THE LOST RIVERS OF LONDON The River Effra 4) Vauxhall/Kennington
At the top of Brixton Road (at Hazard's Bridge) the Effra veered left, forming the south-western boundary of Kennington Common. Throughout the 18th century this open space was a gathering place for public speaking, and also an infamous place of execution for the county of Surrey. St Mark's church, built in imposing classical style beside the Effra in 1824, now occupies the corner of the common where the gallows were erected [photo]. The creek continued west beneath Clapham Road (at Merton Bridge), approximately where Oval tube station stands today. This old Roman Road formed the dividing line between the medieval manors of Kennington and Vauxhall.
A short distance to the north, one gentle meander unexpectedly inspired an international landmark. In the 1790s the river's natural curve was echoed by an elliptical road built around a former cabbage garden. The KenningtonOval, as this patch of green became known, was leased by the fledgling Surrey County Cricket Club in 1845. The landlord was, and still is, the Duchy of Cornwall. As for the Oval's famous gasometer, this was erected three years later on the site of the former South London Waterworks. This private utility company had drawn water from the tidal Effra via an artificial channel, supplying the local population from two small reservoirs to the north of the cricket ground. Other top-level sports have been played at the Oval over the years, including the first twenty-or-so FA Cup Finals and the first ever England v Scotland Rugby Union match. Rest assured that the Effra never crossed the pristine grass, flowing instead out beyond the southern perimeter road. [photo][photo]
In its lower reaches, west of the Oval, the Effra originally split into two branches. A smaller stream meandered west to meet the Thames at Nine Elms, while the main river ventured a little further north. Known locally as Vauxhall Creek, it was sufficiently deep and wide to bear the passage of large barges. The creek flowed beneath Wandsworth Road at Cox's Bridge - a crossing mentioned in ecclesiastical records as early as 1340, but which is probably now buried somewhere beneath the twin prongs of Vauxhall bus station. [photo][photo]
Not far now to the Thames, which the Effra entered approximately a hundred metres to the south of Vauxhall Bridge [photo]. Slightly upstream, a few wooden posts sticking out of the mud are thought to be the remains of a Bronze Age crossing - notionally the first ever 'London Bridge'. The mouth of Vauxhall Creek has been overlooked by many diverse structures since, including a defensive Civil War quadrant fort (17th C), the entertaining delights of Smith's Tea Gardens (18th C) and the Phoenix Gas Works and Belmont Candle Manufactory (19th C). Alas, by the time the windowless Nine Elms Cold Store was erected alongside in 1961, even the last few hundred yards of river had vanished beneath the refrigerated lorry park. The Effra's end is now marked only by a sewer pipe outfall [photo], occasionally disgorging rainwater into the Thames between the owl-topped towers of St George's Wharf[photo] and the spooky fortress of MI6HQ. [photo]
All of the other lost rivers I'm writing about in this series flow into the Thames. This one's different - it flows into the Lea. Also atypically, it flows eastwards. Utterly typically, it's completely vanished. OK, so there are a couple of telltale fluvial remnants along the way, but not many, and very few that'd make you go "oh blimey, there really did used to be a river here". Things were very different back when Queen Victoria came to the throne, with a considerable stream wending its way round Stoke Newington and through the centre of rural Hackney. But pressure to build housing saw the river rapidly buried, some of it diverted into Bazalgette's Northern Outfall Sewer, and within a generation all brookside vistas had vanished.
An acknowledged expert on the Hackney Brook is Iain Sinclair, London's very own semi-impenetrable narrator. Should you own a copy of his Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire you'll know that the penultimate chapter is devoted to the borough's lost river. The text meanders rather, as is Sinclair's way, generating atmosphere rather than revealing anything of substance. But look more carefully at the map on the book's cover and you'll spot a pale blue line threading down from top left to bottom right. That's the Hackney Brook, that is - apart the bottom right section which heads in completely the wrong direction. It definitely flowed via Hackney Wick, not Well Street Common, for which geographical inaccuracy I blame the good man's illustrator.
That's the problem with Lost Rivers - you can't even trust what you read about them in books, because so much remains hearsay and supposition. But I'm going to give it a try here. From Holloway to Hackney, via two football stadia, several parks, a cemetery and a Tesco car park. Some of the river's route remains admittedly woolly, particularly in the upper reaches on the slopes of north Islington and through the shifting marshland of Hackney Wick. But its path through most the London borough of Hackney is rather better documented, and the dips across Stoke Newington High Street and Mare Street are pretty obvious once you think to look. Plus there is one spot where you can still say "oh blimey, there really did used to be a river here". A Brook in Hackney. Who'd have thought?
