Morden Park Short Walk

Length	5.0 km (3.1 mi) with 35/52m ascent/descent and 1 ¼ hours walking time.
Travel	St. Helier and Morden South Stations are located on the Sutton Loop Line (or Wimbledon Loop) operated by Thameslink and in Zone 4. Journey times from Blackfriars are 44 minutes to St. Helier and 40 minutes from Morden South. Trains operate every 30 minutes. Morden Underground Station is the southerly terminus of the Northern Line and in Zone 4. Journey time from London Bridge is 27 minutes. Note: travel to St. Helier from Central London is usually fastest if taking the Underground to Morden and Bus 154 to St. Helier.
Walk Notes	This is an easy all-year walk in outer South London exploring Morden Park, which is situated on the watershed between the Wandle River and Beverley Brook catchments, therefore providing for fine far views for a walk with very little effort. You start along quiet residential roads, descending into the shallow valley of the East Pyl Brook, a tributary of the Beverley Brook, and enter Morden Park at its easterly corner. Follow a gravel path past Morden Park House and a bandstand, then a mixture of grass and tarmac paths up and down through the various meadows and lightly wooded areas, intersected by a wooded stretch along the East Pyl Brook, and a crossing of a (small) Burial Mound. You leave the park in its northerly corner near the Baitul Futuh Mosque (Western Europe’s largest) to either of the two Morden stations. Note: despite being officially open to dusk only, many entrances into the park are not gated and in other places the gates are not locked
Walk Options	An Alternative Ending at Morden South Railway Station cuts 600m, but there is only a half-hourly service and no facilities whatsoever. This walk can be combined with #short13 Morden Hall Park (NT) and Abbey Mills.
Eat/Drink	The Morden Brook (https://www.greeneking.co.uk/pubs/surrey/morden-brook) can be found 410m off route, about halfway through the walk. Several options near Morden Station, none at Morden South.
Notes	Morden Human activity in Morden dates back to the Iron Age when Celtic tribes are known to have occupied areas around Wimbledon, but the first significant development in Morden was the construction of Stane Street, the Roman road from Chichester to London. Its route is now partly followed by the A24, London Road up Stonecot Hill from the south west, crossing Morden Park to the west of the current dual carriageway road and passing through the disc golf course and the grounds of St Lawrence's Church. The road then descended the other side of the ridge towards the modern town centre passing west of the Underground station and crossing the north corner of Morden Hall Park heading in the direction of Colliers Wood and Tooting. Morden's name may be derived from the Brittonic words Mawr (great or large) and Dun (fort). The rapid spread of nearby Wimbledon after the arrival of the railway there left Morden untouched, which even in the early nineteen-hundreds remained rural. Only after the extension of the Underground from Clapham to Morden in 1926 and a few years later the building of the branch line from Wimbledon to Sutton did Morden change into the place it is today. Morden Park Morden Park in the London Borough of Merton is a rare area of green space in an otherwise dense cluster of 1930s suburban housing, since 1945 a public area and now owned and managed by Merton’s parks department. It covers land that previously formed the grounds of Morden Park House, a small 18^th-century country estate. The House sits at the top of the hill and – now the borough’s Register Office and a wedding venue – was originally built in the 1770s for merchant and distiller John Ewart with attached landscaped gardens and a farm called Morden Park Farm. The more natural areas of the park feature many old English Oaks (some older than the park itself) and have been a Local Nature Reserve since 2000, with small copses dotted across the grassy slopes and a belt of woodland running around the circumference of the park. A large circular mound in the park has been identified as a possible burial mound from the Iron Age or later, but archaeological digs have proven inconclusive. The northeasterly part of the park is dominated by the Merton Campus of South Thames College, on the site of a former Pig Farm. East Pyl Brook The 3.9 km long East Pyl Brook rises on the grassy slopes of Rosehill Park East and most parts of it are now culverted and/or built over, with its course through Morden Park being the only significant publicly accessible stretch. The East Pyl and the slightly longer Pyl Brook into which it flows not far downstream from Morden Park, drain parts of Sutton and Merton Boroughs and are the two largest tributaries of the Beverley Brook, a 14.3 km long tributary of the River Thames in Southwest London with a catchment of 64 km² (25 mi²). It drains the area between the Wandle and Hogsmill River catchments.

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Version	Apr-25 Thomas G
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Walk Directions

The directions for this walk are also in a PDF (link above) which you can download on to a Kindle, tablet, or smartphone.

Directions last checked: 11/04/2025
Arriving at St. Helier Station, go up some steps at the northerly end and in 30m turn left along Green Lane. In 50m turn left along a residential road, a signposted footpath to Torrington Way. The estate opens out around a grassy square with a War Memorial in the middle, but you continue ahead and at the far end of the square, continue along a short paved path between fences, which in 25m leads into Torrington Way.
Follow the road down into the valley of the East Pyl Brook, in 50m ignoring Rougemont Avenue on the right. In 90m, near the bottom of the drop, curve to the right with the tree-lined road which in 50m continues as Holne Chase, with allotments on the left. In 50m a signposted footpath joins from the left along a tarmac path from across the brook.
In 320m, at a T-junction with the dual-carriageway Epsom Road (the A24), you turn right uphill along its pavement. In 90m, where Rougemont Avenue joins from the right, you [!] turn left across the road and the grassy central reservation at the point where Rougemont Ave cuts through it, and turn right further uphill along the opposite pavement. In 50m turn left along a gravel path with a footpath and NCN Route 208 sign on a lamppost. A Harvester pub restaurant is visible just uphill in the Wimbledon Morden Travelodge.
You go through a wooded belt and in 30m have the open grassy slopes of Morden Park ahead and down to the left, here harbouring a Disc Golf Course. In 165m you pass a yellow metal gate on the right, leading into a wildflower meadow on the site of The Old Pool, with the site of the Merton Campus of South Thames College visible beyond. In 90m the path ends in a tarmac road’s turning circle by Morden Park House, now Merton’s Register Office, by a couple of info panels. The entrance to the pretty walled gardens is at the right-hand far end of the house.
Bear left to pass the building on its left-hand side, soon with a fenced lightly wooded area on the left and the walled garden on the right behind its wall. Take either of two paths here, as they re-join in 75m at a T-junction with a gravel track from a car park on the right. Turn left here and ignore an immediate right turn and in 20m you walk along the back of a brick bandstand (with fine views down the park from its stage). A handful of high rises are visible on the half left (on 160°) in Sutton Town Centre.
Continue in the same direction across the grassy plateau, aiming to the right of a lone tree stump surrounded by an area of brambles 110 m away. Beyond the stump, veer left (200°, i.e. do not bear left along a row of trees). A large and wide building on a bearing of 120° on the half left is the St. Helier Hospital in Rosehill (on the same low ridge that separates Wandle and Beverley Brook catchment). In 80m you pass between two mature and solitary trees and in 65m you pass a row of younger trees on the left, while crossing a clear grass path.
You keep descending and in 160m you cross the East Pyl Brook on a wide concrete bridge and enter a small car park by a cricket pavilion and ground away to the left. Bear right through the car park and in 20m (i.e. before reaching a gate onto a road), you turn right into a belt of trees and follow a broad path to the left of the brook. In 270m ignore a concrete bridge on the right into a large meadow and in 100m you reach the Environment Agency’s Bow Lane Screen, where the brook enters a culvert and travels under the housing estate ahead to its meeting with the Pyl Brook just before a junction with three tarmac paths.
Option: The Morden Brook pub (Greene King) can be found down the left-hand tarmac path and in 110m along to the right along Lower Morden Lane, another 300m away.
Turn right around the screen and along a tarmac path back into the park through a belt of trees, ignoring a left bearing earthen path (an unmarked public footpath). In 40m, by a seated shelter on the right and where the tarmac path turns left uphill, you continue ahead across the grassy slope, aiming for a gap between two small isolated wooded areas.
In 70m go between the woods and continue ahead towards a gap between rows of trees 100m away and past that continue at a gentler gradient towards a tree-topped small mound, a suspected but unproven Burial Mound. Aim for the right-hand side of the mound and in 90m veer left towards the mound to in 30m go through some brambly growth on a path and in 15m ascend the mound along a clear earth path.
At the top, veer left to descend along a stepped path and in 30m turn right along a small wooded area. In 70m turn left around the far end of the wood and in 50m turn left at a junction with three tarmac paths. You have the wood on the left and a fenced meadow on the right. In 130m the wood discontinues and in 10m you turn right through a gap in the fence and some trees along a clear earth path towards a large meadow 30m away.
Bear right along the hawthorns on the right and in 90m go through a row of trees and down a minor bank into the adjacent meadow and continue along the hawthorns and in 1110m curve to the right along the bushy growth. In 30m cross a tarmac path and enter a very large meadow through another fence gap and, with Morden Leisure Centre visible on the right ahead (which has a Coffee Corner café), follow the grass path dead ahead, a little to the left of it. The Baitul Futuh Mosque Complex is visible in the near distance.
In 80m you cross a wide grass path and veer left along a minor path, now aiming just to the right of a clump of trees in the middle of the meadow (hiding a fenced pond) and in 100m cross another wide grass path (from a car park and a park ranger yard on the left). in 50m you pass the fenced pond and in 50m leave the pond behind.
The Brutalist Crown House, housing Merton Council’s Civic Centre, has come into view as well now and you continue along the middle of three grass paths, aiming to a point between civic centre and mosque. In 230m leave the large meadow through a fence gap and cross a tarmac path (an unmarked public footpath) into a large grassy area sloping down gently.
For Morden South Station (half-hourly service, no food or drink offerings), veer right across the grass, aiming for the right-hand end of a railway bridge straddling the road beyond the park boundary. In 200m leave the park through a gate onto a tarmac path (an unmarked public footpath) by the A24 and turn right along the road (should the gate be locked, leave the park to the left in its far corner and turn right along this tarmac path). In 70m turn left across the road to the station entrance 50m away.
For Morden Underground Station, veer left across the grass towards a clump of trees this side of some tennis courts. In 100m go through the trees and in 60m pass the far corner of the courts and continue through a tarmac area to a car barrier 30m away. Turn left along a tarmac path (an unmarked public footpath), past a house on the left, and in 25m another public footpath joins from the left between fences.
In 40m go through a gap to the left of a car gate and turn right along Links Avenue to go under a railway bridge. In 260m cross the busy Martin Way/Crown Lane at a set of lights and turn right along the opposite pavement. In 120m you continue ahead at a three-way junction of busy roads, which is the northeasterly corner of a road triangle around Crown House. In 150m you pass its entrance on the right and in 20m bear left with the road to the station entrance 50m away.
Refreshment Options are scattered around the road triangle and further along the road past the tube station.