Thames Tributary Wandle - Wandsworth
This post only refers to elements in the square which are south of the Thames
Thames Tributary Wandle
The Wandle flows north and reaches the Thames
Post to the south Wandsworth
Post to the east Battersea
Post to the west Putney High Street and Fulham Riverside
Bell Lane
Wentworth Engine factory. Principally made beam engines and failed when horizontal engines were introduced. One of their engines, built in 1845, remained in the Ram Brewery and others are preserved elsewhere.
Bell Lane Creek
A branch of the Wandle which forms Causeway Island and which remains despite plans to fill it in in the 1950s. Grade II ecology site The sluice gate structure has been used for DELTA project. From it has been hung a bell, rung by the tides - four times in every 24 hours. Carved in stone on the gate is “Salmon, Swan, Otter, Heron, Eel”. In 1993, micro-hydro turbine was put on the sluice gate to generate renewable energy.
Bridgefield Grove
This road has now gone, but the name reflects the medieval field which covered the site.
Canal
This was opened in July 1802 and built by Jessop as part of the Surrey Iron Railway scheme. It was Quarter of a mile long with an entrance lock. It could hold 30 barges at once. It left the Wandle roughly at the High Street and then went east and parallel of the river to the Thames, where there was a lock out to the river. There was a swing bridge over it to take Church Walk. Railway land alongside the canal was taken over by the brewery and the gas coin 1839 and it was used for 60-ton barges for the gas works. They installed a steam crane in 1874. In 1846 Mcmurray, of the Royal Paper Mills in Garratt Lane had taken control of it and it was then called McMurray's Canal and used for transporting esparto grass. A scheme to go to Wimbledon was discussed in 1865 but came to nothing. It became disused after the First World War and in 1932 filled in as far as York Road. Moss Rose part of the infilling. All that is left is a bit of concrete wall
Spencer Court along the west bank and which consisted of late 18th cottages
Church Walk
This ran from Jews Walk to a swing bridge over the canal which eventually connected with the Causeway. Also called Ship Lane, presumably because it went to the Ship Pub at Waterside
Hills chemical works. This failed and became part of the gas works for the manufacture of sulphate of ammonia, mid 19th. The Hills family owned numerous chemical works in Britain and abroad which mainly processed gas industry waste. This works was managed by eldest brother, Arthur Hills.
Bus depot in Old Tram depot and stables. South London Tramways depot and stables opened in 1883 and converted by the LCC to conduit electric in 1906. Converted for trolleybuses in 1937. Replaced by buses in 1950. Closed in 1987 but reopened n 1988 for London Coaches and Round London Sightseeing Tours. Now owned by Arriva Brick tramway depot listed grade II.
Dormay Street
Burroughs and Welcombe first factory was here. They had been pharmacists in the US. Set up here to avoid stamp duty on pills. In 1889 they moved to Dartford.
Enterprise Way
Trading Estates
Fairfield Street
123 The Railway. Public house apparently referring to the Surrey Iron Railway.
Wandsworth Station. The earliest station was on the east side of Fairfield Street and relocated in 1860.
Hopkins and Williams’s chemical works. 1861. Between Jews Walk and Fairfield, the site was eventually bought by Wandsworth Gas Co. Hopkins and Williams made chemicals for use with photography. Chemical firm(s) of this name have been active through the 20th in London and internationally.
Ferrier Street
Trading estate along the railway
Lighterman’s Walk
Riverside walk area with posh flats
Nickols Walk
Riverside walk area with posh flats
Northfields
Cover the area of the mediaeval north field
Old York Road
499 Alma. Open-plan pub opposite the station. With wooden floors, exterior tiling and interior mosaic and ceramic decoration.
Wandsworth Town Station. 1846. Between Putney and Clapham Junction on South Western Trains.
Osiers Road
A little to the west of Point Pleasant. And developed for industry in the early 20th Trading estates and some new flats.
Amerce factory – in the late 19th this was the only factory in England licensed to make these caps for toy pistols. The factory also made the cracking bit of crackers
Cadwell factory making fireworks and signals.
Dagnals rope works.
Point Pleasant
Steps to the river were called Judge’s Steps.
Judge’s House once stood there
Northfield House once stood there
Prospect House. A stuccoed two-storey Regency villa. Probably built c.1805 for Joseph Gatty, owner of the vinegar works near by. Restored in 1975.
