topography, took its rise in the dense clay of the district just below
Hampstead; at Kentish Town its volume was increased by an affluent from
Highgate Ponds; it then made its way through the hill near College
Street--whence some writers infer that the name of Oldbourne, by which
the river was known for some distance, was really a corruption of
Hole-bourne--and entered the valley formed by the hills of Camden Town
and the Caledonian Road, pursuing its course to Battle Bridge--since
1830 known as King's Cross--where it received an affluent from the west,
which rose in the high ground to the south of the Hampstead Road. From
Battle Bridge the river bent round to the east, and flowed through the
grounds of Bagnigge Wells, once the residence of Nell Gwynne, and
thence, still with an easterly trend, past the walls of the House of
Correction, thence across Baynes Row, where it received another western
affluent, taking its rise at the western end of Guilford Street. Thence
it flowed to the northern end of Little Saffron Hill, and in this part
of its course it sometimes was called the River of Wells, because it was
fed by a number of wells or springs, all situate in Clerkenwell, and
known as Clerks' Well, Skinners' Well, Faggs' Well, Loder's Well, Rad
Well, and Todd's Well, this latter a corruption of its proper name,
God's Well, from which Goswell Street took its name. The river thence
flowed down the valley between the old City and the Holborn hills, and
here it occasionally went by the name of Turnmill Brook, because of the
mills which here stood on its banks. On its eastern side was a street
called Turnmill Street, which in later days acquired a very bad
reputation, its inhabitants being abandoned characters. Originally it
was a respectable street, the houses having gardens going down to the
river, which was fenced on both sides. In its southward course the
river presently reached Holborn Bridge, where it received the affluent
called the Hol-bourne, which rose somewhere near St. Giles'. The
existence of this brook is denied by some topographers, but it is
distinctly shown in a very old map of the manor of Blemundsbury
(Bloomsbury), reproduced in Mr. W. Blott's 'Chronicle of Blemundsbury,'
1892. And we see no reason for doubting the correctness of the map, and
therefore adopt the Holbourne as a fact. The Fleet then passed under
Chick Lane, afterwards called West Street, which crossed the river at
right angles, and in quite recent times was the refuge of thieves,
burglars, and other criminals; and means of concealment and of escape by
way of the river were revealed when, in the forties and fifties, West
Street was pulled down for the improvements then in progress in that
locality. After passing under Holborn Bridge, the river was known as
the Fleet, not because of the fleetness of its course, as some writers
would have it, for it never had much of that quality, but because of the
flood or high tide it participated in with the rise of the Thames.
Having thus traced the river from its source to its mouth, we may
describe the bridges which crossed it.
In the northern part of its course the river, where it passed through
what in the early days was still country, was no doubt here and there
crossed by bridges, but they were probably wooden bridges of light
construction, as the traffic was but limited. The first solid bridge we
have any record of is the one which existed at Battle Bridge, which
derived its name from the battle between Suetonius Paulinus and
Boadicea, the Queen of the Iceni, which is said to have been fought on
the spot, and from the brick bridge which in early times there crossed
the Fleet. Originally it was built of wood, but at an uncertain date
later on it was replaced by one of brick, consisting of a number of
arches. Battle Bridge, from the lowness of its situation, was exposed to
frequent inundations. In the _Gentleman's Magazine_, May, 1818, we
read: 'From the heavy rain which commenced yesterday ... Battle Bridge,
St. Pancras, and part of Somers Town was inundated. The water was
several feet deep in many of the houses, and covered an extent of
upwards of a mile. The carcases of several sheep and goats were found
... and property was damaged to a very considerable amount.' Various
Acts were passed at the beginning of this century for the improvement of
the locality: the river was completely arched over, and in 1830 the spot
assumed the name of King's Cross from the ridiculous structure erected
in the centre of the cross roads; it was of octagon shape, surmounted by
a statue of George IV. The basement was for some time occupied as a
police-station, then as a public-house, and the whole was taken down in
1845, and a tall lamp erected on the spot.
The Fleet was next crossed by an ornamental, somewhat rustic bridge in
the grounds of Bagnigge Wells; of course it disappeared with the gardens
and buildings of the Wells in 1841. In the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, when Clerkenwell, from an almost rural became an urban
district, streets began to cross the Fleet, such as Baynes Row, Eyre
Street Hill, Mutton Hill, Peter Street, and others. The next old bridge
we came to was Cow Bridge, by Cow Lane, or the present Cow Cross. It
dated from the middle of the sixteenth century. Stow, writing, it will
be remembered, in 1598, says: 'This bridge being lately decayed, another
of timber is made by Chick Lane.' In the time of Elizabeth the ground
from Cow Cross towards the Fleet River, and towards Ely House, on the
opposite bank, was either entirely vacant or occupied with gardens.
