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Section A—Natural and Social
Conditions of the District.
Area (in acres) 3,340
Number of inhabited houses (end of 194S)
according to Rate Books 16,597
/
Rateable Value at 31st December, 1948 £501,542
Sum represented by Id. rate £2,025
The Sanitary District, situated about midway between the Thames
and the North Downs, is roughly rectangular in shape. It is
approximately one mile in width and, commencing at a datum
level of 72 at the northern boundary, it extends for some five miles
in a southerly direction tip the slope of the North Downs to a height
of 450 feet above sea level.
The subsoil, which is clay in the northern part, changes to a sandy
gravel as one proceeds southwards, and then merges into chalk, which
covers the southern half of the district.
The River Wandle forms the eastern boundary in the northern
part and arises from several springs at the outcropping of the chalk
near the centre of the district. The depletion of the underground water
supplies in the London Basin, which has increased in recent years, has
seriously reduced the flow of the river and has resulted in the complete
drying up for lengthy periods of the ponds which were a source of
considerable amenity to the district.
Situated in Metropolitan Surrey, Carshalton is largely a dormitory
area, most of its residents being employed in London. With the
exception of the southern portion, the district is highly urbanised, the
housing density increasing as one approaches the northern boundary.
Dwellings are mostly of the working class type, chiefly as a result of the
rapid development in the years before World War II, including the
L.C.C. housing estate of St. Helier. Carshalton has a young population,
the average age being probably the lowest in Surrey.
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