Frying Pan Creek because lots of kitchen things made there. 1898 little houses called Frying Pan Houses. Manufacture of small iron goods had begun in 1634 when there were at least 14 hearths. Edward Barker appears to have been in charge of this and to have through the workers to England from Holland he sold frying pans, etc from a warehouse. He owned the land and paid the Dutch workers for what they made. He was a major arms dealer in the Civil War supplying to Cromwell. In 1771 it was sold
Gatty and Waller chemists took over the site of the frying pan houses in 1771. Operating the site as a vinegar distillery, and also supplying chemicals to local dyers and printers. They also had an iron liquor house on site.
Malt Houses. Three malthouses here in the late 19th.
Aluminium Plant and Vessel Co. Set up in the malthouses in 1910 by Richard Seligman. Became a specialist aluminium welding business particularly in the First World War, and eventually covered most of Point Pleasant. Made tanks for spitfires, etc. But in 1952 moved to Crawley.
Union Brewery. Opened 1820 and closed 1920.
Railway
The railway from Clapham Junction to Richmond crosses Armoury Way on a brick viaduct, and a wide steel span crossed the SIR's dock. It was opened in 27 1846, five weeks before the Surrey Iron Railway closed, it probably also crossed the SIR'S dockside sidings
Smugglers Way
Trading estates and new housing
Solid waste transfer station. Operated by Cory Environmental it was built in 1985 to handle up to 5,600 tonnes of solid domestic and civic amenity waste per week. The station containerises the waste
Swandon Way
Swandon was one of the names for the Wandsworth Manor House slightly east of here. This road has been built in the late 20th to replace York Road.
The Causeway
This is a lane which goes along the west bank of the Wandle and leads to its mouth on the Thames. It was the approach road to the Lower Mills. At the northern end were tidal wharves beside the Wandle, Shepley's warehouses, and the crane. It turned to cross the Wandle; and also crossed the entrance to the Surrey Iron Railway dock by a lift bridge – some rails remained in the 1980s.
Wandsworth Chemical Works Ltd., manufacturing chemist, Phenol on the site of Torpedo Wharf
Torpedo Wharf. Site of Halsey’s boat building – steam tugs and launches.
Lower Mills. The site was north of the Richmond railway, where a bridge crossed the river. They were also known as ‘Causeway Mills’, and belonged to Richard Bush. He was a promoter of the Surrey Iron Railway and owned the Wandsworth distillery, and was presumably the same Bush who had an interest in the Earlsfield oil mills. In 1723 they were used as oil mills but in 1745 they were used for malt. The Lower Mills were partly tide mills. The enabling act for the Surrey Iron Railway provided Richard Bush who occupied mills owned by the Rev. Charles Sampson and James Drew should control any sluices from the new dock, so that the milling should not be interfered with. Later both the mills and the distillery passed to the Watneys, the distillery becoming John Watney & Co., and in the late c19th the mills were used to clean wheat which was then rolled at the Upper and Mills. The mill worked 12 pairs of French burrstones with three water wheels. It was closed in 1893 and demolished in 1898. Making Wando bread.
Southwark and Vauxhall Water Works on a site between the Wandle and the Canal and north of the Causeway. Set up in 1852 and took water directly from the Thames.
Wandsworth chemical works making sheep dips, manures etc.
Feathers public house this was on the bank of the Surrey Iron Railway cut. Closed in 1888 but the building remained inside the refuse depot until 1959.
Salter’s boat yard was at the back of the Feathers pub.
Feathers Wharf. Cory barged refuse out of it and it became a depot for "cleansing and dusting the town".
Wandle
The main stream of the Wandle has been diverted through a modern sluice and inland also goes along a former creek – Bell Lane Creek.
The delta, where the Wandle met the tidal Thames, was sacred land for 2000 years. Here Bronze and Iron Age people worshipped the power of the rivers. They showed their devotion by throwing bronze objects into the water: shields, axes, swords, and funerary urns.
Wandle Island
The County of London and British Provincial Electric Lighting Co Ltd. Large factory, chimney 200' high never properly built. 1898.
Wandsworth Bridge.
