Where the Wandle meets the Thames, Wandsworth ‘The Brighter Borough’ now ‘London Borough of Culture 2025’ is a place where gargantuan tower blocks jostle uneasily alongside rusting remains of the area’s remarkable industrial legacy – all making for a fascinating ramble! Mantle-makers, costermongers and those who trooped into the gasworks everyday may have gone but their legacy lives on and the streets that shaped Sadiq Khan, Voltaire, Frank Bruno and Nigella Lawson resonate with history. This is the community that over 300 years ago gave sanctuary to the Huguenots and later provided a home for so many migrants and refugees. Nomadic people made baskets from the osiers and grazed their horses on riverside pastures. This was the starting point for the world’s first iron railway, the home of one of Britain’s longest-established brewing sites, the bread-basket of London, an industrial furnace that forged the guns and cannonballs at Trafalgar and Waterloo, a place that equipped Spitfires for the Battle of Britain and the fledgling Sex Pistols prepared to unleash punk rock… Unravel these and so much more when you discover ‘The Wonder of Wandsworth’!

A Wandsworth resident for over 30 years, Geoff Simmons runs a community history project in south west London called Summerstown182 alongside his job as a graphic designer. This involves Guided Walks and Talks, working with schools and putting up plaques. Over the last ten years a trail of these have emerged along the Wandle Valley, shining a light on some of the lesser-known history in this area. They range from the youngest soldier to serve this country in the First World War to a ground-breaking plaque acknowledging Romany Gypsy and Traveller heritage in Wandsworth. ‘Planet Tooting’ is an ongoing initiative championing the outstanding migrant contribution to our neighbourhood which resulted in a blue plaque on Tooting Market. We celebrated the ‘Corruganza Boxmakers’, 44 courageous young women whose strike action was a marker in the struggle for women’s rights in the workplace. Most recently we put up a plaque for Titanic bugler, Percy Fletcher. Have a look on Geoff’s blog for more details or follow @summerstown182 on Instagram or Twitter.