About Us

Merton has many famous associations from Lord Nelson and designer, William Morris, to the early British film industry, the story of the London Underground and the world famous Wimbledon tennis championships.

Supported by a £50,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Merton Memories Project has been designed to:

  • Raise the profile of Merton and increase public awareness of its history
  • To increase access to a unique collection of historic images, dating from 1869 to the present day
  • To conserve historical resources by digitising them and reducing the need to handle fragile original material
  • To respond to requests from schools, museums and the public for digital local history resources

This project has been made possible through the hard work and dedication of a team of local volunteers recruited with the assistance of Volunteer Centre Merton. Aged 15 to 70+ they come from many all over Merton and include students, working and retired people with a shared love of local history and the desire to put their skills to good use.

Volunteers have been trained in local history research, cataloguing, digitisation and display work. With the help of our contractors, Townsweb Archiving Ltd, they have scanned and researched over 15,000 historic images. Working alongside Heritage staff they have also helped to create local history exhibitions, project packs for Merton schools and a range of public events to increase  awareness of the borough's past.

Merton schools, museums and heritage organisations have also supported the project, by contributing advice, design feedback, historical information and a range of images for inclusion on this website.

Our heritage partners include:

The John Innes Society

Merton Historical Society

Mitcham Camera Club

Mitcham Cricket Green Community and Heritage

Museum of Wimbledon

Wandle Industrial Museum

Merton Heritage Service would like to thank all those who have worked on and supported the Merton Memories project, including our colleagues from other council departments.

We hope that you enjoy looking at the images on this website and that you find the information helpful. Over the coming years we hope to add to our photographic collection and to extend the range of online resources.

If you have any Merton photographs, or historical information that you would like to share, we would be delighted to hear from you.
To submit details, enquiries, or advise us of factual errors, simply click on our Contact page.