Flowers have been traded on this street for centuries
A note on Garratt Lane, the Wandle, and why there is a carnation on your table.
Long before Earlsfield had a station, or a name, this was market garden country.
The River Wandle runs a few hundred yards east of the pub, and for most of its recorded history it was one of the hardest-working rivers in England — mills along its length grinding, bleaching, dyeing and snuff-making. The land either side of it grew things: lavender at Mitcham, watercress in the shallows, and cut flowers and vegetables heading north into London by cart before dawn.
Garratt Lane was the road they went up.
The name on the lane
Garratt itself was a hamlet, and it is best remembered now for an eighteenth century joke that got out of hand: the Garratt Elections, a mock parliamentary contest run by the locals every few years, complete with candidates, manifestos and vast quantities of drink. Foote wrote a farce about it. Hogarth painted the crowd. At its height it is said to have pulled tens of thousands of people out of London to watch.
It was, in the most literal sense, a public event on this road. Which we rather like.
Why there is a stem on your table
By 1878, when this building went up, the fields were going and the terraces were coming. The railway had arrived, the market gardens were being sold off, and Earlsfield became what it is now — a place people live.
The flowers stuck around, though. There has been someone selling stems on this stretch for as long as anyone can remember.
So there is a single carnation, or a stem of heather, or whatever the season is doing, in a bottle on each table. It is not styling. It is the oldest trade on the street, kept going one stem at a time.
If you bring us flowers, we will trade you a coffee for them. That offer is genuine and it stands.
The Grosvenor Arms
The house
Posts written by whoever happened to be behind the bar, on the pass or in the cellar that week. We sign them off collectively because that is usually how they get written.
