Balham is a district in south London inside the London Borough of Wandsworth. The settlement appears inside the Domesday Book as Belgeham. Bal means ‘rounded enclosure’ and ham a homestead, village or river enclosure. The location has been settled since Saxon times, and Balham Hill and Balham High Road follow the line of the Roman road Stane Street to Chichester.
Balham encompasses the A24 north of Tooting Bec plus the roads coming off it. The southern part of Balham which is close to Tooting Bec includes a block of 1930s Art Deco flats known as Du Cane Court. There's also the Heaver Estate which is in Tooting, which comprises substantial houses. It was constructed in the grounds of the old Bedford Hill House by local Victorian builder Alfred Heaver.
Balham lies among four south London commons, namely Clapham Common towards the north, Wandsworth Common towards the west, Tooting Graveney Common to the south and the connecting Tooting Bec to the east.
In WW2, on 14th October 1940, Balham tube station was badly damaged by air raids on London. People sheltered inside the tube station during the raids, but a bomb fell in the High Road and through the top of the Underground station, bursting a water and gas mains and killing around 64 people today. Ian McEwan describes the event in his novel ‘Atonement’, published in 2001.