Tooting meant “Dwelling of Slaves” in Anglo-Saxon. The Domesday Book records that there were two separate villages, Upper Tooting (or Tooting Bec) and Lower Tooting (later called Tooting Graveney). Tooting Bec was owned by the Abbey of St Mary of Bec in Normandy, hence the name. The Abbot had his own gallows set up there to execute criminals. Tooting Graveney was owned by the Abbey of Chertsey. It later took its name from the De Gravenell family who owned it for a time in the 16th century. In the 18th century, Tooting became fashionable for country houses for the rich. The area was notorious for highwaymen operating along the High Street, which was part of the original Roman road from London to Chichester called Stane Street. Tooting was one of the last parts of the south to be caught up in the London house building boom of Victorian times. Only in the 1890s and later were the previous century’s villas knocked down and replaced by terraces of houses. Thomas Hardy lived in Trinity Road. Tooting still managed to retain a considerable amount of open space, as compared with nearby Balham. The Duke of Bedford tried to fence off Tooting Bec Common, but was prevented by popular protests and the Common was preserved for public use.

The most sought-after area in Tooting is the Heaver estate, built in the 1890s by Alfred Heaver, a local builder. The estate takes in the streets between Balham High Road, Tooting Bec and Tooting Common up to and including Ritherdon Road. It is now a conservation area. The estate contains a mix of detached semi-detached and terraced houses in red brick. Ritherdon Road and Elmfield Road to the north contain similar properties. South of Tooting Bec Road lies Tooting Bec, the original village of Tooting. The hospital site near Tooting Common has been redeveloped recently. Nearby is the Totterdown Fields estate of early 1900s cottages built by the council, but now a conservation area containing attractive brick and stucco faced houses. Further west are more houses from the Edwardian era in Gassiot Road and Franciscan Road. The southern corner below Church Lane contains a housing development from the 1980s called St Benedict’s with attractive small houses and flats.

Furzedown is the area on the other side of Rectory Lane. This area contains largely Victorian housing, but mixed with a certain amount of 20th century development, and is slightly down market from Tooting Bec to the north. (North of Southcroft Road it is considered part of Streatham.) Roads such as Seely Road and Links Road contain Edwardian terraced houses.

Tooting Graveney is to the west between Tooting High Street and Mitcham Road and contains a variety of property types. Trevelyan Road and Mellison Road contain distinctive houses built in the 1870s in South Downs style, with flint facades. Elsewhere, there are mock Tudor houses in Otterburn Street and various more traditional terraced houses and flats conversions.

Garratt Lane and the roads to the south in central Tooting contain Victorian terraces. There are smaller properties in Aldis and Carwell Streets. Fountain Road is a centre for some Victorian and Edwardian terraces.

Above the Garratt Lane and West of Upper Tooting Road is the Bell Estate around Fishponds Road and Hebdon Road, with houses built between the wars. The estate contains medium-sized terraced houses. Between Broadwater Road and Garratt Lane there are more streets of Victorian terraced houses. On the other side of the Bell Estate, there are Edwardian houses in Glenburnie and Beechcroft Roads, also Parkhill Court, a 1930s mansion block. Between Beechcroft Road and Trinity Road is a conservation area with a mixture of Victorian and later houses, including more houses by the Heaver family in Crockerton Road and Dalebury Road. Trinity Crescent, which crosses Trinity Road, contains some of the most sought-after houses in Tooting with large detached Victorian houses and correspondingly large gardens. Nearby Holderness Road contains mock Tudor houses, and there are smaller Victorian houses in Chetwode Road.