River Wandle

The River Wandle is a 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 in Surrey, the historic county of the river’s catchment. Tributaries of the Wandle include the River Wrythe and the Norbury Brook.

The name Wandle is thought to derive from a back-formation of Wandsworth (Old English “Wendlesworth” meaning “Wendle’s Settlement”).

The Wandle Trail follows the course of the river from Croydon to Wandsworth.

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.[1]

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.[2] A series of ditches and culverts carries the water from Purley to Croydon.