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Merton is an ancient parish historically in Surrey, but which has since 1965 been part of Greater London (under its current name Merton Priory). It is bounded by Wimbledon to the north, Mitcham to the east, Morden, Cheam and Cuddington (Worcester Park and rest of Motspur Park) to the south and (New) Malden to the west. The 1871 Ordnance Survey map records its area as (2.7 sq mi). The parish was and is centred on the 12th century parish church of St Mary in Merton Park. As a result of the disestablishment of the vestries the parish became of two legal types and areas: religious and civil. It had in the late 19th century seen breakaway ecclesiastical parishes but the civic aspect in 1907 was transformed into Merton Urban District; this in turn was enlarged and empowered into the London Borough of Merton in 1965.

Merton Park is quite widely used as a name for the neighbourhood. Merton itself is a rarely used name, among residents and businesses in the borough at any rate, to describe any particular district of the borough, with popular preference turning to the new 19th century "Park" and "Wood" estates designated by the railway stations as they all unusually here formed new parishes. These are Raynes Park, Colliers Wood, part of Motspur Park and, flowing from a tube station in the far north, the remainder is commonly known as South Wimbledon. The original borough takes its name from Merton Priory. It is among less prominent sources of the English surname Merton, but is the origin of Merton College, Oxford, which had its precursor site (Merton Priory) and greatest endowment of landholdings here.

The village of Merton had a linear focus, stretching westwards from the Roman road Stane Street which connected London to Chichester. Locally, the road ran in a direct line from the current Colliers Wood High Street to London Road, Morden, crossing the site of Sainsbury's Savacentre and industrial estates. The name dates back at least to the 7th century, when documents record its use. Translations vary from "Farmstead by the mere (small lake)" to "Maera's homestead". Merton appears Domesday Book as Meretone. It was revealed in Domesday Book as the largest community in the area. It was held by William the Conqueror as principal feudal overlords and its assets were: 20 hides of land; 1 church, 2 mills worth £3 per annum, 21 ploughs, of meadow, woodland worth 80 hogs. It rendered £43, added to just under an extra £1 18s 2d from 16 houses in Southwark, to its feudal overlords per annum.

The priory or abbey, also known by a third name Priory of St Mary of Merton, was founded by Gilbert Norman in 1114 on a site close to today's Sainsbury's store. In 1117 it became an Augustinian establishment and developed a high reputation for scholarship. It is believed to have been the birthplace of Walter de Merton, founder of Merton College, Oxford. In 1235, Henry III held negotiations here with his barons for the Statute of Merton. The Abbey provided the education of Saint Thomas Becket and, it is believed, also Nicholas Breakspear, the only English Pope. The abbey joined almost all others in ending its existence in 1538, during Henry VIII's reign, having held land throughout the area in volume, such as holdings in Cuddington and tithes in Effingham, due to the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Its buildings were dismantled and the materials removed for reuse elsewhere. It is believed that, in 1496, a hospice for travellers was erected opposite the site of Sainsbury's store. An inn was built there in 1594 and beer was sold there from that date until 2004, when the King's Head closed. The existing building dates from 1931, but it has been designated as a Local Listed Building.

Despite the industrial development along the Wandle, Merton was, at the beginning of the 19th century, still primarily a rural farming community. The population has seen spurts of rapid growth, largely accompanied by housing and shown to the right: approximately doubling from 1811 to 1841, then relatively static for 40 years, almost trebling in the 10 years to 1911, and finally, already suburban more than doubled from 1921 to 1951, creating a largely urban core. In 1803, the Surrey Iron Railway opened between Wandsworth and Croydon, following the shallow Wandle valley and passing through Merton and Mitcham to the south. Although horse drawn, the railway provided a freight service for the industries along the shallow river to send their goods to wharves on the Thames. From Merton High Street the railway ran along the route of Christchurch Road before turning to a more south westerly route just before Mitcham tram stop. In September 1802, Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson, upon the advice of his mistress Emma Hamilton and her husband Sir William Hamilton, purchased Merton Place from the widow of Charles Greaves with its farm and woodland for £9,000 (9000.0 in 1802 is equivalent to about <calculated amount> in recent years). Built around the beginning of the 18th century in a heavy, symmetrical square in the Queen Anne style, the home had fallen into a state of terrible disrepair, but Nelson, against the advice of his solicitor, refused to put in a lower offer, borrowing money from a friend to pay for it. and the estate lands were sold off in parcels over the following years. The part of the Merton Place estate immediately south of the High Street was developed as small scale housing and became known as Nelson's Fields. North of the High Street the land remained undeveloped until the end of the century. The site's history is reflected in the local streetnames: Nelson Road, Trafalgar Road, Victory Road, Hardy Road and Hamilton Road. Competition from the newer, steam powered railways caused the closure of the Surrey Iron Railway in 1846. Part of the route was later reused by the Wimbledon and Croydon Railway when it opened in 1855 through Merton, Morden and Mitcham. In the 1860s, a flour works sat at the junction of Bygrove Road and Wandle Bank and there was a copper rolling mill on Merton High Street where later the Merton Board Mills would be built. This was in the possession of James Shears and Sons by 1815, and remained in their possession until at least 1867. Further south, the Merton Abbey Mills complex had developed each side of the river on land adjacent to Merton Abbey House. In 1868, the Tooting, Merton and Wimbledon Railway (TM&WR) opened a branch line from the Wimbledon and Croydon Railway between Merton Park station (now Merton Park tram stop) and Tooting Junction station (now Tooting station). Cutting through Nelson's former estate and the site of Merton Abbey, Merton Abbey station was constructed to the south of Station Road to serve the industrial complex there. William Shears, a member of the Shears family, was one of the directors of this company. Continuing the long association of Merton with textile printing, the Arts and Crafts designer William Morris opened Merton Abbey Works in 1881. Close by, the firm of Edmund Littler at Merton Abbey Mills was known for its high quality printing and was by the 1890s sending its entire production to Liberty & Co. in Regent Street. Liberty & Co. subsequently took over the production at Merton from Littler. Industry developed further around the Wandle and residential development began in the late Victorian period north of the High Street and along Kingston Road and in Merton Park. In 1894, when a new Local Government Act was implemented, the parish of Merton was still considered sufficiently rural to be included as part of the Croydon Rural District (CRD).