We next come to Chick Lane, afterwards known as West Street. Stow,
writing in 1603, refers to Chicken Lane, 'toward Turnmill Brook, and
over that brook by a timber bridge into the field.' This must have been
Chick Lane, which was really a bridge of houses, the most noticeable of
which was one which once had been known as the Red Lion Inn, and which
at its demolition is supposed to have been three hundred years old. For
the last hundred years of its existence it was used as a lodging-house,
and was the resort of thieves, coiners, and other criminals. Its dark
closets, trap-doors, sliding panels, and secret recesses rendered it one
of the most secure places for robbery and murder; openings in the walls
and floors afforded easy means of getting rid of the bodies by dropping
them into the Fleet, which for many years before its final abolition was
only known as the Fleet Ditch. The history and description of the
houses in West Street were rendered so well known at the time of their
demolition that we need not enter into them here; besides, they are
beyond the scope of our inquiries.
South of Chick Lane was Holborn Bridge, which was built of stone, and,
according to Aggas' map of London in 1560, had houses on the north side
of it. The date of its original foundation is not given in any
chronicle, but it must have gone far back, probably was coeval with the
building of London Bridge, since it was on the great highway from east
to west. At first it was, like all the other bridges on the Fleet,
constructed of wood; after its erection in stone, with a width of some
twelve feet, it seems to have been gradually widened to accommodate the
increasing traffic. According to Mr. Crosby, a great authority on the
antiquities of the Fleet valley, Holborn Bridge consisted of four
different bridges joined together at the sides. Yet in 1670 the bridge
was found to be too narrow for the traffic, and it had to be rebuilt, so
that the way and passage might run in a 'bevil line' from a certain
timber-house on the north side, known by the name of the Cock, to the
Swan Inn. Wren built the new bridge on the north or Holborn side
accordingly, and the name of William Hooker, Lord Mayor in 1673-74, was
cut on the stone coping of the eastern approach. What was meant by the
'bevil line' is to us obscure, and we are not much enlightened by what
Sir William Tite says, who in 1840 was present at the opening of a sewer
at Holborn Hill, and saw the southern face of the old bridge
disinterred. 'The arch,' he says, 'was about twenty feet span. The
road from the east intersected the bridge obliquely, and out of the
angle thus formed a stone corbel arose to carry the parapet.' Of
course, with the disappearance of the Fleet Ditch the bridge also
vanished.
The next bridge we come to started from Fleet Lane on the east side to
Harp Alley on the Holborn side. As it was about half-way between Holborn
and Fleet Street bridges, it was sometimes called Middle Bridge. It was
built of stone, with a stone rail and banister, and was ascended by
fourteen steps, and as high as Bridewell and Fleet bridges, to allow
vessels with merchandise to pass under it. It had been erected in 1674,
and disappeared with the other bridges on the covering in of the Fleet.
The Fleet Bridge, which we reach next, joined Ludgate Hill to Fleet
Street. This bridge was, in 1431, repaired at the charges of John Wels,
Mayor. It was destroyed by the Great Fire, and the new one erected in
its stead was of the breadth of the street, and ornamented with
pineapples and the City arms. But though larger in breadth, it had not
the length of the old bridge, the channel having then been already
considerably narrowed. The bridge was taken down in 1765.
To the south of Fleet Bridge the river was spanned by a building, which
seems to have been a dwelling or a warehouse. It is distinctly shown on
Aggas' map.
Bridewell Bridge, the last over the Fleet before its entering the
Thames, and the last built (in the sixteenth century), was at first a
timber bridge, between Blackfriars and the House of Bridewell, on the
site of the Castle Mountfiquet, which originally stood there. In 1708,
or thereabouts, it was replaced by one of stone, much higher than the
street, being ascended by fourteen steps. It was for foot passengers
only. It was pulled down in 1765.
We may now conclude our account of the Fleet with a few statements
concerning the vicissitudes it passed through.
