45 Squared 14) WALLINGTON SQUARE, SM6
Borough of Sutton, 130m
We're off to Wallington, a town halfway between Sutton and Croydon which once had its own town hall. Today's square lies just across the road, bang opposite David Weir's gold postbox, and has changed a fair bit over the years. As streets go it isn't square and you can't ride anything down it but you can buy brogues, blinds, binbags and beard trimmers so that's a bonus. The owners insist on calling it The Square for branding reasons, but officially it's Wallington Square and it's the town's chief shopping precinct.
Go back 150 years and all this was lavender fields, the only buildings to the south of the station being a row of eight houses called Rose Mount on this very site. These survived into the 1970s as the town centre grew around them, at which point Sutton Council decided a shopping mall needed to be squeezed in somewhere and knocked them all down. A typical linearprecinct emerged, at its heart a few trees and some benches plus a set of stairs up to an elevated car park for the convenience of local residents. The name Rosemount lives on only as the name of a tower block bolted on at the rear.
But my word it's changed. Sainsbury's built a very large store at the rear, the kind where you take an escalator up to the retail floor. Some of the shops on the north side were knocked together in the hope of livening things up. Three storeys of dilapidated offices above the entrance were transformed into 33 flats with swanky balconies. And perhaps most noticeably a stretched fabric roof was added, all white and billowy, to create an all-weather space along the entire length of the precinct. I'd say it looks gloomier now but it does also allow patrons of the Cox Pippin Cafe to spill onto outside tables and gossip over a cuppa, and they do.
The presence of Sainsbury's keeps footfall high but the intermediate shops are less of a draw, certainly once you get past the gateway Nationwide and Boots at the main entrance.
Clarks have been here for ages whereas Nadri only started boxing up bulgogi beef and other Korean food in 2023. Little Street is a themed play centre, like a low-key version of Westfield's Kidzania except much cheaper and they haven't gone bust yet. Bargain Buys and Peacocks fill the larger units in a very non-aspirational way.
Fresco is a gelato-friendly cafe, much frothier than the lowlier Cox Pippin. Wallington Academy offers tution for parents who take a dim view of their kids' teachers. The hardware store is packed with boxed electricals and tat which may one day end up on Sue Ryder's shelves. Alvina is targeting the pound-plus audience, its door shielded behind a wall of plastic containers.
Only one unit on Wallington Square is currently empty, but there's certainly turnover here and all in a downward economic direction. Go back just a few years and the precinct boasted two outfitters - Dinah May for ladies and Richard Mark for men - but their shops are now occupied by the DIY store and the massage parlour respectively. Two opposing travel agents have disappeared, but haven't they everywhere, and the electrical goods store is long gone in favour of mops, pots and plastic flowers.
Definition: Budget Quotient
The proportion of shops targeting shoppers with little money
With Peacocks, Bargain Buys and Card Factory propping up the retail offer I'd give Wallington Square a Budget Quotient of about 40%, suggesting it still has some way to fall but is definitely heading that way. Meanwhile Wallington's main street has a BQ of only about 10-20%, so walking into Wallington Square does feel like lowering one's expectations somewhat. But Sutton council did once describe it as "an unexceptional 1970s shopping precinct with poor quality public realm and limited street furniture and landscaping", and despite subsequent tweaks it's still hard to disagree.
Alternative Sutton Squares I almost wrote about
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45 Squared 14a) STANLEY SQUARE, SM5
Borough of Sutton, 90m×30m
This suburban interlude is tucked away in Carshalton-on-the-Hill and forms a bridge between the interwar semis to the west and the rustic avenues to the east. Its footprint resembles a buckle on a belt, with houses packed around the outside and a lush rectangle of grass in the centre. Its trees appear to have been selected for their blossom potential and are in the process of covering the carpet of dandelions and daisies with a torrent of pink and white petals. The central tree was planted by the square's residents for the Platinum Jubilee so doesn't yet contribute to the drop.
Behind the square's northern flank is an enclave of allotments where lavender is still a main crop, and if you want a date for your diary you can drop in and pick it on the last weekend in July. The S4 bus passes through, hugely incongruously, amid one of its Hail and Ride sections. Stanley Square feels charming but also very odd so I was convinced it would have a fascinating backstory but it didn't, and that's why you're not reading any more about it.
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45 Squared 14b) MOLLISON SQUARE, SM6
Borough of Sutton, 90m×30m
The Roundshaw estate is inherently fascinating, having originally been the airfield for London's first international airport at Croydon. Its streets are named after planes and pilots of which Mollison is one of the latter, an aviation record setter in the 1930s. Jim's probably best known for being the husband of aviation record setter Amy, although she reverted to her maiden name of Johnson after they divorced in 1938 so everyone now knows her name. Mollison Square is the estate's notional heart and curls round the estate's focal place of worship, St Paul's, which may be the only UK church whose cross was made from an aircraft propeller.
But the square itself is really drab, a set of parking spaces serving a row of shops which peaks with a Co-Op supermarket at one end. Nextdoor are a pharmacy and two takeaways, one focusing on fried and one focusing on grilled... and unexpectedly another gold postbox because David Weir earned one every time he won a 2012 top medal. But that's it for Mollison Square, even after heavy Googling, whereas Wallington Square delivered a ridiculous amount of backstory which is why I focused on that.
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45 Squared 14c) THE SQUARE, SM5
Borough of Sutton, 150m
This is the only other Square in Sutton, the borough's official tally being just four. It's just round the back of Carshalton High Street, doesn't look square and didn't seem to have a history, only some nice houses and a car park, so I didn't even bother going. Such are the editorial choices that led me to select one Square over another.
