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This was once the principal tract of waste land of the Manor of Battersea and Wandsworth and extended as far as Clapham to the east and Wimbledon to the west. One author suggests it has suffered from more encroachments than any other common in London. Between 1794 and 1866 there were 53 enclosures, including Wandsworth Prison and Emanuel School. Eventually a body of conservators succeeded in buying the land from Earl Spencer, the Lord of the Manor in 1871 by when the enclosures were looking like swallowing up the entire Common.