Tooting Bec


Tooting Bec is a location in the London Borough of Wandsworth in south London.
It is named after Bec Abbey in Normandy, which was given land in this area (then part of the Streatham parish) after the Norman Conquest. Saint Anselm, the second Abbot of Bec, is reputed to have been a visitor to Tooting Bec long before he succeeded Lanfranc as Archbishop of Canterbury. Saint Anselm gives his name to the modern Roman Catholic church which sits on the corner of Balham High Road and Tooting Bec Road. A relief sculpture of Saint Anselm visiting the Totinges tribe (from which Tooting as a whole gets its name) is visible on the exterior of Wandsworth Town Hall.