THE LOST RIVERS OF LONDON Hackney Brook 1) Holloway/Highbury
Did I ever mention how hard it is to track down a river that isn't there? Take the headwaters of the Hackney Brook as a case in point. They're not in Hackney, they're in Islington, but precisely where is a bit of mystery. I Googled for maps, and visited the local library, and scrawled a line on an A-Z which I thought best fitted theinformation I'd found. Then I headed up to Holloway to wander the modern landscape with my camera, and confirmed that the contours below Mercers Road sloped in an appropriate direction. But since then I've Googled again and found a map which suggests the top of the river was to the west of Finsbury Park station, somewhere around Tollington Place. Might be, might not, but no amount of field trips to the area will ever confirm one way or the other. So all I can say is that there used to be a tiny stream parallel to the Holloway and Hornsey Roads, on one side or the other, probably, near enough. And there most definitely isn't any more. [photo]
The river's path becomes a little clearer somewhere rather famous, around Arsenal's Highbury stadia. If you've ever streamed out of the front of the Emirates and seen a railway bridge off to your left, know that the Hackney Brook used to flow on the other side of that. Then to the north of the stadium proper [photo], approximately underneath the northern tip of the Ashburton Triangle flats [photo]. More railways to cross [photo], and then round the back of Arsenal tube station [photo] through the nature reserve at Gillespie Park. This is a delightful green backwater, lorded over by an ecology centre, created on the site of former railway sidings. The larger pond is artificial, not brook-filled, and a very peaceful place to sit and watch the reed-loving wildlife. [photo]
Go back a few centuries and the land to the south of the stream was pasture known as Long Mead. Today it's better known as the site of Highbury Stadium. Arsenal's North Stand was the closest to the old riverbanks, although that's now been replaced by characterless newbuild flats (and the only local water feature is a series of bubble tanks on the shared lawn where the pitch used to be). The rest of Long Mead disappeared under Victorian housing, with the Hackney Brook culverted and Gillespie Road laid in its place. The stream crossed the Blackstock Road at the dogleg where the Arsenal Tavern stands [photo] - a location still obviously at the foot of a valley slope. And then along Mountgrove Road (home to all your Sylvanian Family needs), where the Hackney Brook finally passed from Islington into the borough after which it was named.
THE LOST RIVERS OF LONDON Hackney Brook 2) Stoke Newington
The only visible surviving remnant of the Hackney Brook is to be found in Clissold Park. Not the curved stream segment in the southern half of the park because that's part of the New River (an artificial channel which used to bring drinking water from Hertford to Finsbury). Instead head to the northern half where you'll find two eye-shaped ornamental lakes inhabited by pondweed and waterfowl [photo][photo]. These pools have names - the larger one's Becksmere and the smaller Runtzmere, in honour of the two civic dignitaries who presided over the park's opening in 1889. Both are currently fenced off for major drainage works and are less than scenic, but they remain the only water features any pre-19th century Londoner might recognise as part of the stream's original course.
East of Runtzmere comes Grazebrook Road - a well-named echo of the past - and on to the delights of Abney Park Cemetery. This is one of London's 'magnificent seven' garden cemeteries, with a towering chapel at its centre and countless memorials scattered between the trees all around [photo]. It's very easy to get very lost inside, although tracing the route of the Hackney Brook is rather simpler. This flowed along the northern perimeter of the cemetery, just beyond the ivybrick walls, and can be seen marked on Stanford's 1862 map as "former course of Hackney Brook - now obliterated". It emerged by the cemetery gates at the foot of Stamford Hill (another London placename explained by a lost river) [photo], crossing beneath the main road to flow through the grounds of a cluster of almshouses. Those no longer exist, nor the Weavers Arms Inn alongside, but you can always buy some white goods from Sellfridges, N16's legendary deliberately-misspelt appliance outlet. [photo]
Stoke Newington's triangular common was originally known as Cockhanger Green, for some apocryphal reason which might have involved a local brothel. The Hackney Brook flowed along the northern edge of the triangle, which later became Northwold Road, before turning south close to the ordinary suburban terrace where Marc Bolan spent his childhood years [photo]. There are plenty of ordinary suburban terraces on the slopes of Shacklewell below, with rather less famous residents, although it's quite a desirable patch all the same. The ex-river won't be heading anywhere quite so classy down its lower course.
THE LOST RIVERS OF LONDON Hackney Brook 3) Hackney
The Hackney Brook ran along the western edge of Hackney Downs - a grassy recreational plateau ideal for jogging, kickabouts and general horizontal laziness. That western edge was swallowed up by the Stoke Newington Railway in the 1870s, leaving the river well-buried beneath a leafy embankment [photo]. The river/railway continued southward through an area of market gardens, where now stands Mossbourne Academy - a striking flagship academy designed by Richard Rogers. And then across Dalston Lane, where a peaceful countryside bend has evolved into a busy road junction. Two adjacent roads were formerly waterways. The lower half of Amhurst Road follows the meandering Hackney Brook, while Graham Road was originally its tributary - the Pigwell Brook. This trickled down from Kingsland Green in Dalston and passed roundabout Fassett Square - the inspiration for BBC1's EastEnders [photo]. Let's hope there's a similar lost river under Albert Square, and that someday it carries a few of the most annoying characters away.
