Tooting Bec

Tooting Bec is a place in the London Borough of Wandsworth in south London.

It is named after Bec Abbey in Normandy, which was given land in this area (then part of the Streatham parish) after the Norman Conquest. Saint Anselm, the second Abbot of Bec, is reputed to have been a visitor to Tooting Bec long before he succeeded Lanfranc as Archbishop of Canterbury. Saint Anselm gives his name to the modern Roman Catholic church which sits on the corner of Balham High Road and Tooting Bec Road. Reliefs of Saint Anselm visiting the Totinges tribe (from which Tooting as a whole gets its name) are visible in Wandsworth town hall.

Tooting Bec sits on Stane Street, a former Roman Road which linked Roman London with Chichester to the southwest.

Tooting Bec appears in Domesday Book of 1086 as Totinges. It was held partly by St Mary de Bec-Hellouin Abbey and partly by Westminster Abbey. Its domesday assets were: 5 hide. It had 5½ ploughs, . It rendered £7.

The area includes Tooting Commons, which features Tooting Bec Lido, the largest fresh water pool in England as well as a small athletics stadium. Often considered part of Tooting, it forms the northern part of the latter suburb.

The Finnish band Hanoi Rocks wrote the song "Tooting Bec Wreck" about their experiences living there in the early 1980s.

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