Tooting Bec is in the

London Borough of Wandsworth Wandsworth () is a London boroughs, London borough in South West (London sub region), South West London, England. It forms part of Inner London and has an estimated population of 329,677 inhabitants. Its main communities are Battersea, Balham, P ...

, south London, England.

History

Tooting Bec appears in

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

of 1086 as "Totinges". It was held partly by St Mary de Bec-Hellouin Abbey and partly by

Westminster Abbey Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an Anglican church in the City of Westminster, London, England. Since 1066, it has been the location of the coronations of 40 English and British m ...

. Its domesday assets were: 5 hides. It had 5½

plough A plough or ( US) plow (both pronounced ) is a farm tool for loosening or turning the soil before sowing seed or planting. Ploughs were traditionally drawn by oxen and horses but modern ploughs are drawn by tractors. A plough may have a wooden ...

s, . It rendered £7. 'Bec' (beck, meaning 'stream' in English) was added after Bec Abbey in Normandy ('Bec' being the name of the river there). They were given land in the area by the Normans. Saint Anselm, the second Abbot of Bec, is reputed to have been a visitor to Tooting Bec before he succeeded Lanfranc as

Archbishop of Canterbury The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the Primus inter pares, ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the bishop of the diocese of Canterbury. The first archbishop ...

. Saint Anselm also gives his name to the

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

church at the corner of Balham High Road and Tooting Bec Road. A relief sculpture of Saint Anselm visiting the Totinges tribe (from which

Tooting Tooting is a district in South London, forming part of the London Borough of Wandsworth. It is located south south-west of Charing Cross. History Tooting has been settled since pre-Anglo-Saxons, Saxon times. The name is of Anglo-Saxon ori ...

gets its name) is on the exterior of Wandsworth Town Hall. Tooting Bec is on Stane Street, a

Roman Road Roman roads ( ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Republic and the Roman Em ...

which linked London with

Chichester Chichester ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and civil parish in the Chichester District, Chichester district of West Sussex, England.OS Explorer map 120: Chichester, South Harting and Selsey Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher ...

to the southwest. The area includes Tooting Commons, and Tooting Bec Lido, one of the oldest open-air fresh water swimming pools in Britain, first opened to the public in 1906, and also the largest freshwater swimming pool by surface area in the United Kingdom, being 100 yards (91.44 m) long and 33 yards (30.18 m) wide. Tooting Bec Golf Club was founded in 1888. The club disappeared in the late 1920s. The Finnish band

Hanoi Rocks Hanoi Rocks were a Finnish Rock music, rock band formed in 1979. They were the first Finnish band to chart in the UK and they were also popular in Japan. By 1984, the band was considered to be on the verge of an international breakthrough when ...

wrote the song " Tooting Bec Wreck" about their experiences living there in the early 1980s.

Nearest places

Balham Balham () is an List of areas of London, area in south-west London, England, in the London Borough of Wandsworth, with small parts extending into the neighbouring London Borough of Lambeth. It has been settled since Saxon times and appears in t ...

Streatham Streatham ( ) is a district in south London, England. Centred south of Charing Cross, it lies mostly within the London Borough of Lambeth, with some parts extending into the neighbouring London Borough of Wandsworth. Streatham was in Surrey ...

Wimbledon Wimbledon most often refers to: * Wimbledon, London, a district of southwest London * Wimbledon Championships, the oldest tennis tournament in the world and one of the four Grand Slam championships Wimbledon may also refer to: Places London * W ...

Earlsfield Earlsfield is an area within the London Borough of Wandsworth, London, England. It is a typical south London suburb and comprises mostly residential Victorian terraced houses with a high street of shops, bars, and restaurants between Garratt Lan ...

Mitcham Mitcham is an area within the London Borough of Merton in South London, England. It is centred southwest of Charing Cross. Originally a village in the county of Surrey, today it is mainly a residential suburb, and includes Mitcham Common. It ...

* Colliers Wood * Furzedown

Nearest tube station

* Tooting Bec tube station

Football Club

* Tooting Bec F.C.

References

{{LB Wandsworth Areas of London Districts of the London Borough of Wandsworth