Living in Wimbledon

Wimbledon is known around the world for its tennis championships, and for two weeks each summer the area fills with crowds, queues in Wimbledon Park and busy trains. For the other fifty weeks it is a prosperous, green, family-oriented part of south-west London made up of two quite different halves: the busy town centre around the station and, up the hill, Wimbledon Village.

The Village has boutiques, cafés, restaurants, pubs and riding stables, and it opens onto Wimbledon Common, which together with Putney Heath forms one of the largest areas of common land in London. The common has woodland, heath, ponds and a historic windmill, and it is used for running, horse riding and walking. Cannizaro Park and Wimbledon Park, with its lake, add more green space.

The town centre, down the hill, has a shopping centre, a theatre, cinemas, bars and restaurants, and AFC Wimbledon's stadium at Plough Lane. Wimbledon station is a major interchange: South Western Railway trains reach Waterloo in around fifteen to twenty minutes, the District line runs to Earl's Court and central London, Thameslink trains loop through the south London suburbs to Blackfriars and St Pancras, and trams run east to Croydon.

Housing includes Victorian and Edwardian terraces near the town centre, large detached and semi-detached houses around the Village and the Common, mansion blocks and new apartment buildings near the station. Rents are high, particularly in the Village. Evenings in the Village are quiet; the town centre is livelier. It is a natural choice for households after open space, good schools, safe streets and fast rail links to Waterloo, and who are happy with a longer journey to east London.