Thames Tributaries – the River Wandle - Carshalton

Thames tributaries - River Wandle
Springs and streams feed into the Wandle from this area.
TQ 27874 64467

The interesting small town of Carshalton with its ponds, pubs, theatres, parks and an amazing collection of follies and grottos. Pity about the traffic


Post to the north The Wrythe
Post to the south Carshalton Beeches


Beynon Road
Beynon was the name of a local family

Camden Road
Camden Junior School

Carshalton
Spring line village which seems to have been conserved because the ponds held up the traffic. The name means ‘farmstead by a river where watercress grows’. This probably refers to the Wandle, which feeds the town ponds. Watercress beds are mentioned as early as the 13th.

Carshalton Park Road
4 Wood n’Pencil Design

Carshalton Road
Railway Bridge
185 timber house. Listed
Baths. in other use
Highfield Hall, used as a dance studio
Windsor Castle pub

Colston Avenue
War Memorial Sports Ground. Carshalton Football Club. They have been there since 1920 when the ground, previously Shorts Farm, was dedicated to club members killed in the Great War. A grandstand came from Epsom racecourse in 1928 but blew down in the 1960s.

High Street
2 The Greyhound. Part early 19th but probably a rebuilt earlier
structure but a projection is 18th, painted weatherboarding. Mentioned as a local pub in 1707.
6 The Woodman. This was once a butcher’s shop and is partly 15th.
12 Coach and Horses. Green tiled interior and period details. Built 1848 and once part of a mill complex. A stream coming from the Hogpit is said to flow through the cellar.
Road bridge across the ponds with retaining walls and railings. The first bridge and embankment was built in 1825-28. Listed Grade II
Bridge where the river leaves the ponds is in white stone and attributed to Giacomo Leoni in the 18th. It has on it a carved griffin, which is the symbol of the local Scawen family.
Cascade, near the bridge. This has been redesigned in the 1960s but is associated with water management for the Upper Mill.
All Saints Church. The church faces the ponds in a raised position. It was partly rebuilt by the Blomfields in 1893 but at the back the medieval church still stands with the original 13th nave, now the aisle. The 13th tower has a spike, added in the 19th to replace a cupola. In 1723 a second aisle was added with new windows and the old chancel, is now a Lady Chapel. There is a late medieval kingpost roof. Bodley's reredos and screen date from 1900 and were painted by Sir Ninian Comper in 1931-2 who also painted the 18th reredos in the Lady Chapel, added to The Georgian pulpit and organ-case. Table-tomb of Nicholas Gaynesford, 1498, 'Esquyer for the body' to Edward IV and Henry VII, and his wife, 'gentlewoman' to their queens. Memorial to Sir William Scawen, 1722, a governor of the Bank of England and to Sir John Fellowes of Carshalton House. Brasses of a priest, 1493, a knight, 1497, Thomas Ellingbridge and wife, 1497, and others,
Anne Boleyn's Well, west of the church, and a statue through a tradition that the queen's horse stumbled in a spring here when she was riding with Henry VIII from Nonsuch – which was not built until after her execution. Also Anne Boleyn's house is supposed to have stood here. Statue to Anne Boleyn given by the architect. It may be a corruption of Our Lady of Boulogne – a Count of Boulogne was Lord of the Manor here in the 12th. This could also have been a 'holy well', dedicated to St Anne. In the Kingston Zodiac the site is on the Virgin's feet.
Timber framed cottage in the churchyard.
Fire engine house at the west end

Honeywood Walk
The Gate House. Late 19th Small irregular building
The Lodge. 1866. Used by social services
Honeywood. Was previously called Wandle Cottage and is now the London Borough of Sutton’s Heritage Centre. The house itself is late 18th built round the core of an earlier cottage, possibly early 17th, with chalk walling extending to the roof. There were alterations after 1883 when an adjacent house was demolished. There is 1903 billiard room, with original Edwardian fittings, an herb garden, a chalk block well, and a 19th belfry. The museum has a reconstructed section of the Surrey Iron Railway. A watercourse runs beneath the house.
Culverts run under Honeywood - so was it originally a mill? Or a perhaps a keeper's cottage, or a bath house? The water comes from springs in Margaret’s Pool. If there is no water from there it is pumped into the area from the Wandle. The culvert itself is listed.
War Memorial. Portland stone First World War Memorial, by E. Bouchier 1921, and Second World War II, added later.

Mill Lane
31 Lord Palmerston
Stone Court. This was the medieval manor house on the corner of North Street, demolished and replaced by Grove House in the early 19th. The outbuildings are now used as council offices.

North Street
Begins as a causeway across the two ponds and until the 1820s vehicles had to ford them
4 The Sun. Built as a railway hotel
21 North Lodge 16th. With a paved cart way entrance, stables etc.
46 Holy Cross. Catholic church 1933 by W. C. Mangan
Beechwood Court. Large block of 1930s flats.

