Thames Tributaries – the River Wandle - Hackbridge

Thames Tributaries – the River Wandle
The two branches of the Wandle from Waddon and from Carshalton meet and flow north west.


Post to the west The Wrythe
Post to the north Beddington Corner
Post to the east Beddington Park

Butter Hill
Butter Hill Bridge. Dates from 1787 but very much rebuilt.
Lower Mill. Up river of the bridge and on the east side. In 1700 this was a copper mill, converted to calico before 1770. In 1780 George Ansell converted it from a calico mill to paper. It was then occupied by Christopher Patch. ‘One of the best paper makers in the country’. The works included a Rag house. By 1788 it was also occupied by Collinson & Co., bleachers. Collinson experimented on rags from Patch’s paper mill adjacent, in Butter Hill using dephlogisticated marine acid and this produced high quality white paper. However Patch thought it was too expensive. He died in 1792 and his widow and son continued with it using Collinson’s method. In 1805 it was rebuilt and taken over by Christopher Augustus Ansell who continued to make paper there, until 1823 when it became a flock mill and operated as such until 1839.
Mill- tall brick flour mill on the Butter Hill side. Denyer’s Flour Mill
Mill cottages. A row of weather boarded one-storey cottages

Hackbridge Green
Surrey Iron Railway route came from the bridge and ran along the road at the edge of the green between the 18th cottages and the pub on the eastern side of the road.
Houses were built round The Green in the early 19th for workers for the Goad family. There are also two groups of 18th Cottages
Hackbridge House. The house was there before 1821 and was the home of the Goad family. It was sold in 1908 to become a hotel and then a hostel for army cadets while the grounds were covered by miscellaneous development. It was replaced by housing in 1970.

Hackbridge Road
The river divides at the bridge and joins up again 500 yards to the north, creating an island.Surrey Iron Railway’s Hackbridge route joined Hackbridge Road north half way between Elm Road and Link Road. It then follows it to Hack Bridge where it turned south. This was the end of the statutory section of the Hackbridge Branch and there was a depot here north of the bridge. The branch to Shepley Mills continued south along the Croydon branch of the river
Hackbridge –this is the name of the bridge carrying the road over the Wandle, The name is first recorded in 1235 and means that the bridge was at a hook shaped bit of land. It is an obvious place for a bridge because the river divides both is divided up and down stream. The current bridge is fourth on site built in 1983, the previous one dated from 1914. The medieval bridge was downstream of here and there was a later iron bridge by Butterley & Co. In cast iron segments.
Old Red Lion. Early 18th. Oldest building in the area, red brick with original casements.
Hackbridge Primary School, late 19th building.
B.Davidson, Cardboard factory 1887-1978.
Hackbridge Cable Co. engineering business and electrical cable makers. Hackbridge Electric Construction Co. Founded here in 1919.In 1923 the transformer section moved to Hersham leaving the cable company here to be taken over by GEC in 1967 to become AEI Cables Ltd. in 1968. Later became TT Group. Kelvin works Buildings now in use partly by Fabric warehouse
Monument Tools, founded 1931, make plumbing tools and equipment
Hackbridge Beaufort Kennels – opened in 1898 for Battersea Dogs Home by the Duke and Duchess of Portland because of a rabies outbreak. Closed and sold in 1934.
Elmwood House. Replaced by housing in the 1930s

Killburns Mill Close
Housing on the Site of 258 London Road. In the 1790s it was occupied by William Kilburn, one of the most prominent fabric designers of his period. Water for the will was got via a stream from the grounds of the Grange, where the grounds were used as bleaching fields. He died in 1818. Later Willsmer Engineering
Mill building 19th two-storey weather boarded mill. Formerly a cotton mill for a calico printing works which also ran as a flock mill.

