River Wandle

The Wandle in Morden Hall Park

The River Wandle is a river of urban northern Surrey which becomes a tributary of the River Thames. It is about 9 miles long from its source to the Thames.

The name of the river is congnate with that of the town of Wandsworth near its mouth. "Wandsworth" is though to derive from the Old English Wendlesweorþ meaning "Wendle's Place" rather than from the river. If so, the name of the Wandle may be a back-formation from the town, or from the same origin.

Course and nature

In the poetry of Alexander Pope, the Wandle became the "blue transparent Vandalis", though whether Pope was in one of his lyrical or satirical moods is not certain. The river runs through and between the urban sprawl which has engulfed north-eastern Surrey, its origin in springs sprung from the far slopes of the North Downs.

Rain filters through the chalk of the Downs and emerges on the spring line. At the top of the river basin the river is mostly culverted. The river is first visible at Wandle Park in Croydon. The flow is augmented at the Wandle's two main sources, both at about 115 feet above sea level. These are a pond in Waddon Ponds beside Mill Lane, Croydon; and a secondary source at Carshalton Ponds.

Other sources include the Norbury Brook/River Graveney tributary which rises near the Lower Addiscombe Road in Croydon and flows north from here. Two seasonal streams, the Coulsdon Bourne and the Caterham Bourne, run in wet winters. They join together at Purley, run in a culvert north along the Brighton Road and join the River Wandle at the Swan and Sugarloaf pub in South Croydon.

Much of the River is accessible using the Wandle Trail.

Flow

Carshalton Pond

There is a theory that a pre-historic Wandle rose as far off as the Weald and passed through the North Downs by the Merstham Gap. Today's river is not so ambitious.

Rainwater percolates through the chalk of the Downs and reappears as springs in central Croydon, Beddington and Carshalton. The occasional stream, known as the Bourne, which runs through the Caterham and Smitham Bottom (Coulsdon) valleys is a source of the River Wandle but only surfaces after heavy rainfall. A series of ditches and culverts channels the water from Purley to Croydon.

For many centuries the River Wandle rose from a spring near the present Swan and Sugarloaf public house on Brighton Road, flowing through the Haling area. It then ran northwards along Southbridge Road and by the time it reached Old Town it was 20 feet wide and began to divide into smaller channels. The grounds of the Old Palace and Scarbrook Hill had several springs, ponds, streams and canals where fish swam, especially trout. However, as Croydon's population grew, the Old Town streams became little better than open sewers and were filled in or culverted from 1840 after outbreaks of typhoid and cholera.

The river then flowed through Pitlake (meaning 'stream in a hollow') and on through two marshy fields - Froggs Mead and Stubbs Mead, which became Wandle Park in 1890. Local springs were used to form a boating lake in the park, but frequent drying up problems led to the lake being filled in and the River culverted in 1967. In 2012 the River is being restored to the surface in Wandle Park. The Wandle then continues underground, through where the gas works used to stand, under the Purley Way road past Waddon Ponds and appears on the surface at Richmond Green

A tributary starts in Thornton Heath as the Norbury Brook, becomes the River Graveney and joins the Wandle near Summerstown.

Village names in the Wandle basin include: Croydon, Waddon, Beddington, Wallington, Carshalton, Hackbridge, Mitcham, Ravensbury, St Helier, Morden, Wimbledon, Merton Abbey, Colliers Wood, Summerstown, and Wandsworth. Only Wandsworth shares a name with the river.

Industry

The Wandle in Wandsworth Town Centre

The river has been put to use since Roman times and was heavily industrialised in the 17th and 18th century (the industrial revolution), at one point being one of the most polluted rivers in Britain. This all sheds incredulity on Pope's "blue transparent Vandalis". The main industries of the period were tobacco and textiles.

The Liberty print works and Merton Board Mills once dominated the riverscape in what is now the London Borough of Merton. The concentration of heavy industry in this area resulted in the stretch of the river running between Windsor Avenue and Colliers Wood High Street being diverted during the 18th century. The original course of the river still runs underground beneath Liberty Avenue, surfacing at Runnymede as the Pickle Ditch and rejoining the modern river outside Sainsbury's. Few local residents realise that the stretch of the river running past Merton Abbey Mills craft village and in front of Sainsbury's is actually man-made.

Subsequent cleanups of the river have led to a dramatic improvement in water quality leading to a return of the river's once famous brown trout. This improvement in water quality has also seen other fish thrive with stocks of chub, roach and perch all flourishing once again with the most popular angling spots situated on the river at Colliers Wood.

Incidents

On 17 September 2007, a chemical was accidentally flushed into the Wandle from Thames Water's Beddington sewage works. This resulted in over 2,000 fish of various species being killed. The company assumed responsibility for the mistake, and said they were "mortified" by the incident. The company failed to notify the Environment Agency of the discharge, as the site manager thought it was minor.

Sodium hypochlorite was being used to clean its tertiary treatment screens, but instead of being circulated back through the treatment works, it was accidentally discharged into the river. The company immediately offered to meet local angling clubs and the Wandle Trust to discuss restocking and long term support for the work of the Trust.

The company was fined £125,000 for the incident on 26 January 2009, with costs of £21,335. This is thought to be the greatest ever penalty for a single offence of polluting controlled waters. However, in February 2010, on appeal, the fine was found to be "manifestly excessive" and was reduced to £50,000.

Trivia

The Wandle appears in Michael de Larrabeiti's Borrible books published in the 1970s and 1980s.

Both the (now defunct) Plough Lane Stadium and the Wimbledon Stadium are on the banks of the Wandle.

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about River Wandle)

• The Wandle Trust
• River Wandle Images
• River Wandle on UK Rivers Guidebook
• The Wandle Piscators fishing club