London Under (6 page)

Underground water has often been associated with disease; it is perceived to be insidious or threatening, and therefore becomes the cause of ague and pestilence. Just as it may undermine the foundations of houses along its course, so it may break down the health of those who live by or near it. In earlier years the most common ailments were typhoid fever and cholera, but the dwellers by underground streams are now more likely to contract bronchitis or rheumatism. A survey from the last century concluded that those who live beside waterways, whether open or buried, were more likely to suffer from asthma and hay fever.

There is another interesting phenomenon associated with the lost rivers of London. In his survey entitled
The Geography of London’s Ghosts
(1960), G. W. Lambert concluded that approximately three-quarters of the city’s paranormal activity takes place near buried waters. Some may conclude that the spiritual properties of the rivers have been confirmed; the ritual activity at the
Walbrook, for example, may thereby be justified. The more sceptical will believe that the flowing of buried waters merely creates strange effects of sound.

Smaller underground streams can be found in the area of South London, among them
the Peck and
the Earl’s Sluice that join forces before entering the Thames at
Deptford. To the west lie
the Falcon and
the Wandle. The Falcon has two origins,
Balham and
Tooting, before they unite at
Clapham; the underground stream enters the Thames at
Battersea.

T
he river Wandle is better known, and for much of its length it runs above the ground. It rises in
Croydon and in its journey of 9 miles to the Thames it passes through
Lambeth and
Wandsworth; it helps to form the boundary between Croydon and Lambeth as well as that between
Merton and Wandsworth. Wandsworth means the village by the Wandle.

It was well known for its fish. In 1586
William Camden described it as “the cleare rivulet Wandle, so full of the best trouts.” In
The Compleat Angler
(1653) Izaak Walton also complimented it on its trout. Lord Nelson used to fish in its waters, where they entered Lady Hamilton’s garden at Merton; she renamed it “the Nile” in his honour. It is still the haunt of fishermen; there is an organisation called the “Wandle piscators.”
John Ruskin
recalled how “the sand danced and minnows darted above the Springs of Wandel.” It is even commemorated in charming verse:

The Wandle
, by J.B. Watson, c. 1819
(illustration credit Ill.9)

One observer of the rivers in the early twentieth century, Hilda Ormsby, remarked in
London on the Thames
(1924) that the Wandle “particularly seems to resent being buried alive.” It can be seen as a living thing, therefore, with its own character and its own energies. Yet there are some underground rivers that seem more alive, and more powerful, in their subterranean existence. We will go on a journey along
the Fleet.

It has created its own mythology. A number of poems have been dedicated to it. It rises at two spots on
Hampstead Heath before flowing down
the
Fleet Road to
Camden Town. Even its origin has been granted literary associations. Samuel Pickwick read a paper to the Pickwick Club, on 12 May 1827, entitled “Speculations on the Source of the Hampstead ponds, with some observations on the Theory of Tittlebats.” At a later and more melancholy date in his illustrious career Pickwick found himself incarcerated within the
Fleet Prison. So he came to know the river well.

Its name derives from the Anglo-Saxon
fleotan
, meaning to float, or from the Saxon
flod
or flood. Technically it might be taken to describe a tidal inlet. It has been known as the River of Wells, also a very accurate description. Its two sources are united north of Camden Town, where in the early nineteenth century the river was more than 60 feet wide; an anchor was found in the riverbed here, suggesting that it was possible for boats to reach upriver into what were then the outskirts of London. It ran south past
Old St. Pancras Church towards
King’s Cross. The parishioners of St. Pancras complained in the fifteenth century that their church stood “where foul ways is and great waters.” From that point forward the modern streets give a clear indication of its course.

In vision we see the slopes of the hills and valleys all around us, as we walk along
King’s Cross Bridge into
St. Chad’s Place before turning right into King’s Cross Road; the adjacent roads here rise up on the left hand, in an area that was once the haunt of wells, springs and pleasure gardens. As we proceed along the valley of
Pakenham Street and
Phoenix Place and
Warner Street, the roads now rise on the right-hand side and we see
Eyre Street Hill and
Back Hill. This was a place of green banks and gardens, and we can still walk up
Vine Hill and
Herbal Hill. The river then turns southward into
Farringdon Lane and
Turnmill Street, where once its current turned three mills. An advertisement for a house to let in that street, in the
Daily Courant
of 1741, mentions “a good stream and current that will turn a mill to grind hair powder or liquorish or other things.”

