Wandle Treasures Wading to an End

As our Wandle Treasures project draws to an end, the last few Treasures have been flowing in and we’re making plans to share the fascinating heritage findings of our volunteer researchers, including the history behind lavender fields (below).

Photo courtesy: Clare Sinead Egan

Over recent weeks, we’ve been participating in several events, talking about the Treasures project and highlighting the wonderful hard work of the participants. Two of our volunteers, Stuart Swan and Roger Keens, stole the show at a recent Wandsworth Heritage Festival event, speaking passionately and knowledgeably about their research and the learning experience of the project. We also presented the project as part of the Croydon Heritage Festival programme and were overwhelmed by the level of interest, the number of questions and engaging discussions that followed – we almost didn’t make it back to the office!

Volunteers talking at the Wandsworth Heritage Festival

We’re currently compiling a digital map, which will soon be available online. The map will locate and display all the Treasures, and share the researched information, including images taken by our volunteers.

In addition, we’re very excited to announce that the illustrated map by artist Stephanie Theobald  is almost complete! We’re looking forward to revealing the map in full very soon, but in the meantime here’s a sneak preview:

Illustrated Treasures map by Stephanie Theobald

The full-sized illustrated map will be exhibited at our upcoming celebration event, and we’re also developing plans to tour the map at different venues across all four Wandle boroughs, so be sure to watch this space...

*The Wandle Treasures is a volunteer-led heritage project where we identify heritage treasures along the course of the River Wandle, which spans four London boroughs (Wandsworth, Merton, Sutton and Croydon). The final selection has been drawn by artist Stephanie Theobald and will be uploaded to a website soon along with an interactive map.

The project is delivered in collaboration with Living Wandle Landscape Partnership Scheme as part of the Industrial Heritage Recording Project.