A great many antiquities--British, Saxon, and Roman--have been found in
the bed of this river, such as coins of silver, copper, and brass, but
none of gold; lares, spur rowels, keys, daggers, seals, medals, vases,
and urns. An anchor, three feet ten inches in height, encrusted with
rust and pebbles--a sketch of which is given in the October number of
the _Gentleman's Magazine_, 1843--is said to have been discovered near
the site of Holborn Bridge, which may be genuine, as ships are known to
have ascended so far up the river in the fourteenth century. But early
in that century already the river was choked up 'by the filth of the
tanners and others, and by the raising of wharves, and especially by a
diversion of the water in the first year of King John (1200) by them of
the New Temple for their mills without Baynard's Castle, and by other
impediments, the course was decayed, and ships could not enter as they
were used.' Upon this complaint of Henry Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, the
river was cleansed, the mills removed, and other means taken for its
preservation; but it was not brought to its former depth and width, and
so was soon filled with mud again. The scouring of the river seems to
have been necessary every thirty or forty years, at a great expense to
the City. We find that it was so cleansed in 1502, and once more
rendered navigable for large barges, but the dwellers on its banks would
continue to make it the receptacle of all the refuse, and the wharves
built on its banks proved unsuccessful, as vessels could not approach
them. Consequently, in 1733 the City of London, seeing that all
navigation had ceased, and that the ditch, as it was then called, was a
danger to the public on account of its unsanitary state, and because
persons had fallen in and been suffocated in the mud, began covering it
in, commencing with the portion from Fleet Bridge to Holborn Bridge, and
the new Fleet Market was erected on the site in 1737. The part from
Fleet Street to the Thames was covered in when the approaches to
Blackfriars were completed between 1760 and 1768. One stubborn citizen,
however, would not surrender a small filthy dock; a barber, from
Bromley, in Kent, was, in 1763, found in it standing upright and frozen
to death.
Like all brooks descending from hills, the Fleet was liable to sudden
increases of volume, causing inundations.[#] The melting of snow and
ice by a sudden thaw and heavy and long-continued rains have frequently
turned the Fleet into a mighty and destructive torrent flood. In 1679
it broke down the back of several wholesale butcher-houses at Cow Cross,
and carried off cattle dead and alive. At Hockley-in-the-Hole barrels
of ale, beer, and brandy floated down the stream. In 1768 the Hampstead
Ponds overflowing after a severe storm, the Fleet grew into a torrent,
and the roads and fields about Bagnigge Wells were inundated; in the
gardens of the latter place the water was four feet deep; in Clerkenwell
many thousand pounds' worth of damage was done. In 1809 a sudden thaw
produced a flood, and the whole space between St. Pancras and
Pentonville Hill was soon under water, and for several days people
received their provisions in at their windows. In 1846 a furious
thunderstorm caused the Fleet Ditch to blow up. The rush from the drain
at the north arch of Blackfriars Bridge drove a steamer against one of
the piers and damaged it. The water penetrated into basements and
cellars, and one draper had L3,000 worth of goods ruined. From Acton
Place, Bagnigge Wells Road, to King's Cross, the roads were impassable.
In 1855 the Fleet, as one of the metropolitan main sewers, became vested
in the then newly-established Metropolitan Board of Works. Shortly
after the Metropolitan Railway was planned, and in 1860 the work was
commenced. One of the greatest initial difficulties the engineers of
that enterprise had to contend with was the irruption of the Fleet Ditch
into their works; the Fleet gave, as does the last flare of an expiring
candle, its 'last kick,' made a final effort to assert itself. The
ditch, under which the railway had to pass two or three times, suddenly
though not unexpectedly filled the tunnel with its dark foetid liquid,
which carried all before it; scaffoldings constructed of the stoutest
timbers and solid stone and brick walls and piers. But the Metropolitan
Board of Works and the railway company, by gigantic and
skilfully-conducted efforts, succeeded in forming an outlet for the
flood into the Thames; the damage was made good, and the work was
successfully carried out.
[#] Wherever there are such brooks the same phenomenon appears.
Visitors to Nice may have witnessed the sudden rise of the Paillon, and
the Birsig at Basle, usually a fine thread of water, has repeatedly
risen five or six feet high in the market-place of that town.
Here we take our leave of the Fleet, and proceeding westward, find
nothing to arrest our steps till we come to a spot which once went by
the name of the Strand Bridge; not Waterloo Bridge, which originally was
so called, but a 'fair bridge,' as Stow calls it, erected many hundred
years ago over a brook which crossed the Strand opposite to the present
Strand Lane, and descended from the ponds in Fickett's Fields, part of
Lincoln's Inn Fields, now all built over. This bridge probably
disappeared about the year 1550, when an Act was passed for paving the
streets east and west of Temple Bar, and 'Strand Bridge' is specially
mentioned in the Act; the paving of the Strand seems to have done away
with the brook and the bridge over it. The name of Strand Bridge was
also given to the landing-stage at the bottom of Strand Lane, which
descends in a tortuous line from the Strand down to the Thames. In this
lane there is at the present day the old Roman bath, which, it is
supposed, is supplied from the well which gave its name to Holywell
Street, and which supply never fails.
