London 1982

Peter MARSHALL


River Wandle, Wandsworth. 1982
30i-12: river, marker, car park

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The Wandle was at one time an important industrial river, with mills powered by its fast-flowing stream and the river carrying away every large amounts of toxic waste, making it one of the country's most polluted rivers in the 18th and 19th centuries. A relatively short section was navigable in recent times, with a lock at the river mouth and a short canal leading into the Young's Brewery on the north side of the High St; I seem to recall you could look through a gate there and see barges, though that may have been before I took this picture. Canoes can still get up at least as far as Merton Abbey at least when the level is right, but it is a hazardous and probably illegal journey and easier work coming down; in the 1600s it was supposedly navigable up to Wallington Bridge.
 
There was an extensive basin in the area around and north of the brewery in 1801 when the Surrey Iron Railway opened in 1801-2, and much of it survived the demise of the railway. The railway began roughly where the Thames Path now crosses what was then the canal, and the site is now occupied by a large substation. Goods brought up in waggons could be tipped directly into barges. The canal at that time was 'three furlongs - 660 yards - long and continued past the Brewery to William McMurray's Royal Paper Mills - he later bought the canal which is sometimes known by his name. Despite some plans it never got longer. The canal basin was mostly filled in for and enlarged site for the Wandsworth, Wimbledon and Epsom District Gas Company in 1932, but the entrance lock and a substantial length of canal remained into the 1950s. Any remains are now under a car park at the western edge of the waste transfer facility, which I think were a building site last time I was there. The 'Windsor line' still crosses a part of the area on a bridge built to cross the canal, basin and iron railway.
 
Two streams of the river join around 100m before they meet the Thames, at the east the River Wandle, and to its west Bell Lane Creek, which overflows from the main river through a sluice gate on The Causeway a few hundred yards upstream, the gate has a bell which is rung by the tide. The level in the river is maintained by several weirs and downstream from the confluence in 1989 a half-tide weir was added a few yards from the mouth of the combined river, with the hope of establishing a marina upstream which never came to fruition. After extensive studies this weir was removed in 2017.
 
This image shows a small section of the east bank of the River Wandle close to its mouth.