naval Air Service Kite Balloon Training School based on land now part of the university and golf course.

At Highcliffe Drive on Alton West the LCC essentially retained the Georgian landscape and placed within it five ultra modern slab blocks: Binley, Winchfield, Dunbridge, Charcot and Denmead Houses, (all grade II*) inspired by Le Corbusier's Unite d'Habitation.

At the time of its completion in 1958, Alton West was considered by many British architects to be the crowning glory of post-World War II council housing.

[13] The estate is now part of a regeneration scheme with a number of government initiatives such as SureStart helping to tackle issues of poverty and social exclusion.

[14] In 2007, Justine Greening, the local Member of Parliament, secured a commitment to install a pedestrian entrance to Richmond Park from the Alton Estate.

In the 2011 census, the Wandsworth ward of Roehampton and Putney Heath did not record a single majority ethnic group.

The other most common census responses were those born in Poland (5.6%), Pakistan (1.8%), Ireland (1.6%), the Philippines (1.6%), South Africa (1.2%), Ghana (1.1%), Germany (1.0%), and Somalia (1.0%).

[18] The religious makeup of Roehampton and Putney Heath is 52.9% Christian, 23.6% no religion, 11.1% Muslim, 1.4% Hindu, 1.1% Buddhist, 0.7% Jewish, 0.4% Sikh, and 0.2% agnostic.

Roehampton, along with five other locations in London, including Wimbledon Park, Norwood, Blackheath and Shooter's Hill, form a series of rudimentary airports known as "Flying Stages".