Orchard Hill
Is it a remnant of an old highway?
1, 2, 5a Listed

Park Hill
19 Built by a pupil of Philip Webb in 1868 for the novelist W. H. White - Mark Rutherford. Brick, with tile-hanging. At the back an 1896 billiard room, faced with Lascelles patent concrete panels. Blue Plaque installed 1979.
11 Other houses in a similar style followed, built for White's brother-in-law

Pound Street
Pound – is an enclosure for stray animals.
Until the 19th the road along the ponds had to be forded by vehicles going through the water and the brick causeway was built in the 1820s.
Carshalton Ponds are the headwaters of the Wandle and there was great alarm when they began to dry up in the 1970s. Therefore 1972 concrete lining and more water. West pond railings etc., at risk. The ponds probably date from the early 18th when water flowing to the Upper Mill was dammed.
Margaret’s Pool, This is in the area on the corner with West Street. Ruskin paid to have the pool refurbished in the 1870s for his mother and brought stone from Coniston for the edgings. It was extended westwards in 1920. There is a stone with a poem explaining about Ruskin

Wall of Carshalton House, red brick and Listed
Chapel of St.Philomena’s Convent. Designed 1899- 1900 by E. Ingress Bell. Brick with stone and flint. Statue of the virgin in a niche

Rochester Road
Site of mansion owned by Samuel Long in the 18th, and subsequently of a cottage hospital.

Shorts Road
Wall of Carshalton House, red brick and Listed.
24 Carshalton House. Convent of the Daughters of the Cross. A large mansion in its own grounds at the end of the village, hidden behind high walls, and adjoining extensive school buildings. Some flint and chalk walling remains inside of the Manor House or Old Farm which preceded it before 1696. The current house was built in the early 18th by Edward Carleton, a tobacco merchant bankrupted in 1713. It was sold in 1714 to Dr Radcliffe and in 1716 to Sir John Fellowes of the South Sea Company, who in 1720 was also bankrupt. later owners were, from Sir Philip Yorke, later Lord Chancellor and first Earl of Hardwicke, who let it to his son-in-law Admiral Lord Anson; George Amyand, a Hamburg merchant; and the Hon. Thomas Walpole. It is a large solid block of yellow and red brick. Wrought-iron rails flank the steps up to doorways. It has been a convent since 1893 and now St.Philomena's RC School for Girls.
Grounds laid out by Sir John Fellowes, who employed Charles Bridgeman and Joseph Carpenter. The layout is informal and picturesque. London Wildlife Trust have restored the pond. The remains of a wilderness survive as boundary plantings
Lake which is often dry. It was serpentine and replaced an earlier canal. There was a sham bridge dating from the late 18th.
Grotto or Hermitage by the lake. The chambers and passages blocked up behind a stone facade of a chalk-and-brick structure from around 1750.
Water House. This rises beyond the lake - a tower like those of Vanbrugh. Probably built for Fellowes in 1719-20 by Richard Cole, a waterworks engineer, and Henry Joynes Comptroller of Works at Blenheim under Vanbrugh in order to manage the water supply to the gardens and the house. It is red and yellow brick with the tower at the centre. The ground floor has a saloon, a bathroom, a dining room - with a marble bath with a sunken basin and blue and white Delft wall tiles. The Pump Chamber has restored remains of a water wheel. The Robing Room has a restored window, kitchen area and toilet. A long room was used an ‘Orangery or Greenhouse’. In the tower was a pumping engine to lift the water from the lake to a cistern, which supplied the house of which remnants survive. There is a lead reservoir, which provides private water for the house and stables.
Gate piers at the main entrance with crowned lions'-heads from the Fellowe’s arms
Driveway - Saxon bones were found here, so there was a battleground nearby
Secret Passage said to go from Woodcote Hall
St.Mary’s RC Junior School

Swan Yard
This was an area of squalid tenements with buildings which make a negative impact on the area

West Street Lane
2-16
7-11
25 West Lodge. 18th, weather- boarded cottage

West Street
2-1700 Waterhouse Cottage
3 Sutton Music Centre
4-12 all or partly weatherboarded, of varied shape and size, of the early 18th onwards, listed
7, 11-15
17 Racehorse Pub.
19 Nelson House
20-24 a long rendered range, perhaps basically 17th
42, 18th altered, with a 19th shop canopy,
47 Railway Tavern
48 The Hope, pub bought up by customers following threats of closure
70 18th
80 Rose Cottage. Near the railway bridge, with an early 19th front on an older house. Door and surround added later.
Carshalton High School for Girls
Carshalton Station. Opened 1st October 1868 and Built by the London Brighton and South Coast Railway. It lies between Sutton and Hackbridge on Thameslink and Southern Trains. There was no station in Carshalton at first because of objections from the Carshalton Park Estate. When it was built there was no goods facility.
Colston Court
Old people's housing in a close behind. Built by London Borough of Sutton, 1979-80.
Recreation Ground
Wall of Carshalton House, red brick and listed.


Sources
All Saints Church. Web site
Blue Plaque guide
Carshalton Football Club. Web site
Clunn. The Face of London,
Coach and Horses. Web site
Holy Cross. Web site
Kingston Zodiac
London Borough of Sutton. Web site
London Encyclopaedia
Penguin. Surrey
Pevsner and Cherry.  Surrey
Pevsner and Cherry. South London,  
Smythe. Citywildspace,
Stewart. History of Croydon
St. Philomena's School. Web site
Sutton Heritage, leaflet
The Hope. Web site
Wandle Trail. Leaflet
War memorials. Web site
Wheatley and Meulenkamp. Follies,

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

South Norwood

Bromley by Bow

River Lea/Bow Creek Canning Town