The Wandle from Morden Hall to Carshalton

The second leg of the Wandle Trail walk started at Morden Hall Park. This is a great place to start / end being a National Trust property with cafe, loos and even a bookshop, all near a tram spot.

It was understandably quite busy with families out for the weekend, some even playing in the river, which felt like the right spirit even if there were worries about water quality given the lack of enforcement by the so-called Environment Agency.

But it can't be that bad, to be honest, as the banks of this part of the river were thick with men (and it was just men) with rods, out fishing. And looking into the river, fish were clearly visible:

They seemed quite large! I wonder what they'd taste like?

As with so many places along the Wandle, there was a mill here:

There were other mills along the route, sometimes working, sometimes ruined, and sometimes just their mill-stone left as an abstract sculpture:

The trail passed through more parks, such as Ravensbury. Poulter and Dale Parks. Poulter Park had this nice stone bench dedicated to the memory of Miranda Hill (1st January 1836 to 31st May 1910) "by some of her grateful and affectionate pupils". 

Here you could sit and listen to the wind in the trees and lullaby of the Wandle:

Around Hackbridge the river split into two and I took the east path, though I don't think there was much difference between them. When they joined again, near the Hackbridge Road, I was approach by a woman calling out "Trevor! Trevor!" (or a name like that). I guessed this was her dog's name, which was confirmed when she approached a man walking his dog asking if he'd seen it.

Five minutes later, halfway to Wilderness Island, I was stopped by another woman in a car, who asked me if I'd lost a dog as she'd seen one running down the road.

"No" I said. "But there's a woman on Hackbridge Road who's lost her dog - you might want to go there."

As the car drove away I wondered how this little scene from the suburbs would play itself out, whether Trevor would be reunited with his owner.

I made a diversion onto Wilderness Island which wasn't on the route but really was a bit of a wilderness. Here the Wandle split into two, heading in one direction to Croydon, the other to Carshalton, which was to be my destination for that day.

The final point of this leg of the Wandle is Carshalton Pond which turned out to be rather elegant:

There was another ruined watermill (obviously) and this little waterfall:

I think this was probably my favourite of the three Wandle walks, with the river looking healthy, many parks and things to see. Kudos also to the planners who'd taken the time to make signs identifying pedestrian and cycle priority parts of the path:

Here you could really believe that the Wandle was one of those elegant chalk streams that England is so lucky to have: