|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
A riverside footpath leads from Butter Hill Bridge past the site of Ansell's Mill [41] and leads to The Grove Park, Carshalton. Note the Carshalton Upper Mill water wheel [44] and its housing. The millstones from Grove Mill and sleeper blocks from the Surrey Iron Railway, once in the park, have now been moved to the Heritage Centre Garden. The Wandle Trail continues inside the Grove beside the river to the east pond, but a very interesting diversion can now be made as follows. Leave the park, and go down Honeywood Walk to visit the London Borough of Sutton's Heritage Centre, now opened in the historic house known as Honeywood [47], which stands on the western edge of the ponds. A Wandle stream actually runs under it, when the higher springs are flowing, and can be seen issuing into the upper pond from a culvert beneath the house. The Heritage Centre is a museum and display centre, and contains semi-permanent and temporary exhibitions on local history and related topics.
A special feature of the Centre is the Wandle Room, and there is a shop and tea-room. From here you are close to some of the higher springs of the Wandle. In the grounds of Carshalton House (St Philomena's School) [45] the Water Tower [46] can be visited from April to September, and Margaret's Pool [48], on the corner of West Street and Pound Street, and the so-called Anne Boleyn's Well [50], by the Church, can be seen. There is also the Grotto in Carshalton Park, and the Hogpit [53], which mark former heads of the river. Usually dry, the canal which runs from the Grotto [54] is filled at times after seasons of heavy rain, as is the old Hogpit Pond.