Market Place, Kingston upon Thames - 020 8547 5592 St. Paul's Churchyard, London - 020 7332 3456 visit@cityoflondon.gov.uk

Motspur Park, also known locally as West Barnes, is a residential suburb in south-west London, in the New Malden (Kingston) and Raynes Park (Merton) districts. It straddles the boroughs of Kingston upon Thames and Merton.

Motspur Park owes its identity to the railway station of the same name, opened in 1925, which has train services to London Waterloo, and to the adjacent parade of small shops. Three prominent gas holders, which were used to store the consumer gas supply for south-west London, stand just south of the shopping parade and can be seen from a wide area.

Two of London's minor natural watercourses flow through Motspur Park: Beverley Brook runs south to north through the centre and its tributary the Pyl Brook runs parallel to the east in shallow depressions in the land.

The Motspur Park athletics stadium was built by the University of London in 1928 and achieved fame when the world mile record was set there in 1938. It was sold to Fulham Football Club as their training ground in 1999.

The Mot family owned land in this area in the 14th century and gave their name to a farm that lay west of the Beverley Brook. In 1627, the farm was called Motes Firs, with 'Firs' being a reference to the furze or gorse that grew nearby. It had changed to Motts Spur Farm by 1823. The 1865 OS map uses a contemporary variant, Mosper.

The modern name comes from the same farm which by the twentieth century was marked as Motspur Farm. This lay between the later constructed roads of Motspur Park and Chilmark Gardens.

"Park" was an appendage added in the late nineteenth century, to mirror Worcester Park, Raynes Park and Stoneleigh Park, forming a contiguous belt of "Park" districts. Market gardening in intensive cultivation systems was the main form of agriculture of local land in these areas at the time and this intense cultivation was sometimes called a park. But the "Park" addition was deliberately promoted to suggest the area was a conversion from a landscaped garden or a wider inclosure. The word 'park' was further adopted by local government, railway operators, and house builders in promotional literature to attract capital-rich or high income residents into these new outer

The district was historically known as West Barnes and formed part of the traditional county of Surrey. It was rural up to the end of the nineteenth century due to its lack of a railway station. Two roads hark back to this rural time, West Barnes Lane and Blakes Lane and are marked on the oldest maps. The barns referred to were those at the western end of Merton Abbey's estates and were located just north of West Barnes Lane's junction with the modern Crossway.

After the dissolution of the monasteries the abbey land was granted to the Gresham family, (descendants of Thomas Gresham) who were wealthy London merchants. They retained the estate for two generations, selling it in 1570 - a date questioned - or 1612 to John Carpenter, a local farmer. The area remained agricultural, with farms owned or farmed out to smaller tenant farmers by wealthy families. Senior owners were notably the Raynes family who gave their name to Raynes Park. In the nineteenth century two major landowners were Charles Blake of Blue House Farm (area of the modern Barnes End) and Richard Garth Lord of the Manor of Morden. Both were lawyers and Garth eventually became a judge. They joined forces to agree to a bill for a railway line to Leatherhead and beyond to run across their land in order to receive valuable compensation and in a calculated long-term view to enhance future land value.

The railway's earthworks were planned and dug (largely laying a slight embankment, assisting with bridges over roads) and then laid through the locality in 1859 by the London and South Western Railway. The local station opened much later in 1925, the station name rapidly become the popular name of the district.

The 1871 map shows small farm workers cottages adjunct to farmhouses and a few mansions as the only dwellings of the area.[8] The area east of the railway was part of Hobbald(e)s Farm owned by Garth. The mature oak woodland alongside it was planted around this time as screening from the railway; today it is a nature reserve.

The land was sold and eventually leased to J.J. Bishop (founder of the Bishops Move removal company) around 1873. In 1892 a tranche of land was sold to the Battersea Corporation for use as a cemetery; today known as Morden cemetery and the Northeast Surrey Crematorium.

The principal developer who turned Motspur Park into a residential suburb between the world wars was Sidney Ernest Parkes, a boat manufacturer and constructional engineer. His company, Modern Homes and Estates Ltd, was founded in 1924 and was responsible for many of the streets. Some streets including Phyllis Avenue and Arthur Road, named after his children; Others like Byron Avenue, Tennyson Avenue and Marina Avenue after literary figures or royalty. Wates were also active builders in the area in the inter war years, building to the west of the railway line.