There are no written records or other traces of any brook descending
from the northern heights through London west of the Strand, till we
come to the Tyburn.
This brook, like the Fleet, took its rise near Hampstead, but turning
westward, and receiving several tributary streamlets, it ran due south
through the Regent's Park, where it was joined by another affluent from
the site of the present Zoological Gardens, from which point it turned
to the west and crossed the Marylebone Road opposite Gloucester Terrace,
and after running parallel with it for a short distance it took a sharp
turn to the east, following the hollow in which the present Marylebone
Lane stands, the windings of which indicate the course of the brook. On
reaching the southern end of High Street, it again turned to the south,
crossed Oxford Street, ran down part of South Molton Street, turned west
again to the south of Berkeley Square; thence it flowed through the
narrow passage between the gardens of Lansdowne House and Devonshire
House, whose hollow sound seems to indicate the existence of the
watercourse below. It next crossed Piccadilly, ran due south through
the Green Park, passed under Buckingham Palace, directly after which it
divided into three branches, one of which ran through the ornamental
water in St. James's Park, whence it fell into the Thames: the middle
branch ran into the ancient Abbey at Westminster, where it turned the
mills the monks had erected there. But from old maps it appears that
this arm of the Tyburn, at a point a little north-west of the Abbey,
threw out a branch which in a northerly course rejoined the park, and
then in a curved line to the east reached the Thames at a point not far
from Westminster Bridge, and to the north-east of it. The spot where
this branch touched St. James's Park was close to Storey's Gate. Now
last year (1898) when the ground was being excavated for the foundations
of the new Institute of Mechanical Engineers, the workmen came upon the
piles and brickwork of an ancient wharf. The structure was wonderfully
well preserved; it had evidently been well constructed, probably by the
monks, and may have been for the accommodation of the fishermen bringing
their goods to the monastery. But at present, and until further
information is obtained, if ever it is obtained, we can only form
conjectures as to the purposes of the wharf; but its discovery on that
spot is curiously illustrative of the history which still lies hidden
under our streets.
We have yet to mention the third branch of the Tyburn, which started
south of Buckingham Palace. It ran in a southerly direction across
Victoria Street, for a short distance skirted the Vauxhall Bridge Road,
then crossed it and ran through the marshy grounds then existing down to
the Thames a little to the west of Vauxhall Bridge.
Such was the course of the Tyburn. Of the bridges that once must have
crossed it not a vestige remains; but we have the record of one which
was at the spot which is now Stratford Place, and where the Lord Mayor's
Banqueting-house stood, to which he resorted when he, the Aldermen, and
other distinguished citizens went to inspect the head conduits from
which the City conduits were supplied, on which occasions they combined
pleasure with business, hunting the hare before and the fox after
dinner. The Tyburn must at one time have been a stream of considerable
size; in the year 1238 it was so copious as to furnish nine conduits for
supplying the City with water. It had rows of elms growing on its
banks, and as it generally, but erroneously, is supposed to have flowed
past the southern corner of the Edgware Road, the name of Elm Place was
given to a street (now pulled down) west of Connaught Place. How this
error arose we shall show when speaking of the West Bourne. On the
Tyburn stood the church of St. Mary _la bonne_; by the vulgar omission
of letters 'burn' became 'bone,' hence Marylebone. The Tyburn, like the
other brooks already discussed, is now a mere sewer.
Proceeding still further west, we come to the Westbourne, which, like
the other brooks, rose in the northern heights above London. Around
Jack Straw's Castle at Hampstead various rills sprang from the ground,
which, forming a united stream a little north of the Finchley Road, that
stream, flowing west towards the spot known as West End, continued its
western course till it reached Maygrove Road; it crossed that road, and
taking a sudden turn south, it ran through Kilburn down to Belsize Road,
south of which a small lake was formed, by its confluence there with a
considerable tributary in the form of a two-pronged fork and its handle,
coming from the lower southern heights of Hampstead. From the lake the
Westbourne flowed in a westerly course, and near Cambridge Road received
another affluent from the high ground where Paddington Cemetery now
stands; still running west at Chippenham Road, its volume was further
increased by the reception of a stream coming from the neighbourhood of
Brondesbury, and from this point it ran due south, but with many
windings, through Paddington, and across the Uxbridge Road, through part
of Kensington Gardens, through the Serpentine in Hyde Park and across
the Knightsbridge Road, and what was then called the Five Fields, a
miserable swamp, and formed the eastern boundary of Chelsea till it
discharged itself into the Thames, west of Chelsea Bridge, but divided
into a considerable number of small streams.
