SOUTH LONDON'S LOST CANALS

Following up last month’s history feature on the ill-starred Surrey and Croydon canals, Martin Ludgate goes exploring - and finds there’s plenty still to be seen of both waterways

- Martin Ludgate

“And scrub it offthe map they (nearly) did” – that was how I summed up the harsh treatment meted out in the 1970s to the only recently closed Grand Surrey Canal, at the end of my last month’s article on the history of South London’s forgotten waterways.

But despite the haste with which much of the canal had already been consigned to history by the time I came to explore it just six years after closure, another forty-odd years later there are still plenty of traces to be found. Rather more surprisingly, the same is true of its ill-starred offshoot the Croydon Canal –despite it having been closed (with its alignment reused for a railway line) for over a century and three quarters, while South London gradually expanded along its route.

Notwithstanding their chequered history, the lack of interest in preserving them, and the pressure on space in South London’s suburbs, exploration of both canals is well worthwhile – by car (usual provisos about London traffic and parking!), on foot (the two canals total 14 miles), by local public transport (the railway which once destroyed the Croydon Canal now provides a frequent London Overground train service to explore it!) or perhaps most conveniently, by bike. We’ll begin at the Thames and head south and west along the Surrey, then further south on the Croydon.