Balham is a district in south London in the London Borough of Wandsworth. The settlement features within the Domesday Book as Belgeham. Bal signifies ‘rounded enclosure’ and ham a homestead, village or river enclosure. The region 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 as well as the roads coming off it. The southern part of Balham which is near Tooting Bec features 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 built within the grounds of the old Bedford Hill House by nearby Victorian builder Alfred Heaver.
Balham lies in between four south London commons, namely Clapham Common towards the north, Wandsworth Common towards the west, Tooting Graveney Common to the south as well as the connecting Tooting Bec to the east.
During the Second World War, on 14th October 1940, Balham tube station was badly affected by air raids on London. Men and women sheltered in the tube station throughout 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. Ian McEwan describes the event in the novel ‘Atonement’, published in 2001.