Bottling it!
A dig into the archive has revealed some rarely-seen photographs of the former rail-connected Express Dairy bottling plant in South West London, which today is the site of a large mosque.
BEFORE the development of a decent road network, the only way to transport milk quickly from rural dairy farms to consumers in large cities was by rail. Some of the main flows were from the
West Country to London, with one operated by the Southern Railway (and later British Railways' Southern Region) from Torrington (Devon) to Clapham Junction for onward tripping to bottling plants at Vauxhall and Morden South.
Morden South is tucked away in South West London on the line from Wimbledon to Sutton, which was planned before the First World War but only opened in 1930. An opportunity was missed at the time to provide a useful interchange with London Underground's Northern Line (as it is called today). LU's depot at the end of the line is adjacent to Morden South main line station, but the nearest Tube
Hunslet Engine Company ‘Yardmaster' No. 5308 David seen from the station at Morden South stabled in the bottling plant's siding.
station is actually half a mile north at Morden.
Express Dairy then used the strip of land between the Tube depot and main line station to open a milk bottling plant. This was rail-connected to the Sutton-bound line, and comprised a two-road shed with a run-round loop plus an additional siding.
By the 1970s, shunting of the milk wagons was being done by Hunslet Engine Company ‘Yardmaster'
No. 5308 David, one of only three such
locos (Nos. 5306-8). No. 5308 was built in Leeds in 1960 for the Baglan Engineering Company in Neath, South Wales, but was out of use by 1969 and so sold on to Express Dairy for use at Morden South.
After milk traffic to Morden South ended in December 1978, the shunter was acquired by Resco (Railways) and rebuilt at Woolwich before being sold on to Ciba-Geigy Chemicals for use in Grimsby, where it was renamed
Colonel B after the company's founder
Express Dairy’s two-road shed next to the north end of Morden South station.
Colonel Bedford. From there it moved into preservation in March 2005 when it was donated to the Lincolnshire Wolds railway at Ludborough, where it can be found today under restoration.
The Morden South bottling plant continue to be served by road until 1992, but the land was later acquired to build the Baitul Futuh mosque, which opened in 2003 and is claimed to be one of the largest in Europe with space for up to 10,000 worshippers. Interestingly, some of the mosque
complex was built around parts of the old dairy buildings – including the chimney, which was converted into a minaret.
EAn aerial view of the Morden South area showing the station, Tube depot and the land in between where the bottling plant was but now home to the Baitul Futuh mosque.