The river goes south-west into
Cowcross Street, and flows down
Saffron Hill. This is the place where the bishops of Ely cultivated saffron in the fifteenth century and, at a later date, strawberries. The river then plunges into the great valley of
Farringdon Road and
Farringdon Street and
New Bridge Street; it eventually decants into the Thames at
Blackfriars. There were two islands or “eyots” in the lower part of its course, before it reached the larger river, testifying to a width of approximately 40 feet.

Five bridges once spanned the lower part of the Fleet, three of them stone.
Holborn Bridge rose where
Holborn Viaduct now stands; Holborn is a derivation from “old bourne” or old stream.
Turnagain Lane, off
Farringdon Street, was a cul-de-sac that led down to the bank of the river, hence its name. To its east rose a gravel hill, on which part of the City was built, and to its west lay a marshy fen that was not completely drained. The Fleet was the western boundary of
Roman London, and remained in use as a territorial line for 2,000 years. At the time of the Civil War it became the point where earthworks were erected to defend the City. It still marks the border of
Westminster and the City.

The confluence of the Fleet and the Thames, 1749
(illustration credit Ill.10)

It was a notable river, therefore, flowing through what would become the heart of London. A petition of 1307 states that the Fleet “used to be wide enough to carry ten or twelve ships up to
Fleet bridge, laden with various articles and merchandise.” In the twelfth century it was used for transporting stones to help in the building of
Old St. Paul’s. It was also employed for conveying hay, and corn, and wine, and wood.
Old Seacoal Lane and
Newcastle Close bear witness to another London necessity that was discharged at one of the wharves.

But the curse of the city was already upon it. The slaughter-houses of
Smithfield, and the
tanneries along its banks, discharged all of their waste products into the waters. It was constantly fouled almost to choking by refuse and silt, and only periodic attempts were made at cleansing. It was scoured clean at the beginning of the sixteenth century, for example, so that boats could once again sail up to Fleet Bridge and
Oldbourne Bridge. It was thoroughly cleaned a hundred years later, and again in 1652 when it was clogged “by the throwing in of offal and other garbage by butchers, saucemen, and others, and by reason of the many houses of office standing over upon it.” A “house of office” was a public lavatory. It was now in its lower reaches a brown soup.

Ben Jonson’s poem “On the Famous Voyage” (1612), celebrates—if that is the word—a journey up the Fleet at the beginning of the seventeenth century:

He goes on to enquire:

A hundred years later Jonathan Swift, observing the waters flowing under Holborn Bridge, remarked in
“A Description of a City Shower” (1710) that:

After the Great Fire of 1666
Sir Christopher Wren determined to replace the river of shit with a river of majesty. He widened the Fleet and gave it some of the characteristics of a Venetian canal, with wharves of stone on either side and with a grand new
Holborn bridge. This bridge was found beneath the ground in 1826, having in the end been surmounted by the rubbish of the city. Forty years after Wren’s renovation Ned Ward, in
The London Spy
(1703), remarked that “the greatest good that I ever heard it did was to the undertaker, who is bound to acknowledge he has found better fishing in that muddy stream than ever he did in clear water.” George Farquhar, in
Sir Harry Wildair
(1701), refers to “the dear perfume of Fleet Ditch.” Alexander Pope completes this litany of Fleet elegists with the
Dunciad
(1728), in which the river forms the suitably murky background to a satire on London corruption and wretchedness; on its stream rolls “the large tribute of dead dogs to Thames.”

The canal was found to be less than useful to the merchants and wholesalers who, by encroaching on the whole area, reduced it to chaos and dirt once more. On 24 August 1736 the
Gentleman’s Magazine
reported that “a fatter boar was hardly ever seen than one taken up this day, coming out of the Fleet Ditch into the Thames.
It proved to be a butcher’s near Smithfield Bar, who had missed him five month, all which time he had been in the common sewer, and was improved in price from ten shillings to two guineas.” In the winter of 1763 a barber from Bromley, the worse for drink, fell into the waters and was so enmired in mud that he froze to death overnight.