Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the manor ended up in the hands of the Garth family, who in the 1770s built their grand mansion, Morden Hall. The estate, which has the river Wandle running right through it, was subsequently sold to a tobacco merchant in the 1870s and the grounds still contain the watermills where tobacco was ground into snuff. An interesting fact is that snuff is still traditionally kept at the entrance to the House of Commons main debating chamber in a wooden container called The Parliamentary Snuff Box. In 1941 Morden Hall and its grounds were left to the National Trust and entry to the park remains free-of-charge, as was stipulated in the former owner's will.
As the adjacent area of Wimbledon was developed, Morden remained primarily a place of agriculture. It was Morden's switch from a rural district to an urban district coupled with the opening of Morden Underground station that eventually led to the mass residential development of the area. This saw the population grow from just over 1,000 in 1921 to 35,000 by the end of the 1940s. Much of the housing was created on former lavender fields as the St Helier Estate, which followed the garden city design principles. The street names were chosen to reflect the area's monastic history and run alphabetically from the north-west to the south-west of the development. Within the development is St Helier Hospital, which was the birthplace of former Prime Minister John Major. Since 2003 Morden has been home to the largest mosque in western Europe.
We visited Morden to take part in the town's parkrun. However, before I move onto that, this is a good time to mention that this is not the first time Morden has hosted a parkrun. On 6 June 2009 a one-off parkrun took place in the grounds of the previously mentioned Morden Hall, as part of the Wandle Valley Festival. The official Morden Hall parkrun event page no longer exists, but 86 people participated and you can see the results on the RunBritain website (login required). The course consisted of two short laps followed by two longer laps, but the National Trust grounds were deemed unsuitable for it to become a weekly event. I managed to find the GPS data of the Morden Hall parkrun course, so if you are interested I have uploaded it to my Strava account.
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The focus of this write-up is Morden Park which opened to the public in 1945 and sits in the very centre of the town. The parkland surrounds Morden Park House which was built for the distiller and merchant, John Ewart in the 1770s, and featured landscaped areas as well as a farm called Morden Park Farm. In fact there was still a pig farm present on the site right up until the late 1940s or early 1950s when it was destroyed by a fire. It was left derelict for a number of years until the site was cleared for the building of Merton College, now known as South Thames College, Merton Campus.
The park features beautifully landscaped, undulating terrain which covers 155 acres with some small areas of woodland and groupings of trees along historic field boundaries. Although it is not visible, the Roman road, Stane Street, apparently ran straight through the park and still exists about 30 centimetres below the park's surface. The recently restored house still stands, where it now serves as the local registry office and a wedding / civil ceremony venue. There is also a playground, paddling pool, multi-sport area, tennis courts, outdoor gym, cricket pitch and a pitch and putt golf / disc golf course - both of these can be used free-of-charge providing you can supply the equipment. However, equipment for playing disc golf can be hired from Morden Leisure Centre, which is also within the park's grounds.
In 2024 the town finally became home to its very own permanent free, weekly, timed event called Morden parkrun, held within the grounds of Morden Park. It takes place on Saturday mornings at 9am over a 5 kilometre route and is open to all abilities including those who wish to walk the course or volunteer. The town is fairly well connected travel-wise and can be reached via Thameslink train services to Morden South which is just across the road from the park. The London Underground's Northern Line terminates at Morden tube station and is about a mile from the park. There are also a number of buses (80, 93, 154) that stop on the A24 outside South Thames College.
We travelled by car and parked in the on-site car park which can be accessed from the A24 which runs along the park's eastern border. The car park has 194 spaces and requires a fee to be paid. As of August 2024 the car park had a payment machine which accepts cash and card, but on the day I visited it would not accept payments by either method, causing quite a bit of stress to other parkrunners. According to the Merton Council website the charges apply between 8am and 1pm on Saturdays. The fee is £1.20 per hour (with the option to pay in 30 minute increments). If parking is required for over four hours there is a flat £7 fee. Payment can also be made via the RingGo app using location code 17312. Somehow the three hours of parking that I requested via the app came to a grand total of £2. For anyone looking to avoid messing around with paid-for parking, I would suggest looking at the side streets to the north-west or to the south of the park. Just remember to leave enough time to walk the extra distance.
