For the second half of the 20th century they didn’t even exist, yet Wimbledon’s trams are now really back in fashion.

New cars have just been introduced, route extensions are planned and there is talk of a second dedicated platform at Wimbledon Station.

And for some reason each time they have got under way it has happened in May - albeit 93 years apart - on 2 May 1907 and 29 May 2000.

Today’s Tramlink between Wimbledon and Elmers End via Croydon celebrates 12 years of operations this month. But it was back in 1902 when London United Tramways first received permission to extend its line from Tooting to Wimbledon, en route to Kingston and Hampton Court.

What’s more, unlike today, earlier trams would also be taking passengers the other way right into central London.

It took five years from 1902 to complete the necessary road widening before the first local service could start. Shop frontages in Worple Road, Wimbledon, were drastically cut back to make room for tracks in each direction.

At Raynes Park an avenue of 100 elm trees had to be felled to double the width for trams travelling along Burlington Road and West Barnes Lane from Kingston via Malden. The first tram finally arrived at Ely’s Corner on a trial run in August 1906 and the service itself began on 2 May 1907.

The trams ran every ten minutes with a fare of 4d – less than two pence - between Hampton Court and Tooting via Wimbledon.

The London County Council was already running trams onwards from Tooting into central London and in 1922 its service was extended to Wimbledon.

This used the existing track between Tooting and a terminus by the Mansel Road/Woodside junction at the foot of Wimbledon Hill Road. From then on, commuters to the City and West End would board the numbers 2 and 4 every day as District Line travellers do today.

The trams went all the way to Victoria Embankment via Tooting, Balham, Clapham, Stockwell and Kennington where it split into two routes, one over Westminster Bridge, the other over Blackfriars Bridge via Elephant and Castle.

Cheap mid-day fares into central London cost 2d - under a penny. This applied from 10am until 4pm. Children paid half fare.

Two large double-decker trams would often wait side by side in the centre of Wimbledon. They stopped in the middle of the road so pedestrians had to dodge traffic in order to board them.

Traffic also had some difficulty getting past them. Eventually in 1932 the terminus was moved to outside the old town hall, now part of Centre Court.

Despite the inconveniences, the trams were certainly popular. But just ten years after the service began from Wimbledon into central London there were already moves to replace them with diesel-driven buses and trolley-buses which used overhead cables but not tracks on the road.

The last trams disappeared from Kingston in the early 1930s. Wimbledon was now the final stop on the Tooting line into town. Furthermore, when the London Passenger Transport Board took over the remaining network in 1933, it opted not to replace the vehicles, tracks or ancillary equipment. Tram transportation looked doomed but the Second World War interrupted the replacement programme.

Peacetime brought the end closer again. In 1950 the London Transport Executive announced “Operation Tramaway” and the service finally disappeared from Wimbledon in January 1951. London’s very last tram left service at New Cross the following year.

A local Wimbledon press report in 1954 said road accidents involving public service vehicles had dropped by nearly a third since the trams had been replaced.

Fewer pedestrians were killed trying to board them and buses free of tracks found it easier avoid collisions with other vehicles. However crashes between private cars and commercial vehicles were on the rise.

For 50 years trams were just a memory. Then they returned, using former railway lines in Wimbledon but not in Croydon where they are now part of the street scene once more.

The Wimbledon Society is working with the Wimbledon Guardian to ensure that you, the readers, can share the fascinating discoveries that continue to emerge about our local heritage.

For more information, visit wimbledonsociety.org.uk and www.wimbledonmuseum.org.uk.

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