Wander the Wandle and make sure you don’t miss the mills

Posted on January 18, 2015 by insidecroydon

The WANDLE WANDERER steps out from the source of the eponymous river for a stroll through south London heritage and nature

Following the River Wandle can take you on a 12-mile journey through the history and nature of south London

Following the River Wandle can take you on a 12-mile journey through the history and nature of south London

The Wandle Trail has been in existence for nearly 20 years now, since a group of rambling, conservation and environment enthusiasts pieced together the walking and cycling route from Croydon through to Wandsworth, following the course of the River Wandle. The route is now complete, from source to the Thames.

Three of the London boroughs through which the River Wandle flows – Merton, Sutton and Wandsworth – make much of this resource for the enjoyment of local wildlife and promotion of health and well-being, providing online guides, maps and information. Croydon Council doesn’t seem to bother much, which is unfortunate. And a mistake.

The full trail is just over 12 miles long, and can be started either from East Croydon Station or from Wandsworth, and with a bit of pre-planning and preparation (not least in terms of fitness), can be completed in a day. But that sort of forced route march, especially if attempted in the short daylight hours of winter, will only see you miss much of what the walk has to offer. The chance to pause and smell the roses, as it were. Not that there were many fragrant blooms when we took our stroll over part of the route yesterday.

Better to take in parts of the trail in bite-sized chunks, which we’ll be doing over the coming weeks, with one or two slight diversions. And with an Oyster card to hand. This is very much a suburban walk, and can be accomplished without an OS Map, or car.

river_wandleBIG

The course of the River Wandle, which rises in South Croydon, provides miles of excellent, off-road walks

To begin at the beginning, as Dylan Thomas once said, the start of the Wandle Trail really ought to be at the source of the river, a spring at the Swan and Sugarloaf.

By 1840, with Croydon growing rapidly, and the Wandle flowing near to where drovers brought their cattle and sheep into town, the chalk stream flowing down the valley northwards was little more than an open sewer.

The river was covered over to try to avoid outbreaks of typhoid in Croydon. This was not entirely successful: there was a public health emergency in 1937, with a typhoid epidemic caused not by a natural stream, but by a water supply from a reservoir and sewage system which by that time was nearly a century old and unable to cope with 20th century demands.

Not until very recently has the Wandle properly re-emerged into daylight from its subterranean course in Croydon. Setting off from the former pub, you can pretty well follow its underground route by walking north up the wonderful new public realm of South End (ha!) and then alongside the busy traffic on Southbridge Road. This is probably the least attractive part of the route, but is included here so that, by the time we have covered all the sections of the route, we can say we have walked the full length of the river. It also will help to explain why the junction by the Treehouse pub is so often prone to flooding: the river is never far away.

Under the Croydon Flyover and along Roman Way, your walk then diverts on to Waddon New Road and on to a footbridge that crosses the railway lines and from which you have some interesting views of the Croydon skyline. Down the other side, into Wandle Park, and you meet the River Wandle for the first time.

This was once a prime example of Victorian civic pride, a park created from two marshy areas, Froggs Mead and Stubbs Mead, to a public open space in 1890. You can still see traces of the Victorians in some of the wrought iron railings near the car park and in the splendid bandstand.

Wandle Park has undergone substantial investment in the past few years, including the provision of a well-used skatepark, children’s play area, a new park cafe – which was closed on a Saturday lunchtime when we passed by – and most importantly, the re-surfacing of the River Wandle.

The River Wandle in Wandle Park today, a couple of miles north of the flooding in Kenley and Purley, and as full of water as it has ever been since this stretch of the river was brought back to the surface

The River Wandle in Wandle Park today. The artificial channel is beginning to take on a more natural feel

The river now bisects the park, feeding a pond. The channeling does appear artificial, but despite the park being well used by the public, it is beginning to “settle” into a more natural feel. Certainly, the parakeets who nest in the willows appear at home, flying at head height like lime green Stuka dive bombers along the riverside.

Walk through the park with the river, until it dives below the surface once again. Nearby, in the shadow of a Barratt’s housing development, is the tram stop. The river re-surfaces in Waddon Ponds and Beddington Park, and we’ll visit that section of the river’s route in a future wander. This week, we’re heading to the mills of Merton.

The tram takes you to Phipps Bridge, and the stop is right by an entrance to one of the National Trust’s little-known urban treasures: Morden Hall Park. Your walk can meander through here at your leisure. There’s much to explore. I’d suggest keeping to the left-hand path and, before long, you are reacquainted with the Wandle again as it flows into the former deer park close to the Surrey Arms pub (it is hard to believe that busy trunk roads are so close on the other side of the former estate’s high walls).

Lost in the undergrowth in Morden Hall Park are reminders of the park's grander times

Lost in the undergrowth in Morden Hall Park are reminders of the park’s grander times

Here, the now wider and mature river – after having flowed through Mitcham and Carshalton – slows and pools, creating midge-busy bankside areas where ducks, moorhens and other birds seem at ease. Most of this walking route is flat and on well-made paths, so it is suitable for those with young children, pushing pushchairs or those with mobility issues. On this section of the walk, you can keep close to the river on an unmade walkway popular with dog-walkers but which can be muddy and slippery under foot in the winter, or you can retrace your steps back on to hard path surface.

Both ways lead through to the rose garden, which is interwoven with streams that feed into the main river channels – the Wandle is split into two through the park here – and then on to the Hall itself and its snuff mill.

The Wandle was heavily industrialised in the 17th and 18th centuries, the constant flow providing a source of clean, pure water, and of power, to drive water mills. By the 19th century, it is reckoned that there were nearly 100 mills along the river in south London

The main industries were tobacco and textiles. In Morden Hall Park, grinding tobacco into sniffable snuff was a lucrative business from the late 1700s until the practice fell out of fashion in the early part of the 20th century. The family which owned Morden Hall imported their tobacco from their own plantations in Virginia. The National Trust, which was given the estate in 1941, has got one of the mills back into action as an education centre, which is worth a detour on this walk.

Morden Hall Park in the wintry sunshine, demonstrates how 18th century industry and parkland co-existed

Morden Hall Park in the wintry sunshine, demonstrates how 18th and 19th century industry and parkland co-existed alongside the banks of the River Wandle

We pressed on, past the wide open fields which have been allowed to stand untouched, untended, as natural as is possible, becoming wetlands, vital habitat in south London’s concrete jungle.

The river was well managed on the Morden Hall Estate for its industrial use

The river was well-managed on the Morden Hall Estate, with ponds and weirs, for its industrial use

As you’d expect with a National Trust property, Morden Hall Park is well signposted and has guiding maps at at its entrances. We were following the paths towards Deen City Farm and Merton Abbey Mills, crossing bridges leading us to an exit at the north-east corner of the park.

Morden Hall ParkThe river here runs in two very straight, man-made channels, the path hard by it.

On the far bank, about a dozen mature, tall trees have been felled, while from the left-hand side as you walk northwards comes the distinctive smell of the farmyard. Deen City Farm is free, and has llamas as well as horses and cattle, a riding school and cafe.

Past the farm entrance, and careful through its vehicle access road, walking beneath the overheard electricity cables, on one side of the river are the shabby shacks of light industry, on the far bank a collection of riverside houses. The end of the walk is not far away now, and in total we’d have walked less than four miles either side of the tram ride.

IMG_1705[1]And there, on the other side of a footbridge, is Merton Abbey Mills, a 1980s heritage development, with the William Morris pub – Morris had one of his textile printing works alongside the River Wandle – and a few pricy boutique shops. If shopping, rather than walking, is your thing, then you might want to plan your excursion for a day when the market is fully open; when we arrived on a Saturday afternoon in January, it was all a little desultory and shut-down.

The pub does offer toilets and food. But a fiver for a small bowl of soup seems aimed rather more at the occupants of the nearby yuppie flats. The pub also has Young’s beer on tap, providing a link to another stretch of the Wandle Trail later in this series.

Refreshed, we walked back, using slightly more direct routes through the parkland this time; there’s also the option to stay on the tram into central Croydon, rather than disembarking at Wandle Park. By the time we returned to our South Croydon starting point, we’d covered just over six miles, and with the stop it had all taken a little more than four hours.

The next stage of our Wandle wander will be a little shorter, and closer to home.

Coming to Croydon

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About insidecroydon

News, views and analysis about the people of Croydon, their lives and political times in the diverse and most-populated borough in London. Based in Croydon and edited by Steven Downes. To contact us, please email inside.croydon@btinternet.com
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3 Responses to Wander the Wandle and make sure you don’t miss the mills

  1. mandolin456 says:
    January 18, 2015 at 4:05 pm

    The Wandle trail is a great place to cycle in relative safety as most parts are off road. From Waddon Ponds throughout to Beddington park, Wilderness Island then footpaths to Morden Hall to Merton Mills and across the road to pick up the footpath again to Southfield; walk your bike through to King George V park and then onto the Wandle Delta at Wandsworth and the Thames path.
    For a further adventure follow the Thames path to Westminster bridge and cross over to Jubilee gardens for lunch.

    Reply
  2. sed30 says:
    March 26, 2017 at 9:38 am

    Reblogged this on sed30's Blog.

    Reply

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