Riverside Quarter

The area where the River Wandle joins the Thames has been developed into a new community known as Riverside Quarter. This previously derelict area of Wandsworth has been transformed into a thriving new community of 411 new homes plus 165,000sqft of commercial and leisure space.

The site was meadowland until the 19th century, part of the farming and market garden economy that was swept away by the whirlwind of industrialisation that engulfed the South Bank throughout the 1840s. The site’s proximity to Central London and the fast flowing River Wandle - one of the most powerful rivers for driving mills in the country – made its early development as an industrial area inevitable.

Wandsworth Park, located adjacent to the site, was acquired as an open space by the LCC in 1897 and opened in 1903. The area was then occupied by market gardens and was one of the few remaining undeveloped areas in the north of the parish. The park was laid out in formal Victorian fashion, very much as it is today, although the bandstand is no longer there. The children’s play area, a bowling green and green open space for football and cricket are popular with local residents.

From the early 1900s, the Osiers Fireworks Factory and a gas works were located on this site. The area remained in general industrial use until the early 1960s, when Shell Oil constructed oil storage tanks on the site for the distribution of fuel and gas oils from tankers accessing the riverside jetties for local distribution by road. This activity ceased in 1990 when the surface storage tanks were dismantled.

A leading global property developer, Frasers Property, acquired the site for regeneration in December 2000. Frasers began construction on the £300million ‘Riverside Quarter’ project in 2001 and is being constructed in a series of phases over a eight year period. Once complete, the waterfront community will provide a combined 411 new apartments and penthouses with 165,000sqft of commercial and leisure space.

Riverside Quarter is located at the corner of Northfields and Point Pleasant and is accessed via Putney Bridge Road. At the heart of the development is a contemporary, landscaped piazza that provides a meeting place for the residents and local community. The piazza has two excellent restaurants, Marco Polo and Riverpoint Café, both positioned on the waterfront with terraces for al fresco dining. The nearby Cats Back pub on Point Pleasant is also popular with locals; and there is an on-site late-opening convenience store that sells newspapers, drinks and groceries.

Frasers Property has made a financial contribution to Wandsworth Council for improvements to the adjacent Wandsworth Park and traffic calming in the local area. The company has also made a contribution to Transport for London to introduce a new bus service along Osiers Road, the main access route for the development.

A key feature of the new quarter is the floating pontoon jetty which provides 12 new moorings for houseboats on the waterfront. A river bus service is operated by Thames Executive Charters up to eight times a day to The West End and Blackfriars.

As part of the Mayor of London’s plans to revive London’s lost rivers, a new ecological zone will be created where the River Wandle meets The Thames on the eastern edge of the development. Frasers Property has made a significant contribution to Wandsworth Borough Council for their arrangements to remove an existing half-tidal weir at Bell Lane Creek, a branch of the River Wandle. This will widen and improve the flow of the river where native planting will also be introduced. Residents and the public will be able to observe the habitat from a new lookout area and boardwalk crossing.

Central to the development is the improvement of the public riverside walkway that will become part of the Wandsworth Sculpture Trail. A new section of the cycle path will connect to the existing path for through access, as well as into the centre of Wandsworth and along the River Wandle.

The walkway along the south bank of the Thames is part of the Thames Path National Trail and the development of Riverside Quarter fills one of the major missing sections of this key route. The path will pick up from Prospect Quay, follows through the new public piazza at Point Pleasant on the western edge of the site, then along the river to the existing pedestrian and cycle bridge over the River Wandle.