Living in Tooting: area guide to homes, schools and transport links

Sadiq Khan is Tooting born and bred. The bus driver’s son rose to become a specialist human rights lawyer before turning his attention to politics, first as MP for Tooting and now as London Mayor.

Locals in this south London neighbourhood say he is often seen out and about in Tooting with his family, or taking the Northern line Tube on his way to work at City Hall.

Tooting has several other claims to fame — for Tooting Bec Lido, the UK’s biggest freshwater swimming pool, with its brightly painted changing room doors; St George’s Hospital, which features in the Channel 4 documentary series 24 hours in A&E, and for the antics of useless revolutionary Wolfie Smith and his Tooting Popular Front in late-Seventies sitcom Citizen Smith.

The district has a large Asian population, reflected in a High Street packed with curry houses, shops selling saris and shalwar kameez in rainbow colours, jewellers displaying fine filigree gold necklaces, and supermarkets stacked with boxes of the best Alphonso mangoes wrapped in tissue paper.

But like so many London neighbourhoods, Tooting is changing. Estate agent Antony May from the local branch of Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward says young professionals priced out of Clapham and Balham are moving down the Northern line to Tooting and Colliers Wood, where property is cheaper.

This changing demographic is bringing with it new coffee shops, bars and restaurants, some of which are finding their feet in Tooting’s two big covered markets. There is also the prospect that Crossrail 2 will come to Tooting Broadway rather than Balham.

However, the new Tooting remains a cultural desert. There’s no cinema — the Grade I-listed building that housed the Granada is now a bingo hall.

There’s no theatre either. But there was one remarkable theatrical event three years ago, when the great American composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim pitched up at Harringtons pie and mash shop in Selkirk Road to see Tooting Arts Club’s production of his macabre 1979 musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

The pocket-sized production was crammed into the shop, with the audience encouraged to come early to partake of the fare.

So began a remarkable journey for this award-winning show and its young Tooting-based producer Rachel Edwards, first with a transfer to the West End and then to the Off-Broadway Barrow Street Theatre in West Village, New York, where Harringtons is recreated, and where Bill Yosser, Barack Obama’s pastry chef in the White House, is cooking the pies.

Six miles south-west of central London, Tooting has Balham to the north; Streatham to the east; Colliers Wood and Mitcham to the south and Wimbledon to the west.

The property scene

Mainly Victorian and Edwardian stock ranges from big double-fronted houses on the Heaver Estate bordering Balham, to family houses in the Furzedown area near popular Graveney School, and small terrace houses in the roads off Bellevue Road opposite Wandsworth Common.

There are houses and flats in Totterdown Fields, built in 1901-1911, the first London County Council garden estate. Two-bedroom houses here start at about £450,000

The most expensive house for sale now is a double-fronted Edwardian house in Upper Tooting Park, priced £3.25 million. A six-bedroom house in Crowborough Road, Furzedown is for sale at £1.4 million.

Flats range down from £1.15 million for a four-bedroom period conversion in Huron Road on the Heaver Estate, to £275,000 for a small one-bedroom flat in Mitcham Lane, Furzedown.

What's new?

St George’s Gate in Hebdon Road is part of the old Springfield University Hospital redevelopment that will create 839 homes, a 32-acre public park and a new primary school.

By Bellway Homes, St George’s Gate has 26 two- and four-bedroom houses. Four-bedroom homes are still available, priced £945,000 to £975,000, and will be ready to move into in February. Call James Pendleton on 020 8099 1111.

Batemans Yard off Tooting High Street is a move-in ready scheme of nine one-, two-and three-bedroom flats priced from £420,000. Call KFH (020 3792 4018).

Ipsus10, Bedford House in Balham High Road has 52 one-, two- and three-bedroom flats, including 11 affordable. Priced from £480,000, for completion in spring. Call Savills on 020 7409 8756.

Charles Baker Place in Wiseton Road off Bellevue Road consists of nine homes — mews and townhouses — five of them new-build and four converted from a former Victorian temperance building.

Two five-bedroom houses remain, priced from £2.35 million, with one four-bedroom house at £1,645,000, all ready to move into. Call Savills on 020 3430 6905.

Affordable homes

A2 Dominion housing association is handling the affordable homes at Bedford House. Call 0800 783 2159.

The nearest shared-ownership homes are in Colliers Wood, where housing association L&Q is selling one-, two- and three-bedroom flats in Morris Court starting at £102,500 for 25 per cent of a one-bedroom flat with a market value of £410,000.

Renting

The highly seasonal market, with students and sharers in summer and singles and couples at other times, is driven by Tube links to the City and West End. A one-bedroom flat in Tooting can be £100-£150 a month cheaper than in Clapham, and council tax is about half as much.

Staying power

Most Tooting newcomers are young professional singles or couples and research by Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward among their buyers shows an average age of 33, so not everyone will have a long-term commitment to the area.

Postcode

SW17 is the Tooting postcode, although in the Gorringe Park Avenue area it strays into the CR4 Mitcham postcode.