Such was its course, and from its description we see that it was no
insignificant stream, and may assume that the first settlers in those
northern parts of London must be looked for on its banks. Like the
Fleet, it had various names in different localities; thus at Kilburn it
was known as the Keele Bourne, Coldbourne, and Kilbourne; at Bayswater
it was called the Bayswater Rivulet; the name of Bayswater itself is
supposed to be derived from Baynard, who built Baynard Castle on the
Thames, and also possessed lands at Bayswater. At the end of the
fourteenth century it was called Baynard's Watering-place, which in time
was shortened to its present appellation.
The bridge which gave Knightsbridge its name was a stone bridge; by whom
or when erected is not on record, but probably Edward the Confessor, who
conferred the land about here on the Abbots of Westminster, also built
the bridge for their accommodation. The road was the only way to London
from the west, and the stream was broad and rapid. The bridge was
situated in front of the present entrance into the Park by Albert Gate,
and part of it still remains underground, while the other portion was
removed for the Albert Gate improvements. In the churchwardens'
accounts of St. Margaret's, Westminster, are the following entries
regarding the bridge:
1630. Item, received of John Fennell and Ralph L s. d.
Atkinson, collectors of the escheat, for repair
of Brentford Bridge and Knightsbridge . . . . 23 6 4
1631. Item, paid towards the repairs of Brentford
Bridge and of Knightsbridge, etc. . . . . . . 24 7 10
The Westbourne was occasionally a source of inconvenience and even
danger to the inhabitants of Knightsbridge. After heavy rains or in
sudden thaws it overflowed. On September 1, 1768, it did so, and did
great damage, almost undermining some of the houses; and in January,
1809, it overflowed again, and covered the neighbouring fields so deeply
that they resembled a lake, and passengers were for several days rowed
from Chelsea to Westminster by Thames boatmen.
On the site now covered by St. George's Row, Pimlico, there stood in the
middle of the last century a house of entertainment known as 'Jenny's
Whim.' A long wooden bridge over one of the many arms of the Westbourne
led up to the house. The present Ebury Bridge over the Grosvenor Canal,
which this river-branch has become, occupies the site of this old
bridge. 'Jenny's Whim' had trim gardens, alcoves, ponds, and facilities
for duck-hunting; in the gardens were recesses, where, by treading on a
spring, up started different figures, some ugly enough to frighten
people, a harlequin, a Mother Shipton, or some terrible animal. Horace
Walpole occasionally alludes to 'Jenny's Whim'; in one of his letters to
Montagu, he says: 'Here (at Vauxhall) we picked up Lord Granby, arrived
very drunk from Jenny's Whim.' Towards the beginning of this century
'Jenny's Whim' began to decline; at last it sank down to the condition
of a beershop, and in 1804 it was finally closed. The origin of the
name is doubtful. Davis, the historian of Knightsbridge, accepts the
account given him by an old inhabitant, that it was so called from its
first landlady, who directed the gardens to be laid out in so fantastic
a manner as to cause the noun to be added to her own Christian name.
Other reports say that the place was established by a celebrated
pyrotechnist in the reign of George I.; but that does not account for
the name.
Like other London rivers, the Westbourne in the end became a sewer; it
was gradually covered up; of the two chief branches by which it reached
the Thames, the eastern one became the Grosvenor Canal, and the western
the Ranelagh Sewer. The canal was crossed by several other bridges,
Stone Bridge being one of them.
We stated above that the Westbourne formed the western boundary of
Chelsea; its eastern boundary was also a river, or rather rivulet, which
it appears never even had a name, though in one old map I find it called
Bridge Creek. It rose in Wormwood Scrubs, skirted the West London and
Westminster Cemetery, and entered the Thames west of Battersea Bridge,
where, in fact, there is still a creek going some distance inland. The
rest of the stream has been absorbed by the West Kensington Railway. No
vestige of it remains, and it has no history.
Brook Green took its name from a brook which once rose near Shepherd's
Bush, but it has no records.
The next river we should come to, if we pursued our journey westward,
would be the Brent; but as that is still existing--how long will it
continue to do so?--it does not enter into the scope of our
investigations.
Having now given an account of all the extinct brooks north of the
Thames, we will cross that river and see what watercourses formerly
existed on the Surrey side.