Publications

The Records of Merton Priory

In his 1898 study of The Records of Merton Priory Major Alfred Heales collected, translated and arranged in chronological order every record that he could trace relating to the great Augustinian priory at Merton, Surrey. Most come from the priory’s cartulary, now at the British Library (BL Cotton MS Cleopatra C. vii), or from a collection in the Bodleian Library (Laud MSS 723), but many other sources have been used. He has provided transcriptions of many of these documents in an appendix.

The Story of the Long Thornton and District Improvement Society

This Association was formed in 1927 by people who were buying houses on a new privately-built estate with only temporary road surfaces which had to be repaired by the residents at week-ends, poor street lighting, no buses or schools and few shops. By electing a politically independent councillor and constantly pushing the authorities hard, they achieved the local facilities and amenities they needed.
Christine Munday has produced a piece of social history and a very warming account of what ordinary people can achieve when banding together for a common good.

Trouble at Mill: A brief history of the former Liberty Print Works site, including Textile printing at Merton Printers Ltd (Libertys) 1965-1982

David started work at Merton Printers Ltd in January 1965, and completed the last-ever print-run at the Merton Abbey Works before it closed in December 1982. In this book David traces the early industrial history of the site, and then takes us on a personal tour of the production processes, introducing us to many of the personalities along the way. This unique view ‘from the shop floor’ makes fascinating reading, and the abundance of photographs, diagrams and plans complement the text perfectly.

Tudor Rose

Our late President, Lionel Green, told us in the past about Rose Hickman, daughter of wealthy Tudor merchant William Lock, who wrote her memoirs in 1610, at the age of 85. Though based in London, the family held a number of properties in Merton, and Rose spent part of her childhood here to escape the plague. The main part of these memoirs were published in May 1982 in the Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, and Lionel summarised them in his series of articles on the Lock family in our own Bulletin between September 1996 and March 1998 (119, 121, 123, 123).

West Barnes & Cannon Hill

Like its predecessor, on Lower Morden, this large-format booklet devotes each of its 15 double-spread pages to a separate theme. After useful discussions of four key periods in the early history of the district, and an explanation of Merton Priory’s estates at the Dissolution, there are lucid histories of each farm or other piece of land that together made up the western part of Merton parish and the immediately surrounding area.