The green space of Clapham Common covers roughly 200 acres and is a favourite destination for South Londoners to escape the urban jungle. It is popular for sports, picnics in summer and large public events and concerts.

The centre of the park contains a bandstand, which was built in 1890. It is the largest bandstand in London, and in 2006 the building was saved f through a restoration project funded partly from public donations and money raised from the Ben and Jerry's Summer Sundae event held in the park.

The Common's two largest ponds, Eagle Pond and Mount Pond are used for fishing and angling and are home to a range of fish such as Carp and Bream. Long Pond is used for model boating, which is a tradition that dates back to the early 1900's. Cock Pond is a popular place for paddling in the summer.

The park had one of the earliest roller skating rinks in Britain when the Victorians laid out scraps of leftover tarmac from local development projects - the two mounds on the Battersea side of the common can still be seen.

The Common is surrounded by many fine houses which began to be built in the 1790s and became fashionable dwellings in what was then a village south of London. As London expanded in the 19th century this became part of a built-up area, and Clapham was eventually absorbed into the capital.

Ron Davies, a prominent UK Member of Parliament, had a "moment of madness" in 1998 - he met some strangers late at night who took his car, wallet and phone. Davies resigned; repeatedly denying the incident had anything to do with drugs or sex.

In the 1970s television program Are You Being Served? Mrs Slocombe notes: "I haven't forgotten being flung flat on me back on Clapham Common by a land mine--and the German Air Force was responsible" to which a colleague ripostes: "All the other times she was flat on her back the American Air Force was responsible."

Squeeze’s 1979 single “Up the Junction,” opens with:

I never thought it would happen,
With me and the girl from Clapham,
Out on the windy common,
That night I ain’t forgotten.