The End of the Line

Here is Bob standing in the Morden Tube Station, the southern terminus of the Northern Line. After 12 years plus some months of seeing and hearing, "This train terminates at Morden," we finally saw Morden.

Today's outing was to Morden Hall Park, a National Trust property, they call "an oasis in suburbia," in the Borough of Merton.

The manor house dates from 1750, but currently has no purpose after a tenant restaurant closed.

The River Wandle, once an important industrial corridor, runs through the estate, and the snuff mill that enriched the proprietors, still has a working water wheel, but houses an environmental center these days. Unfortunately, I got my third and fourth Sundays confused, so the mill was not open today.

The last owner turned the estate into a gentleman farm with landscaped gardens including a huge rose garden.

The River Wandle rises just south of here in the North Downs and flows northward into the Thames. 

A Wandle Trail I am keen to walk follows the river's channel until it is lost underground in Wandsworth.

Here in the park, it is a rural stream with a broad flood plain.

A new sort of emigrant wildlife unknown to past generations can be seen 

Parrots and parakeet flocks have become a problem in South London parks breeding from escaped pets!

The trip home was an easy ride on the Northern Line back to Hampstead, where we stopped off at The Flask where we enjoyed a pint of Wandle Ale from London's Sambrook Brewery.