Following the earlier lead of neighbouring Wimbledon, Merton underwent a transformation in the first two decades of the 20th century that saw its fields developed from east to west. Population growth lead to the removal of Merton from the CRD and the creation of the separately administered Merton Urban District in 1907. Between 1901 and 1921 the parish's population nearly quadrupled from 4,510 to 16,177. In 1913, the parish of Morden was also removed from the CRD and merged with the Merton Urban District to form the Merton and Morden Urban District. Hotham's Merton Grove House survived until the beginning of the 20th century, but had been demolished and redeveloped for housing by 1913. The Grove Tavern on the opposite side of Kingston Road remembers the name. Growth was stimulated and assisted by the arrival of trams in Merton High Street in the first decade of the century and the opening of a new bus garage at the east end of Merton High Street in 1913. The combination of tram services and the extension of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London's City & South London Railway through Colliers Wood and South Wimbledon to Morden, in 1926, destroyed demand for passenger services on the Merton Abbey branch line and these were ended in 1929. Goods operations continued until 1975, when the line was closed and the tracks lifted. Liberty & Co. continued to operate the Merton Abbey Mills until 1972. From the 1930s, extensive industrial estates were laid out from Lombard Road on the southern part of the former Merton Place estate between Morden Road and Phipps Bridge. The section of the TM&WR route east of Morden Road was used to construct Merantun Way (A24) in the early 1990s. The road was built to relieve traffic congestion on Merton High Street and was originally planned to continue to the west, along the route of the defunct railway to Kingston Road, with a flyover across Morden Road. This section of the route was never constructed, although the space between the carriageways where Merantun Way meets Morden Road provides the space for a flyover bridge to be constructed. During the 20th century, the waters of the Wandle became less important to the industries remaining in the Merton Abbey complex and, in the 1980s and 1990s, the majority of these closed down or moved elsewhere. The Sainsbury's Savacentre occupies part of the site and the Mill buildings were refurbished and developed as a popular heritage and craft centre. The Colour House, where Liberty dyed fabric, was opened as a theatre in 1995. The ruined chapterhouse of the Abbey was also used as a venue for several theatrical performances in the late 1990s. When automatic telephone exchanges were introduced in the UK, the code for the Merton and South Wimbledon telephone exchange was set as 542 and used the mnemonic "LIBerty", based on the numbers on a telephone to which the letters are assigned; the mnemonic was derived from Liberty fabric works. The use of letter codes was dropped in the late 1960s.

A small memorial exists on the site of Merton Place. Other commemorations of Nelson's association with the parish are the former Nelson Hospital on Kingston Road, reopened in 2015 as the Nelson Health Centre; and, until it was closed in 2011, the Emma Hamilton public house at Wimbledon Chase. The Nelson Trading Estate off Morden Road and Hamilton, Hardy, Nelson, Victory and Trafalgar Roads, off Merton High Street, are all built on land once part of the Merton Place estate. Nelson's and Emma's pew remains in the parish church of St Mary the Virgin and on the wall of the north aisle of the church are the funerary hatchments of both Nelson and Sir William Hamilton. Outside the church, on Church Path, are "Nelson's Steps" (now somewhat overgrown), reputedly used by Nelson to mount his horse. This forms part of a small conservation area. Construction works in the Merton Abbey area, including those for Merantun Way, have revealed remains of Merton Priory which have been protected and preserved where possible. Further archaeological excavations are planned.

In 1881, all but one of the main concentrations of the surname Merton in Great Britain were in cardinal compass points other than the south east, with the sole exception being in the DA postcode area; this demonstrates that the surname derives from places other than the Merton now in Greater London. The borough of Merton is among the 24 London boroughs (out of 32) to be named after a medieval parish or city.