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River Wandle
The River Wandle is a right-bank tributary of the River Thames in south London, England. With a total length of about 9 miles (14 km), the river passes through the London boroughs of Croydon, Sutton, Merton and Wandsworth, where it reaches the Thames. A short headwater – the Caterham Bourne – is partially in Surrey, the historic county of the river's catchment. Tributaries of the Wandle include Carshalton Ponds and Norbury Brook.
The Wandle Trail follows the course of the river from Croydon to Wandsworth.
The name is thought to derive from a back-formation of Wandsworth (Old English: Wendelesorde meaning Wendle's Enclosure).
In the pleistocene before the carving of the Mole Gap, water lapped the north of the area between the North Downs and Greensand Hills known as the Vale of Holmesdale taking the Caterham or Coulsdon Bourne routes, to form the much less deep Merstham Gap, a wind gap. In more recent times, precipitation on the local central, small section of the long escarpment percolates through the chalk and reappears as springs in central Croydon, Beddington, and Carshalton. The occasional stream, known as the Bourne, which runs through the Caterham valley (and Smitham Bottom in Coulsdon) is a source of the River Wandle but only surfaces after heavy rainfall. A series of ditches and culverts carries the water from Purley to Croydon.
For many centuries the River Wandle rose from springs including the garden of Blunt House, South End, Croydon and Brighton Road to enter and flow through the Haling neighbourhood in the south of Croydon. It ran along Southbridge Road and upon reaching Old Town it reached a maximal 20 ft (6 m) across and began to divide into smaller channels. The grounds of the Old Palace and Scarbrook Hill had springs engineered with ponds, streams and canals where fish swam, especially trout. Over the years, it became renowned for its fish, and is mentioned in works such as William Camden's Britannia (1586) and Izaak Walton's The Compleat Angler (1653). Lord Nelson would fish in its waters, leading his mistress, Lady Hamilton, to rename the Wandle, as it flowed through her garden, the "River Nile", in Nelson's memory.
However, as Croydon's population grew and use of the water closet increased, the Old Town streams became little more than open sewers and were filled in or culverted from 1840 after outbreaks of typhoid and cholera.
The Wandle then flowed through Pitlake and on through two marshy fields – Froggs Mead and Stubbs Mead – drained to form 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 was culverted in 1967. In 2012, the Wandle was restored to the surface in Wandle Park. From there, the river 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 road, where a small green buffer to its north acts as the green after the footpath at the end of Mill Lane in Waddon, Croydon.
For part of its length, the Wandle forms the boundary between the London Boroughs of Croydon and Lambeth and, further downstream bounds Merton and Wandsworth. Shortly before reaching the Thames the navigable Bell Lane Creek splits from the river, rejoining close to the confluence.
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River Wandle AI simulator
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River Wandle
The River Wandle is a right-bank tributary of the River Thames in south London, England. With a total length of about 9 miles (14 km), the river passes through the London boroughs of Croydon, Sutton, Merton and Wandsworth, where it reaches the Thames. A short headwater – the Caterham Bourne – is partially in Surrey, the historic county of the river's catchment. Tributaries of the Wandle include Carshalton Ponds and Norbury Brook.
The Wandle Trail follows the course of the river from Croydon to Wandsworth.
The name is thought to derive from a back-formation of Wandsworth (Old English: Wendelesorde meaning Wendle's Enclosure).
In the pleistocene before the carving of the Mole Gap, water lapped the north of the area between the North Downs and Greensand Hills known as the Vale of Holmesdale taking the Caterham or Coulsdon Bourne routes, to form the much less deep Merstham Gap, a wind gap. In more recent times, precipitation on the local central, small section of the long escarpment percolates through the chalk and reappears as springs in central Croydon, Beddington, and Carshalton. The occasional stream, known as the Bourne, which runs through the Caterham valley (and Smitham Bottom in Coulsdon) is a source of the River Wandle but only surfaces after heavy rainfall. A series of ditches and culverts carries the water from Purley to Croydon.
For many centuries the River Wandle rose from springs including the garden of Blunt House, South End, Croydon and Brighton Road to enter and flow through the Haling neighbourhood in the south of Croydon. It ran along Southbridge Road and upon reaching Old Town it reached a maximal 20 ft (6 m) across and began to divide into smaller channels. The grounds of the Old Palace and Scarbrook Hill had springs engineered with ponds, streams and canals where fish swam, especially trout. Over the years, it became renowned for its fish, and is mentioned in works such as William Camden's Britannia (1586) and Izaak Walton's The Compleat Angler (1653). Lord Nelson would fish in its waters, leading his mistress, Lady Hamilton, to rename the Wandle, as it flowed through her garden, the "River Nile", in Nelson's memory.
However, as Croydon's population grew and use of the water closet increased, the Old Town streams became little more than open sewers and were filled in or culverted from 1840 after outbreaks of typhoid and cholera.
The Wandle then flowed through Pitlake and on through two marshy fields – Froggs Mead and Stubbs Mead – drained to form 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 was culverted in 1967. In 2012, the Wandle was restored to the surface in Wandle Park. From there, the river 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 road, where a small green buffer to its north acts as the green after the footpath at the end of Mill Lane in Waddon, Croydon.
For part of its length, the Wandle forms the boundary between the London Boroughs of Croydon and Lambeth and, further downstream bounds Merton and Wandsworth. Shortly before reaching the Thames the navigable Bell Lane Creek splits from the river, rejoining close to the confluence.