Coloured postcard of boys wading in a lake on Wimbledon Common. Ink: Dear Emily / Just a line I am going to meet Bessie Friday Morning at 1/4 Past Eleven. Mother [address in London supplied]. Wimbledon Common was protected from encroachment by the Wimbledon and Putney Common Act, 1671; in 1871 an application by Earl Spencer, the lord of the manor, to enclose part of it for development was refused, and ownership was transferred to a board of conservators