London Road
Hackbridge Station. 1868. Between Carshalton and Mitcham Junction on Thameslink and Southern Trains.
Railway bridge. Built 1860 currently under reconstruction
282 Bridge House. Late 18th, Listed Grade II. Now a care home. Sunken garden with entrance to Wallington Bridge
270 Thew Arnott. The company began in 1864 for processing shellac. Current building dates from the mid-1980s following a fire.
268 Kwik Fit
Grange Restaurant, 1967 by the Borough of Sutton replacing The Grange, which was destroyed by fire in 1960. It is a replica of the house built by Smee’s son
Two blocks of flats placed at right angles, with a full glazed connecting link by Borough Engineer A. W. Poynor.
All Saints, 1931 by H. P. Burke-Downing. Rodney Hubbuck
Wallington Bridge, Early 19th, dated by a stone to 1809. Railings and bollards – the end one with a round stone on top. The bridge crosses the Wandle and also leats from ponds and weir and also a stream from the Grange.
Car Park, site of Wallington Bridge Mill. Thought to be the site of a ‘royal’ mill for corn at Domesday. It was a paper mill in 1771 and Mr Kilburn’s calico works in 1805, Converted to a flock mill in the 1830s it had also been used for corn, logwood grinding and the manufacture of horsehair seating. In the 1850s it became a paper mill by Edward Smith Manico and called the Royal Paper Mills until 1886 when it was producing white, blue and grey, royal hands and brown. It was taken over by Manico’s manager William Brown and in 1890 it was still producing 6 tons of paper a week but closed in 1893. It was derelict but was milling corn in 1914. It then and became the Helm chocolate factory. The buildings have been demolished.
Millstream from the pond to the mill now filled in.
Elm Grove pond at the corner of Butter Hill 'rustic' flint bridge from the early 19th
Lodge yellow brick.


Mill Lane
Railway bridge 1868
31 Lord Palmerston, two roomed pub
Ansell’s Mill. Slightly up river from the bridge, with buildings on the west side of the river. It was a madder mill built about 1740, replaced by the snuff mill in 1782. In 1918 it was converted to parchment manufacture, and this lasted up to 1950, was used by Vinyl Products. The snuff mill building remains at the corner with Mill Lane and is used by a print design company.
Vinyl Products in Ansell’s Mill, making Vinyl Chloride Monomer – a liquid from which PVC is made. Founded in 1939 by Jack Mayne, the company was heavily research based. Taken over by Reichhold Chemicals, and in the 1970s by Unilever. Later offices and laboratories, with a two-storey curtain-walled block with royal blue additions built in, 1964, and later additions of 1970 Norman Bailey, Samuels & Partners. Now gone.

Restmor Way
Surrey Iron Railway – the extension to Shepley Mills ran roughly on the line of this private road as far as the confluence of the Croydon and Carshalton Wandle where the mills stood
Felnex trading estateSutton Business Centre = built as centre for Zetters Pools
Hackbridge Mill. The Great Copper Mill. One mill was on the west bank of the Wandle where the two branches meet. The sites may be those of a fulling mill owned in the Middle Ages by St.Thomas’s Hospital. In the late 17th they were converted from dyewood milling to gunpowder milling and later owned by Josias Dewye. He had bought them from a consortium headed by William Mollins who had lost their government contract for poor quality. In 1665 Dewye was the largest supplier of gunpowder to the Ordnance. By the mid 18th the mills were used by Benjamin Steele for rolling copper and later owned by the Company of Copper Mines. George Shepley leased them for leather mills in 1773 and bought it outright in 1789 using it for dressing skins. It was burnt down in 1826 and replaced with a mill astride the two rivers continuing as a leather works through various owners. It was still there in the 1980s used by the Gilbert Group of engineers.
Hackbridge Mill. The upper of two mills on the east bank of the Croydon Wandle north of the railway bridge. The mill sites may be those of a fulling mill owned in the Middle Ages by St.Thomas’s Hospital. In the late 17th they were used for gunpowder milling and owned by Josias Dewye. By the mid 18th used for grinding dyewoods. George Shepley leased them for leather mills in 1773 usingv it for dressing skins. Shepley then converted it to an oil mill according to a plan by Smeaton with an experimental low breast wheel and the Surrey Iron Railway came here. Shepley died in 1810 and the works was leased to Daniel Watney who continued with leather and used the railway links. In the 1860s to 1910 it was used as a snuff mill by the Lamberts. Later the use of water power ended and it was used for calico. It was burnt down after the Second World War.
Hackbridge Mill. The Lesser Copper Mill. This was another lower mill on the east bank of the Croydon Wandle north of the railway bridge. The mill sites may be those of a fulling mill owned in the Middle Ages by St.Thomas’s Hospital. In the late 17th they were used for gunpowder milling and owned by Josias Dewye. By the mid 18th used by Benjamin Steele for rolling copper and later owned by the Company of Copper Mines. George Shepley leased them for leather mills in 1773. This mill appears to have been demolished around 1789.
Hackbridge mills ancillary buildings there in 1789 – lumber house, copper melt house, cottages, etc.

