The Kilburn returns!

You can’t keep a lost river down.  Photos in the papers today showing part of Kilburn High Road under water, would be strangely familiar to 19^th century residents.  The floods, caused by a burst water main, look pretty disastrous from the photos.  However, the water has temporarily recreated the riverscape Kilburn High Road replaced.

Kilburn’s lost river is now known as the Westbourne, but it went by many names, which changed as it passed through different neighbourhoods.  Kilburn is in fact named after its local stream, the Kilbourne.  Originating at the edge of Hampstead Heath, it flowed via West End Green to Kilburn Priory.  A street of the same name marks its course, while rushing water can sometimes be detected nearby under Springfield Road.

The Kilbourne crossed the High Road at the junction with Kilburn Park Road, and moves on to Paddington Recreation Gardens. Kilburn High Road itself is a river of sorts, flooded or otherwise.  It is, as Chris Petit points out in his novel Robinson, “a dirty brown torrent”, but rather more so at the moment.”

Porcelain postcards

I have posted before about Loraine Rutt’s lost rivers-inspired sculpture, a beautiful and alluring ceramic relief map of London.  Now I discover she is producing a series of Porcelain Postcards of the area around River Peck.  These are delicate, postcard-sized reliefs, the one on the left showing the Peck and the Og.  They stand in neat wooden holders, and look as though they might be carved from impossibly thin pieces of bone. 

This is appropriately visionary stuff for a river that carries close associations with Blake.  They will shortly have their own company and website, currently in preparation.  

The postcards are a clear, white porcelain in real life, but I can't do justice to them in photo so this is my heat map version.

Raising the Curtain

The unearthing in June of remains from the Curtain theatre, fills an important gap in the story of Shakespeare’s theatre company.  It also fills a gap on the banks of the Walbrook, a small stream with disproportionate significance for London.

The Curtain is where the Lord Chamberlain’s Men relocated after an eventful time at The Theatre up the road. The basic theatre names of the late 16^th century, as well as being amusing, clearly indicate their novelty.  The Curtain, the “wooden O” conjured up by Henry V’s Chorus, was a step up from The Theatre, built a few hundred yards among the ruins of the Holywell Priory, but was still dubious entertainment best located outside the City boundaries.

The Plough Yard site where the Curtain’s foundations still retains an edge-city feel, combining dereliction with services the City requires but doesn’t want to host: electricity transformer stations, driving ranges, and lap-dancing.

And the Walbrook?  It flowed, as far as we can judge, along Curtain Road from the Holywell itself.   The Theatre and The Curtain were therefore both riverside venues, although the river was probably not longer visible.  Full of rubbish, and receiving tributes from all the privies along its banks, it would have been an insalubrious neighbour.  The Walbrook, however, was worth more than that.  It flowed - and still flows in its own sewer - from Shoreditch through the City itself, under the Bank of England, to the Thames near Cannon Street.  It formed the valley in which Roman London was founded, and as such is probably London's oldest, least appreciated inhabitant.

Ceramic London

Artist Loraine Rutt has produced this highly impressive ceramic relief map of London's lost river system.  It is both lovely and very useful.  Relief maps of London are a surprisingly rare commodity but Loraine's realisation of the city's landscape shows us the big picture usually obscured by the detail.  It's hard to see the hill and valleys, hidden as they are behind the multiple distractions of buildings and streets.

Stripped back to gleaming white, strokeable porcelain, all becomes clear.  London was built in the wide, shallow Thames terraces, before snaking along the valleys of its tributaries.  Rivers such as the Fleet, Tyburn, Westbourne, Effra carve notches in the hills of the north and the south.  The road and railways followed, and from the valley floors London began its assault on the high ground.

There's something medical, anatomical about this piece. It's a knot of sinuous muscle bunched around atrial chambers.  Peer closely enough, and I suspect the blue veins are gently pumping.

South East London Folklore

I had the pleasure last night to talk to the legendary SELFS - the South East London Folklore Society. It was, as always, a room full of people who know their rivers and their South East London, so I gave them a special South London-only overview, including the Wandle's liquorice field full of Jutish bones and the spectre of John Ruskin, hauting the banks of the Wandle, the Effra and the Earl's Sluice.

SELFS meets every second Thursday of the month in the upstairs room at the Old King's Head, Borough High Street. Its many pleasures include a rare chance to speak with a portrait of Henry VIII peering over the top of your slides, looking unimpressed, some tasty Cornish ale on tap, and of course the best talks and events listing in London. Thanks to Nigel of Bermondsey.

Big hole in Hampstead

On Redington Road in Hampstead, all is not as sedate as it may seem. Last week a hole opened up unexpectedly in the middle of the road. And not just any hole, a "gaping cavern". The photo (by Nigel Sutton in the Ham & High) shows Cllr Chris Knight being sucked into its yawning maw.

The article doesn't make the connection, but Redington Road is crossed by the buried River Westbourne on its way down from Branch Hill towards West End Green. It be clearly heard flowing under a manhole cover at the north end of Redington Gardens, and an unmissable valley crosses Redington Road with the river underneath. The Westbourne rolls off the Hampstead Ridge and is also known as the Kilburn further south. It is famous for crossing the District Line at Sloane Square station in a fat pipe.

Not only that, there are tributaries in the area. A local resident tells me he hit water nearby on Oak Hill while sinking piles for his garden wall. The water was flowing, 3.8m below the surface. This is likely to be the reported, but unmapped Tyburn tributary which flows down Oak Hill to Redington Gardens. Another tributary flows into the valley from Telegraph Hill opposite.

The trend for basement extensions in the wealthy back streets has Londoners interested again in long-forgotten streams. It looks as though people would be wise to check what may be under their houses before they book the JCBs.

Ride the rivers

I am delighted to see that Southwark Cyclists have got creative with Lost London Rivers, and are planning to cycle the lot. What an intrepid set of urban adventurers. Some of these walks will prove a cycling challenge, but I'm sure they're up to it. I'd like to see, for instance, a calvalcade of cyclist rolling down the mews of Mayfair on trail of the Tyburn surprising the Jaguar owners, or bombing across the Broadgate Centre following the Walbrook and, with any luck, annoying the security guards in the process. Be careful on the Elephant and Castle roundabouts though, which have the Neckinger diving beneath them. And some of the wilder Fleet passes on the high ground of Hampstead Heath may require mountain bikes and suspension to navigate safely.

I'd also recommend fixing a dowsing rod to the handle bars to find out whether it works like an automatic pilot. The bikes will find their own way: all you need to do is freewheel.