Wandsworth Museum

I'd often passed the Museum of Wandsworth, just opposite what used to be the Arndale Centre, which was the largest shopping centre in the country when it was opened in 1971 and was renamed the Southside Centre when it was refurbished and extended in 2004.   However, I had never been inside, so decided it was time to visit it.

However, when I got there, the Museum was nowhere to be seen; in its place was a library.   On enquiring, I discovered that the Museum had moved to a building in West Hill, about ten minutes' walk away.  So off I set, and found it housed in a very attractive building called Putney House.

To the left of the entrance is a cafe serving soup and a variety of rolls, paninis and things like spaghetti on toast; I tried the spaghetti on toast and it was delicious, with portions large enough to make it a meal rather than just a snack.   The bread was particularly good - so good I asked the waitress what it was so I could buy it myself - it turned out to be Warburtons Five Seed brown, one of their more expensive loaves.   The cafe itself is full of character, with an example of an old chemist's shop complete with dozens of bottles on shelves with little drawers in one corner, and books on local and London history for sale on ledges around the walls.

After a leisurely lunch, I went into the museum itself, which is small, but very interesting, looking at aspects of the history of Wandsworth from prehistoric times (25,000 years B.C.) to the present.  The partial skull of a wooley rhinerosis, dating from 25,000 BC, which was found in the 1920s on the site of the Battersea Power Station, shows that these large animals must have roamed in the area at that time, and a tooth from a mammoth, dated 15,000 years ago, shows that they too must have been a part of the Wandsworth scenery.

Wandsworth's more recent history is bound up with the Wandle River, a nine mile long stream which flows into the Thames, and which in the past was the source of the greatest sources of usable water in London.   Fast flowing, and with a good gradient - it drops 123 feet during its short length - it provided the power for Wandsworth's industries, and in its heyday was one of the most industrialised rivers in the world.   It is recorded in the Doomsday Book in 1086 as having 13 watermills, which had increased to 49 by Victorian times.    Until 1825, the mills on the Wandle were responsible for milling all London't flour.   Thereafter the Wandle started to dry up and and its importance declined, with the last mill, sited where the Southside Shopping Centre now stands, closing in 1928.   However, after 100 years of decline, in 1990 the Wandle started to revive and the flow of water increased, although not as yet to the previous levels.

The industries based on the Wandle covered a wide variety from the all-important flour milling to dyeing and beer making - Young's Brewery was established by Charles Allan Young in 1831, although beer had been brewed on the site since the 15th. century, and continued producing beer until its closure in 2006.   Prices's, the candlemakers, established a factory in York Road in 1843, and by 1900 cover thirteen and a half acres and employed 1400 people.

As well as being an important industrial centre, Wandsworth has another claim to fame in that the first railway terminus in South London, based at Nine Elms on the London and South West Railway route to Southamption, was opened there in 1838.  However, the line was extended ten years later to Waterloo, as Nine Elms proved too small for the amount of traffic.   Clapham Junction station opened in 1863, and soon became the busiest station in the country, a position which it probably still holds today.   Wandsworth was also the terminus for London's first electric tram route, which ran to Westminster and was opened by the Prince of Wales in 1903 and continued to run until 1951.  In 1802 the horse-drawnSurrey Iron Railway was established, running from the mouth of the Wandle to Croydon; it did not survive the coming of steam trains.

Battersea Park, created and designed by Sir James Pennethorne, was laid out in 1858 on land along the river which had previously been marshy grazing fields, and still provides a very welcome place, with its lawns, wood and lakes,  to sit or stroll in the summer today.   it was also used for events in the 1951 Festival of Britain.

1871 saw the opening of the famous Battersea Dogs Home, which moved there from Holloway in North London, where it has initially been established in 1860.   It still cares for thousands of abandoned dogs every year and is a well-known landmark in the area.

The current Putney Bridge was opened in 1886, repacing the old wooden one which had previously spanned the river.

Wandsworth was not spared the horrors of war; in 1971 it suffered Zeppelin raids, and it received its fair share of bombs during the Second World War.   One particular tragedy occurred on 14th. October 1940, when a bomb caused a bus to crash down a hole in the road on to Balham Tube station, killing 65 people.  it was also the site of the Royal Victoria patriotic Asylum on Wandsworth Common, established to house and educate the daughters of servicemen killed in the Crimean War.

Crime also had a place in Wandsworth, and Wandsworth prison, originally called the Surrey House of Correction, was opened in 1851.   The infamous William Joyce, well-known for his broadcasts from Germany during the Second World War, was for a while one of its residents.

One of its most famous landmarks, visible for miles, is Battersea Power Station, built on the river just by Battersea Bridge, which was originally completed in 1771 and replaced in 1890.  Battersea A was constructed from 1929 to 1935, and Battersea B completed in 1955.    With its four tall chimneys reaching into the sky, Battersea Power Station is intantly recognisable; however, its days as a power station ended in 1983, and it will probably end up as yet another development of luxury flats which are springing up all along the river.

Politically Wandsworth has always been active, and was the scene of the famous radical inspired Putney Debates, which took place at St. Mary's Church just beside Putney Bridge, during the English Civil War.   Wandsworth is also noted for having the first black mayor (of Battersea), the radical politician John Archer, who was elected in 1913.    Battersea North elected the communist Indian Shapury Saklatvala as its MP in 1922, continuing a long tradition of radicalism in the area.  

One of the most interesting exhibits was the Battersea Shield, an Iron Age shield which was found in the Thames in 1857 during the construction of Battersea Bridge.   Another interesting exhibit is the large portrait, painted in 1614, of William Brodrick, embroiderer to James I, who had a penchant for fine clothes.

Although so small, Wandsworth Museum packs in a lot of information, arranged on a timeline around all four walls,  on the history of the area, with fascinating little titbits of history, such as the story of the Mayor of Gorrell, along with information on the more inportant events in the history of the borough.

It is also a very child friendly museum; there are activities for children, and something else which i have never seen in a museum before - stacks of foam bricks which children can kick or throw around without causing any damage.   Several small children were doing just that while I was there.

At the moment, the Museum also has a special exhibition of "Paintings of Wandsworth - Historic Watercolours 1770 - 1925", whcih are really worth a visit.  Although some are by unknown artists, people such as Edward Hosell, who was a member of the Royal Society of British Artists, Gideon Yates, who painted hundreds of views of London, William Fraser garden, Evacustes A.Phipson, Henry H.Bulman and John England Nicholls also feature prominently.   Many of the paintings are delightful, showing a bygone age when much of Wandsworth was open countryside, with streams and farms and quaint weatherboard houses, one of which survives today at No. 37B West Hill.   Next to some of the paintings are photographs of the same view today, with nothing remaining of the former rural idyll.   Oil paintings may be beautiful in their own way, but watercolours have a softness and gentleness about them which is especially their own, and make them ideal for hanging in small rooms where they will blend into the background, enhancing but not dominating it.   dealing exclusively with watercolour views of Wandsworth before it was developed, it is well worth a visit on its own.