Thames Tributary Wandle - Earlsfield

Thames Tributary Wandle
The Wandle continues to flow northwards towards the Thames


Busy urban area along a stretch of the river Wandle and the outskirts of Wandsworth

Post to the north Wandsworth
Post to the south Earlsfield
Post to the east Earlsfield

Algarve Road
Premier Electric Theatre. Built 1910, renamed the Rex in 1950 closed in 1960 and demolished in 1988 after used for bingo.

Balvernie Grove
Laid out in the 1860s and 1870s

Bendon Valley
Riverside Business Centre. Possibly on the site of 19th card and pasteboard factory
Earlsfield Business Centre Fords Food Factory. Feedstuffs for dogs, horses, poultry, and geese burnt down in 1897.
Wickens Pease fat boiling work, in 1889. Care taken to cut down the smell.
Chemical manure factory south of the road

Brookwood Road
Development south of here from 1891

Cargill Road
Route of the Surrey Iron Railway. The line of the back fences is roughly that of the Surrey Iron Railway indicating a diversion to the west to get round Willow Close

Duntshill Road
Preserves the old name ‘Duntshill’ which was earlier ‘Duneshull’ the "hill of the manor called Done or Dune.

Esparto Road
Esparto was used as a raw material for paper making at the Mcurray paper mills.

Flock Mill Place
Earlsfield Mill. Flats in what was the Kenco Coffee Works was one of a number of mills there. It was the southernmost of two or three water-powered textile printing factories, and probably the one occupied in 1805 by Mr.Howard of Phipps Bridge. In 1831 to 1850 it was a parchment works, and by the 1890s this one was Duntshill Mills, producing flock for the Wandsworth Flock Company who were there from 1868. The surviving building is late 19th. Also horsehair manufacture

Garratt Lane
The Route of the Surrey Iron Railway followed Garratt Lane but left it briefly near the junction with Earlsfield Road and rejoined at Vanderbilt Road.
Garratt Lane. Preserving the name of a tenement called le Garret of the 16th from Old French gorite ‘a watchtower'.
170 Wandsworth Volunteer Bureau Upper Wandle house. There is a plaque on the building
204 Grosvenor Arms 206 Gatto tools 214 Jolly Gardeners pub which is now a restaurant ealth. pub which hadpub which pub
220 Bendon Valley House Hospital Child Health Department
249 Brocklebank Health Centre 332 The Puzzle, renamed he Wandle
St.John the Divine. Unpretentious brick building of 1935, Anglican
St.Gregory RC church. The parish was an extension of St Thomas's at Wandsworth and an anonymous benefactor bought the land and paid for the first church here. It opened in 1904 on the 13th centenary of the death of St. Gregory the Great. The parish was very poor and the priest tried to revive the Bridgettine Order here. The church was destroyed by bombing in 1944 and this is marked by a sign. It was rebuilt in 1956.
Priston Works. This was near the corner of Vanderbilt Street and its cobbled entrance marked the line of the Surrey Iron Railway
Voltaire flats in converted Wandle School. Big London School Board School with Lots of decorative plaques and decoration

Granville Road
This was previously a footpath called The Great Baulk meaning a headland between fields
23 Entryphone
Haldane Place
Airfix Industries 1950s-1970s made plastic kits for toys, etc
Kimber Road
54 The Kimber Centre. Joe Macari servicing Ferrari and Maserati cars.
55 East retail warehouse for women’s clothing
60 Mander and Germain marble specialists.
75 Natural History Library, Entomological Library

King George’s Park
Opened in 1921 on a site bought for use as a tip – the idea was to help with local unemployment. It was to be called Southfields Park but this changed when it was opened in 1923 by King George. Area previously used for bleach field and farming.

Knaresborough Drive
Army Forms Depot

Lavenham Road
Developed from 1899
St.Barnabas. Built 1906-8 by C. Ford Whitcombe. Large red brick church built over undercroft

Merton Road
265 OK Sauce! An office block in white faience designed by Percy Sharp. It was also known as the George Mason & Co factory. Built in 1928 in Art Deco style. Brick. Sauce production ended in 1968 and the building was acquired by "Autocue".
212 Park Tavern. Former horse bus terminus
260-262 The Earl Spencer
268 Gardeners Arms
288-290 Southfields battery service. Art deco garage
333 Southfields community college
351 Territorial Army City of London Signals Regiment. Territorial Army building is the site of Dunsford Manor House. The manor held land in the south west part of Wandsworth. It was owned by Merton Priory. The Tudor lords were the Smith family and then from 1664 the Brodericks who rose in four generations from being a Tudor embroiderer to a viscount. They are still there.
Housing scheme – Merton, Cumber, Acuba and Mastin houses were part of a clearance scheme of 1929 to clear Wandsworth Plain by the local authority. Opened 1895. Mastin House is named after the collier Wandle's Captain in commemoration of war service when she fought off a U boat attack. Wandsworth Gas Company.Opened 1895.
Cannon health club Riverside primary school. Riverside Primary School, 1890-1 by T. J. Bailey. asymmetrical three-decker with gables and turret.
United Service Transport. Former bus garage
Southfields Palace cinema. Built 1909 stood on the corner with Standen Road
Coronation Gardens. Original entrance gates

Penwith Road
Laid out in the 1860s and 1870s
Two artificial channels in the Wandle under the bridge

Pirbright road
Coronation Gardens. Opened by the Mayor of Wandsworth in July 1903 for the coronation of Edward VII a year earlier. The land had been given by Sir William Lancaster, mayor a year before. Horse chestnut trees and a granite drinking fountain with Art Nouveau-style bowl and ornamental railings were donated by his sisters

Standen Road
Laid out in the 1860s and 1870s
Frame food factory. An amazing Art Nouveau former sweet and baby food factory designed in 1904 by W. T. Walker. In green, white, and blue glazed brick which says ‘Nourish and Flourish’, plus a domed tower at either end. Later part of Benham catering equipment manufactures,

St Johns Drive
Henry Prince Estate through three archways. Opened 1938 and called after local councillor who worked for decent working class homes.
Site of Firework factory.
Site of Harrison Barber horse slaughters

Swaffield Road
Area laid out 1885

The Baulk
A footpath marking a headland between two fields

Wandle
Long sidewater loop off the Wandle which left south of Duntshill Mills and returned near Haldane Road. It was straightened and called the New Cut but filed in in 1967. It may well have been the original course of the river .

Willow Tree Close
There was a Willow Close around which the Surrey Iron Railway made a diversion to the west

Wimbledon Park Road
Line of a footpath between Wandsworth and Wimbledon
St.Michael and All Angels. Built 1897- 1905 to designs by architect E. W. Mountford. Now united with St.Stephen

Sources
British History online. Wandsworth
Bayliss. The Surrey Iron Railway
Cinema Treasures. Web site
Davis. Industries of Wandsworth
Gerhold. Wandsworth Past
GLIAS Newsletter
London Borough of Wandsworth, Web site
Loobey. Cinemas and Theatres of Wandsworth
Saxby. The Mills of the River Wandle
St. Gregory. Web site
St Michael. Web site
Wandle Industrial Museum. Web site
Wandsworth Historical Society, web site

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Bromley by Bow

South Norwood

River Lea/Bow Creek Canning Town