New Malden

New Malden, Kingston upon Thames

London’s unlikely Korea Town, located south-east of Norbiton

Meadow Hill

New Malden began to develop as a separate township from Kingston in the second half of the 19th century, boosted by the coming of the railway in 1846 and the opening of the Kingston loop line in 1869. Until this time the area had fewer than a thousand inhab­i­tants and consisted mostly of farms and small­hold­ings separated from Kingston by Norbiton Common.

The first roads to be laid out were the Groves, to the north-west of the station. New Malden became an urban district in 1894. Suburban devel­op­ment reached a peak in the 1930s and the town become a borough in 1936.

New Malden has long had an indus­trial element and was subjected to bombing during the Blitz, which had the effect of clearing the way for more housing after the war.

New Malden has several small-scale vehicle repair businesses

With around 5,000 Korean residents in and around the locality, New Malden has the largest and most concen­trated Korean popu­la­tion in Europe.

No one is quite sure how this came about. One expla­na­tion is that 1970s Korean expa­tri­ates followed the example of their ambas­sador and settled in Wimbledon, but when prices there rose exces­sively they decamped to nearby New Malden.

The community is served by its own shops, restau­rants and other enter­prises, and several local churches hold services in Korean.

New Malden also has a sizeable Tamil community, orig­i­nating from Sri Lanka.

Postcode area: New Malden, KT4
Population: 19,078 (wards of Beverley and St James, 2011 census)
Station: South West Trains (zone 4)
Further reading: Stephen H Day, Malden: Old and New, Marine Day, 1990
* The picture of Meadow Hill at the top of this page is adapted from an original photograph, copyright David Howard, at Geograph Britain and Ireland, made available under the Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic Licence. Any subsequent reuse is freely permitted under the terms of that licence.