Best roads

The loveliest houses are in the Heaver Estate on the Balham/Tooting border. Estate agent Antony May of KFH says the best roads in Tooting proper are Trevelyan Road — a tree-lined street of Victorian terrace houses — and Chasefield Road, with Edwardian terrace houses.

Up and coming

Homes are cheaper closer to Mitcham in the CR4 postcode, where there are Twenties and Thirties terrace houses close to Tooting station and its Thameslink trains to Blackfriars, Farringdon and St Pancras. For example, there is a three-bedroom family house for sale in Gorringe Park Avenue for £500,000.

Travel

Tooting is on the A24 — the London to Chichester Roman Road, formerly known as Stane Street.

There are two Underground stations, Tooting Broadway and Tooting Bec, both on the Northern line with trains to the City and West End. Tooting railway station has Thameslink trains to Blackfriars in 25 minutes, to Farringdon in 35 minutes and to St Pancras in 40 minutes. All stations are in Zone 3 and an annual travelcard costs £1,520.

Council

Wandsworth council is Conservative-controlled. Band D council tax for 2017-2018 is £694.

Shops and restaurants

Newcomers are having an impact here, too, in the form of independent coffee shops, bars and restaurants.

Two big covered markets — Tooting Market and Broadway Market — are worth exploring for interesting new traders. Tooting Market has branches of Franco Manca pizza chain, Brickwood for coffee and bread, and Koi Ramen Bar, plus wine bar Unwined in Tooting, and Graveney Gin — a bar run by a local craft gin distillery. Plot is a new modern British small plates restaurant in Broadway Market.

In Mitcham Road, Morleys is tooting’s own department store; Milk Teeth is the baby sister of hugely popular Balham all-day restaurant Milk; long-standing restaurant Rick’s has a faithful following; MUD is an artisan coffee shop; The Antelope is the area’s top gastropub and The Little Bar, opened by former Homes & Property sub editor Madeleine Lim, is a popular cocktail bar. Lim has gone on to open a tapas bar, the Little Taperia, in Tooting High Street in the stretch south of Tooting Broadway station, where you’ll also find Tartine Artisanal café; Tota, an all-day restaurant; Honest Burgers; Dip & Flip — serving burgers and roast meat sandwiches with gravy; Thai restaurant Kaosarn, plus Soho House’s Dirty Burger and Chicken Shop.

There is also an emerging coffee shop scene along Moyser Road in Furzedown.

Open space

Tooting Common is the wild area between Balham, Tooting and Streatham. It has tennis courts, football and cricket pitches, an athletics track, playgrounds and a café.

Leisure and the arts

The Gorringe Park Pub in London Road has a cinema in its basement. It also puts on comedy, as does The Antelope in Mitcham Road and also The Wheatsheaf opposite Tooting Bec station.

Tooting Bec Lido in Tooting Bec Road is the largest freshwater outdoor pool in the country. It’s open to the general public from the beginning of May to the end of September, but members of the South London Swimming Club, which is based at the lido, can swim there all year round.

Tooting has a good choice of state schools both senior and primary rated “good” or better by Ofsted.

Primary

The “outstanding” primary schools are: St Boniface RC in Undine Street; Gatton, an Islamic school, in Broadwater Road; Tooting Primary in Franciscan Road; Hillbrook in Hillbrook Road, and St Anselm’s RC in Tooting Bec Road.

Comprehensive

The “outstanding” comprehensive schools are: Ernest Bevin College (boys, ages 11 to 18) in Beechcroft Road; Graveney School (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Welham Road, and Chestnut Grove Academy (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Chestnut Grove, Balham.

Private

There is also a good choice of private schools in Tooting and nearby.

Handiest are: Finton House (co-ed, ages four to 11) in Trinity Road; Hornsby House (co-ed, ages four to 11) in Hearnville Road on the Heaver Estate, and Streatham & Clapham High (girls, ages three to 18), an all-through school in Abbotswood Road.

London Steiner School (co-ed, ages three to 14) is in Weir Road, Balham; The Eveline Day School (co-ed, ages two to 11) is in Swan House, Balham High Road; Oliver House School (co-ed, ages three to 11) is a Catholic school in Nightingale Lane, Clapham South; Broomwood Hall (boys, ages four to eight; girls, ages four to 13) is also in Nightingale Lane, with boys often moving on to the associated single-sex Northcote Lodge (ages seven to 13) in Bolingbroke Grove in Wandsworth Common; The White House Preparatory School and Woodentops Kindergarten (co-ed, ages six months to 11) is in Thornton Road, Clapham; Bertrum House (co-ed, ages two to seven) is in Balham High Road; Thomas’s Clapham (co-ed, ages four to 13) is in Broomwood Road.

The private secondary schools are: The Laurels (girls, ages 11 to 18) a Catholic school in Atkins Road, Clapham Park, and Emanuel (co-ed, ages 10 to 18) in Battersea Rise, Wandsworth.