News Letter [issue 46] - Glimpse of the past

Extract from interview with Mr Douglas Griffiths, 1975, who started work at Morris and Company, Merton Abbey Works at the age of fourteen.

These big (indigo) vats, you could quite easily fall into them, and you were blue for a week, you just had to put up with that.

Writing circa 1882, Walford in his work on Greater London quotes an anonymous Carshalton inhabitant as follows:

"In the County of Surrey, Carshalton is located,
It just about 10 miles from town is situated;
Its a neat little village surrounded by hills
And supports itself chiefly by snuff and corn mills,
Its well wooded and Watered, for go there you will
You will find plenty of trees and a rippling rill.
It’s a good place for fishing so I'm told
But fancy you won't catch much more than a cold.

The Wandle's the river that hereabout rises,
Its wonderful clearness a stranger surprises,
It runs through the village and down all the lanes,
It crosses the roads, and gets into the drains,
It rumble and tumbles and splashes and splutters
So I've christened Carshalton, the village of gutters.
If you want to practice the cold water cure
There's no better place for it near, I’m sure.