Know any interesting or unexpected local facts?

[LocalEditorWandsworth]

We discovered today that Jimi Hendrix once played at what is now the bingo hall in Tooting - really he did here's the poster promoting it!

So we were wondering anyone else know any interesting facts about the local area? Bet there are loads!

I love the mystery of the unsolved Balham murder, whenever I'm in the Bedford I imagine the public hearing with the victim's wife being cross-examined about her affair.

It's too long a story to retell here but I learned about it from this FT article last year www.ft.com/cms/s/2/009baa32-fd1d-11e3-8ca9-00144feab7de.html#slide0

Love this! I'm a bit of a local trivia addict.

My favourite ever though is that the grass on the Oval cricket pitch originally came from Tooting. When it was first established in 1845, it was a cabbage patch so they transported in turf from Toots!

I find the Charles Bravo story fascinating too Julie and they never did decide who poisoned him.

Another Balham one, is that there has been a Sainsburys here since 1888 - very different then though judging by this old ad.

Louis de Bernieres lived in Earlsfield and wrote a play about the area - Sunday Morning at the Centre of the World:

'This is my farewell embrace to the polymorpheus people of Earlsfield, with whom I lived for ten years. Dedicated to the living and dead of Earlsfield, which was definitely the centre of the world when I was living in it.'

I'd love to see it - might have petition Tara arts to do it once the reopen.

This one may well only be interesting to my teenage daughter, but Ed Sheeran lives in Balham. Whilst trick or treating my kids knocked on his door without realising who lived there.

Before the houses were built, Furzedown was a golf course! There is still a Tooting Bec Medal in golf which is given to the UK born golfer who records the lowest single round score in the Open each year. And as we are doing photos here it is!

PS - hadn't heard the Charles Bravo story before how fascinating. It's like something from Jackie Collins.

The Magdalen Estate in Earlsfield used to be an orchard that supplied Magdalen college, Oxford and the dean of the college at the time had a brother who was a town planner and handled the development of the area hence street names such as ISIS Street and FREWIN Road.