1884 act passed same day as Albert Bridge Utilitarian but Fulham did not make up its rates to the bridge so it was not used very much. Sold to MBW for a very little. LCC replaced it 1881 but could not carry buses not done until l935. Finished 1940. 3 span structure first opened in October 1873. Having become too narrow for the requirements of its traffic, the original bridge was pulled down in 1954 and replaced by the present handsome new structure of three arches, which was opened for traffic in 1938.
Waterside
Most of the road had gone by 1912 as the gas works expanded.
Boat house
Phipps wharf
Wandsworth Gas Works Wandsworth and District Gas Company. Set up in October 1834 and leased a small site, adjoining the Surrey Iron Railway Basin and were producing gas by February 1835. In 1873 they purchased Dormay’s concern for £5,000. The Wandsworth Company grew into one of London's largest gas concerns. The problem of handling increasing tonnages of coal by barge via the canal basin, some 50,000 tons per year, was solved in 1906 when SS Ratcliff delivered 1,100 tons of coal to the works at Wandsworth. Low priced gas also appealed to balloonists and for a while Wandsworth became the Mecca of the ballooning world. In 1912 the first of a series of amalgamations took place with the Mitcham and Wimbledon Gas Company, and the Epsom and Ewell Gas Company. There were two further series of amalgamations, in 1930 and 1931 with the Kingston Gas Company and the Sutton Gas Company, 1936 saw amalgamation with the Leather- head Gas Company and the Walton and Weybridge Gas Company, also control was gained of the Woking Gas Company. In 1934 a large jetty equipped with two 5 ton hydraulic cranes, was built. Another important development in 1938 was the construction of Britain’s first tower purifiers. After the Second World War demand for gas rose sharply, considerably and a new water gas plant was commissioned in 1947 with a capacity of four million cubic foot per day. Nationalisation of the Gas Industry took effect from 1st May 1949, and the Company passed to the South Eastern Gas Board.
Windmill recorded here in 1633
Gothic House used by the Methodists as a mission hall 1879-1898
The White Horse which was subsumed into the gas works site.
Waterman’s Arms closed in 1910.
Barge Aground closed pub
Saw mills
Wharf Road (not clear where this was)
Electric Light Power and Colour Co., works. This was decorative lighting – they lit the outside of Crystal Palace
Thames Tributary Wandle
The Wandle flows north and reaches the Thames
Post to the south Wandsworth
Post to the east Battersea
Post to the west Putney High Street and Fulham Riverside
Bell Lane
Wentworth Engine factory. Principally made beam engines and failed when horizontal engines were introduced. One of their engines, built in 1845, remained in the Ram Brewery and others are preserved elsewhere.
Bell Lane Creek
A branch of the Wandle which forms Causeway Island and which remains despite plans to fill it in in the 1950s. Grade II ecology site The sluice gate structure has been used for DELTA project. From it has been hung a bell, rung by the tides - four times in every 24 hours. Carved in stone on the gate is “Salmon, Swan, Otter, Heron, Eel”. In 1993, micro-hydro turbine was put on the sluice gate to generate renewable energy.
Bridgefield Grove
This road has now gone, but the name reflects the medieval field which covered the site.
Canal
This was opened in July 1802 and built by Jessop as part of the Surrey Iron Railway scheme. It was Quarter of a mile long with an entrance lock. It could hold 30 barges at once. It left the Wandle roughly at the High Street and then went east and parallel of the river to the Thames, where there was a lock out to the river. There was a swing bridge over it to take Church Walk. Railway land alongside the canal was taken over by the brewery and the gas coin 1839 and it was used for 60-ton barges for the gas works. They installed a steam crane in 1874. In 1846 Mcmurray, of the Royal Paper Mills in Garratt Lane had taken control of it and it was then called McMurray's Canal and used for transporting esparto grass. A scheme to go to Wimbledon was discussed in 1865 but came to nothing. It became disused after the First World War and in 1932 filled in as far as York Road. Moss Rose part of the infilling. All that is left is a bit of concrete wall
Spencer Court along the west bank and which consisted of late 18th cottages
Church Walk
This ran from Jews Walk to a swing bridge over the canal which eventually connected with the Causeway. Also called Ship Lane, presumably because it went to the Ship Pub at Waterside
Hills chemical works. This failed and became part of the gas works for the manufacture of sulphate of ammonia, mid 19th. The Hills family owned numerous chemical works in Britain and abroad which mainly processed gas industry waste. This works was managed by eldest brother, Arthur Hills.