Once within the park, the toilet facilities can be found within the Morden Leisure Centre - this is also where the bicycle racks can be found. The leisure centre is adjacent to the car park, but in the opposite direction to the parkrun meeting point. To find the meeting point from the car park, I would advise taking the path that leads directly past the playground, and through the trees directly ahead you will be able to see the rear of a brick structure - this, according to the official park map, is the bandstand, however don't look for a traditional park bandstand because this one doesn't look like that. It is actually a proper stage. The audience viewing area is surrounded by a hedge, and this is where everybody meets. The first timers' briefing is held informally on the grass and the main briefing then takes place from the stage itself, which I thought was pretty cool.
Morden parkrun takes place over an undulating three-lap clockwise course with the addition of a 100 metre start and finish tail. The surface underfoot is mostly grass but there is also a stretch of tarmac. Each lap is 1.6 kilometres in length and the split of grass and tarmac is roughly 1 kilometre on grass vs 600 metres on tarmac, so the overall split works out at 3.2 kilometre on grass and 1.8 kilometres on tarmac. When the ground is dry, road shoes are sufficient, but the course will require trail shoes in unfavourable conditions as the grass surface is likely to become muddy and slippery. Those taking part with a buggy are welcome, but take note of the potential for the course to be a little trickier to negotiate during the winter. This course seems like it would be pretty hard work in a wheelchair, even when conditions are perfect. The elevation change according to my GPS data was 58 metres over the full 5 kilometre course.
With the briefings complete, the assembled crowd squeeze through the small gaps in the hedge and form a start line facing towards the west. The opening stretch is gently uphill for the first 100 metres, but once the route joins the main loop, there is a lovely downhill section which eventually leads to the southernmost point of the course. The park feels very much like being in a country park and the views are picturesque. The mowed grass paths are nice and wide, giving a beautifully smooth surface underfoot. However, keep an eye out for the occasional rabbit hole. The route then heads across to its most westerly point, on the way there is a slight rise followed by a second long downhill.
The western tip of the course marks two separate things. Firstly it is the lowest point of the course, and secondly it is where the 600 metre single stretch of tarmac footpath starts. The opening 250 metres-or-so of tarmac features the route's longest and toughest climb which at its steepest hits a gradient of around 6.7%. The course has been designed in the shape of an hourglass and once back onto grass, the route heads towards the point that can be likened to the neck of said hourglass, where participants briefly pass very close to other parkrunners without actually crossing paths. This is of course expertly managed by a couple of marshals. In fact I think I remember there being seven marshals dotted around the course.
The last section of the lap is one last gradual uphill slope on grass which passes the tumulus (possibly a burial mound) and completes the lap. Once all three full laps have been completed, the course heads slightly downhill across the open grass towards the 'bandstand' where the finish line can be found and the finish funnel channels people back through the gap in the hedge and into the bandstand area where the barcode scanning takes place. By the time we finished (over 50 minutes), the barcode scanners had positioned themselves at the end of the shortened finish funnel, now just a few metres in length. I recorded the course using my Garmin, so please feel free to take a look at the data on Strava if you wish to see the route on the map. I used the Relive app to create a course fly-by video so that may be of interest too.
The park is sometimes used for other events and this can lead to the parkrun being cancelled so remember to check for this in advance on the event's main page or their official social media. A likely regular two-week cancellation falls around the end of June and into the early part of July where a large area of the park is used as a park and ride for fans attending the Wimbledon Tennis Championships. Also events such as the 2024 Garage Nation outdoor festival, and the annual Fun Fair and Fireworks Display in November will also most-likely lead to cancellation of the parkrun.
The post-parkrun refreshments take place over at the Better Coffee Corner café in the leisure centre, and it's quite a pleasant spot to relax after the morning's exercise. We had brought some breakfast with us so we used our remaining time to hang out in the playground, which to be honest is quite small and basic considering this is the town's main park. I was almost tempted by a spot of disc golf, but there are only so many hours in the morning.
The results for event 6 were published later that morning and 291 people completed the 5k while 26 were credited as volunteers. At time of writing it is still quite a new event, so the average number of participants is slightly skewed by the high number of tourists. I'd imagine that event 6 showed a more representative figure than some of the previous events, but given that 216 people were first timers who had previously taken part elsewhere (tourists) I imagine the true average may be a fair bit lower. Update: As of early 2025 the event seems to be having regular attendances roughly in the 150-200 range.
Overall it's a lovely park, and we enjoyed our visit. A huge thank you goes to all the volunteers that put the event on and made us feel so welcome.
Related Links:
- Morden parkrun GPS data (3 August 2024)
- Morden parkrun Relive course fly-by video (3 August 2024)
- Morden Hall parkrun GPS data (6 June 2009 - please note, the original data is not mine)