River Gardens
Site of the confluence of the two branches of the Wandle. This includes a weir and site of Hackbridge Mills.
Wilderness Island. This is the area between the two branches of the Wandle – reed beds and a nature reserve. Part of it was once an orchard and the whole has been licenced to the London Wildlife Trust since the mid 1980s.
Hackbridge Mill. River gardens. Hackbridge mill. One of four mills was on the Carshalton Wandle in this area. The mill sites may be those of a fulling mill owned in the Middle Ages by St.Thomas’s Hospital. In the late 17th they were used for gunpowder milling and owned by Josias Dewye. By the mid 18th used by Benjamin Steele for rolling copper and later owned by the Company of Copper Mines. Demolished by 1789 and some of it was rebuilt.

Strawberry Lane
Baptist Church
Church hall is an 18th house called Strawberry Lodge. Five windows wide, early c 18 doorway with plain shell hood, later rendering, c19 extension. The Lodge was built for gunpowder millers Josiah Dewye.

The Grange
The Grange was outside the area of the Beddington estate deer park. It was bought by Alfred Smee in the 1860s who created a very elaborate garden which he described in a book called My Garden. Smee was a surgeon to the Bank of England who used electricity for therapeutic purposes. The garden has been altered but the stone bridge by the lake, a rockery, and trees date back to him,
Alfred Smee, His son built a house on the site which was burnt down in 1960 and eventually replaced by the present building. In 1935 the house and grounds had been acquired by the Borough of Beddington & Wallington and turned into a public park.
The Grange Lake was originally a mill pond for the mill which stood at the east end of the lake near London Road. The pond was given by Sir William Mallinson to the public in the 1930's.

Wandle Road
Marconi air radio works

Comments

Bob Steel said…
the 1960s restaurant built on th site of the lovely old Grange house was certainly nothing like a replica! It was a brash concrete carbuncle typical of its period. In turn it went in the 1990s to be replaced by the present building which alothugh a definite improvement is but a shadow of the house that Alfred Smee's son had built.
Bob Steel said…
the 1960s restaurant built on th site of the lovely old Grange house was certainly nothing like a replica! It was a brash concrete carbuncle typical of its period. In turn it went in the 1990s to be replaced by the present building which alothugh a definite improvement is but a shadow of the house that Alfred Smee's son had built.
Robert Walker said…
http://www.grangebarandrestaurant.com/about-the-grange/
Unknown said…
Has anyone ever heard of Beach's Leather Works? I understand that there used to be a leatherworks in Hackbridge owned by a family called Beach but I can't find any trace of the building.
JohnM said…
'Kelvin works Buildings now in use partly by Fabric warehouse'. All buildings on the site have been demolished as at 5 Jan 2015 including the fabric wharehouse building that seemed to be one of the older buildings.

There is an aerial view of the site from 1951 at http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/image/eaw036877

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