Bus depot in Old Tram depot and stables. South London Tramways depot and stables opened in 1883 and converted by the LCC to conduit electric in 1906. Converted for trolleybuses in 1937. Replaced by buses in 1950. Closed in 1987 but reopened n 1988 for London Coaches and Round London Sightseeing Tours. Now owned by Arriva Brick tramway depot listed grade II.
Dormay Street
Burroughs and Welcombe first factory was here. They had been pharmacists in the US. Set up here to avoid stamp duty on pills. In 1889 they moved to Dartford.
Enterprise Way
Trading Estates
Fairfield Street
123 The Railway. Public house apparently referring to the Surrey Iron Railway.
Wandsworth Station. The earliest station was on the east side of Fairfield Street and relocated in 1860.
Hopkins and Williams’s chemical works. 1861. Between Jews Walk and Fairfield, the site was eventually bought by Wandsworth Gas Co. Hopkins and Williams made chemicals for use with photography. Chemical firm(s) of this name have been active through the 20th in London and internationally.
Ferrier Street
Trading estate along the railway
Lighterman’s Walk
Riverside walk area with posh flats
Nickols Walk
Riverside walk area with posh flats
Northfields
Cover the area of the mediaeval north field
Old York Road
499 Alma. Open-plan pub opposite the station. With wooden floors, exterior tiling and interior mosaic and ceramic decoration.
Wandsworth Town Station. 1846. Between Putney and Clapham Junction on South Western Trains.
Osiers Road
A little to the west of Point Pleasant. And developed for industry in the early 20th Trading estates and some new flats.
Amerce factory – in the late 19th this was the only factory in England licensed to make these caps for toy pistols. The factory also made the cracking bit of crackers
Cadwell factory making fireworks and signals.
Dagnals rope works.
Point Pleasant
Steps to the river were called Judge’s Steps.
Judge’s House once stood there
Northfield House once stood there
Prospect House. A stuccoed two-storey Regency villa. Probably built c.1805 for Joseph Gatty, owner of the vinegar works near by. Restored in 1975.
Frying Pan Creek because lots of kitchen things made there. 1898 little houses called Frying Pan Houses. Manufacture of small iron goods had begun in 1634 when there were at least 14 hearths. Edward Barker appears to have been in charge of this and to have through the workers to England from Holland he sold frying pans, etc from a warehouse. He owned the land and paid the Dutch workers for what they made. He was a major arms dealer in the Civil War supplying to Cromwell. In 1771 it was sold
Gatty and Waller chemists took over the site of the frying pan houses in 1771. Operating the site as a vinegar distillery, and also supplying chemicals to local dyers and printers. They also had an iron liquor house on site.
Malt Houses. Three malthouses here in the late 19th.
Aluminium Plant and Vessel Co. Set up in the malthouses in 1910 by Richard Seligman. Became a specialist aluminium welding business particularly in the First World War, and eventually covered most of Point Pleasant. Made tanks for spitfires, etc. But in 1952 moved to Crawley.
Union Brewery. Opened 1820 and closed 1920.
Railway
The railway from Clapham Junction to Richmond crosses Armoury Way on a brick viaduct, and a wide steel span crossed the SIR's dock. It was opened in 27 1846, five weeks before the Surrey Iron Railway closed, it probably also crossed the SIR'S dockside sidings
Smugglers Way
Trading estates and new housing
Solid waste transfer station. Operated by Cory Environmental it was built in 1985 to handle up to 5,600 tonnes of solid domestic and civic amenity waste per week. The station containerises the waste
Swandon Way
Swandon was one of the names for the Wandsworth Manor House slightly east of here. This road has been built in the late 20th to replace York Road.
The Causeway
This is a lane which goes along the west bank of the Wandle and leads to its mouth on the Thames. It was the approach road to the Lower Mills. At the northern end were tidal wharves beside the Wandle, Shepley's warehouses, and the crane. It turned to cross the Wandle; and also crossed the entrance to the Surrey Iron Railway dock by a lift bridge – some rails remained in the 1980s.
Wandsworth Chemical Works Ltd., manufacturing chemist, Phenol on the site of Torpedo Wharf
Torpedo Wharf. Site of Halsey’s boat building – steam tugs and launches.
Lower Mills. The site was north of the Richmond railway, where a bridge crossed the river. They were also known as ‘Causeway Mills’, and belonged to Richard Bush. He was a promoter of the Surrey Iron Railway and owned the Wandsworth distillery, and was presumably the same Bush who had an interest in the Earlsfield oil mills. In 1723 they were used as oil mills but in 1745 they were used for malt. The Lower Mills were partly tide mills. The enabling act for the Surrey Iron Railway provided Richard Bush who occupied mills owned by the Rev. Charles Sampson and James Drew should control any sluices from the new dock, so that the milling should not be interfered with. Later both the mills and the distillery passed to the Watneys, the distillery becoming John Watney & Co., and in the late c19th the mills were used to clean wheat which was then rolled at the Upper and Mills. The mill worked 12 pairs of French burrstones with three water wheels. It was closed in 1893 and demolished in 1898. Making Wando bread.
Southwark and Vauxhall Water Works on a site between the Wandle and the Canal and north of the Causeway. Set up in 1852 and took water directly from the Thames.
Wandsworth chemical works making sheep dips, manures etc.
Feathers public house this was on the bank of the Surrey Iron Railway cut. Closed in 1888 but the building remained inside the refuse depot until 1959.
Salter’s boat yard was at the back of the Feathers pub.
Feathers Wharf. Cory barged refuse out of it and it became a depot for "cleansing and dusting the town".
Wandle
The main stream of the Wandle has been diverted through a modern sluice and inland also goes along a former creek – Bell Lane Creek.
The delta, where the Wandle met the tidal Thames, was sacred land for 2000 years. Here Bronze and Iron Age people worshipped the power of the rivers. They showed their devotion by throwing bronze objects into the water: shields, axes, swords, and funerary urns.
Wandle Island
The County of London and British Provincial Electric Lighting Co Ltd. Large factory, chimney 200' high never properly built. 1898.
Wandsworth Bridge.
1884 act passed same day as Albert Bridge Utilitarian but Fulham did not make up its rates to the bridge so it was not used very much. Sold to MBW for a very little. LCC replaced it 1881 but could not carry buses not done until l935. Finished 1940. 3 span structure first opened in October 1873. Having become too narrow for the requirements of its traffic, the original bridge was pulled down in 1954 and replaced by the present handsome new structure of three arches, which was opened for traffic in 1938.
Waterside
Most of the road had gone by 1912 as the gas works expanded.
Boat house
Phipps wharf
Wandsworth Gas Works Wandsworth and District Gas Company. Set up in October 1834 and leased a small site, adjoining the Surrey Iron Railway Basin and were producing gas by February 1835. In 1873 they purchased Dormay’s concern for £5,000. The Wandsworth Company grew into one of London's largest gas concerns. The problem of handling increasing tonnages of coal by barge via the canal basin, some 50,000 tons per year, was solved in 1906 when SS Ratcliff delivered 1,100 tons of coal to the works at Wandsworth. Low priced gas also appealed to balloonists and for a while Wandsworth became the Mecca of the ballooning world. In 1912 the first of a series of amalgamations took place with the Mitcham and Wimbledon Gas Company, and the Epsom and Ewell Gas Company. There were two further series of amalgamations, in 1930 and 1931 with the Kingston Gas Company and the Sutton Gas Company, 1936 saw amalgamation with the Leather- head Gas Company and the Walton and Weybridge Gas Company, also control was gained of the Woking Gas Company. In 1934 a large jetty equipped with two 5 ton hydraulic cranes, was built. Another important development in 1938 was the construction of Britain’s first tower purifiers. After the Second World War demand for gas rose sharply, considerably and a new water gas plant was commissioned in 1947 with a capacity of four million cubic foot per day. Nationalisation of the Gas Industry took effect from 1st May 1949, and the Company passed to the South Eastern Gas Board.
Windmill recorded here in 1633
Gothic House used by the Methodists as a mission hall 1879-1898
The White Horse which was subsumed into the gas works site.
Waterman’s Arms closed in 1910.
Barge Aground closed pub
Saw mills
Wharf Road (not clear where this was)
Electric Light Power and Colour Co., works. This was decorative lighting – they lit the outside of Crystal Palace
Comments