Even the hurly burly of central Hackney was once a bucolic riverside scene(1820s map). Mare Street was then Church Street, a wigglier affair named after 13th century St Augustine's. The old tower survives*, but the scenic footbridge over the stream has been swept away by railways, progress and shopping [photo]. The river's passing indentation remains evident alongside Hackney Central station, with a definite dip in the road between Iceland and the pawnbrokers opposite [photo]. See Tesco's car park? [photo] That used to be a watercress bed - and quite frankly it'd be lovelier if it still was. The Hackney Brook then flowed north of Morning Lane (formerly Water Lane), roughly along the route of the North London Line. An army of dubious greasemonkeys populate the arches under the viaduct, while to the north lies a curious mix of council blocks, Victorian terraces and Tudor homestead[photo]. It's the council blocks that proliferate, alas, as the valley rolls on.
*St Augustine's Tower is open (for free) on the last Sunday of the month, courtesy of the Hackney Historic Buildings Trust. So that's where I went yesterday afternoon, and climbed the diddy spiral staircase to the top. There are three rooms on the way up - one to hold the pendulum, one supporting the clock mechanism and the third with the bell. But it's the view from the roof that's the most impressive. A 360° panorama around Hackney and beyond, plus the opportunity to peer down into Mare Street below and watch the little ants doing their shopping. Highly recommended. [photo][photo][photo][photo]
THE LOST RIVERS OF LONDON Hackney Brook 4) Hackney Wick
Wick Road, which lies on the path of the former Hackney Brook, isn't a lovely street. Its one-way racetrack is bounded by a variety of apartment blocks - some tall, others merely squat - with only the occasional glimpse of anything vaguely pre-war lurking in the near distance. Partway down are several traditional pubs (plus a bookmakers) to cater for local residents' most urgent needs, although if they fancy Pukka Pies or Mighty Chicken they have to walk a little further. At the fiveway junction by the Tiger pub there used to be a brook-fed silk mill employing more then 600 local women [photo]. Brookfield Road rises here, its name and gradient the only reminders that this is a former river valley. Meanwhile Wick Road continues gently downhill, past the entrance to Victoria Park, to a mammoth flyover on the A12 [photo][photo]. This should have been the point where a motorway from Camdenjoined the melee, but public protest prevented an entire swathe of residential north London from vanishing beneath concrete.
Hackney Wickvillage, as this once was, marks the edge of the floodplain of the River Lea [photo]. The Hackney Brook used to meander on through marshland, taking the long route down to the major river, until more direct drainage channels were dug to keep the Lea's waters under greater control (1820s map)(1830s map). The original route's hard to trace, long since obliterated by modern housing development to the north, and light industry to the south. But, as far as I can tell, the Brook first flowed northeast (through an area of pleasant council bungalows) before turning south (around Gainsborough Primary School) parallel to the Lea (past the factory on Wallis Road where the world's first plastic was manufactured). White Post Lane is the only surviving road from two centuries ago [photo], formerly crossed by a ford close to the Lord Napier pub outside Hackney Wick station [photo]. After the Hertford Canal was dug, the Brook's drainage channels passed no further south. But back in the day they'd have continued across what is now Fish Island to enter the Lea at the basin between Old Ford Lock and The Ironworks[photo]. On the opposite bank, a mere javelin's throw away, the Olympic Stadium now looms down on this once pastoral scene. From the Emirates to 2012, that's the Hackney Brook for you.
The Neckinger is Southwark's lost river. It earned its name from a macabre installation near its mouth at St Saviour's Dock where was erected a gibbet for the execution of convicted pirates. This became known as the Devil's Neckerchief, a nickname soon echoed by the river flowing out into the Thames. The Neckinger's headwaters rose two miles away on Lambeth Marsh, round the back of what is now Waterloo station. From here it flowed in a grand curve away from the Thames round to Elephant and Castle, then on to Bermondsey through the grounds of the former Abbey. The entire course is unusually flat, with not even the slightest hill at its source, which has led some to suggest that the Neckinger might possibly have been the leftover remains of an oxbow lake. That's probably wishful thinking by geeky geographers, but it might help to explain why the river was linked to the Thames at both ends via artificial channels. Of the three western conduits nothing survives, but a substantial chunk of manmade waterway still lives on downstream of Tower Bridge. Urban expansion swallowed the Neckinger faster than most other inner London rivers, so be warned that much of what I'm about to write is potentially inaccurate supposition. But I'll try to guide you along its two mile length as best I can.
THE LOST RIVERS OF LONDON The River Neckinger (part 1) Lambeth Marsh
Lambeth Marsh, across the Thames from the Palace of Westminster, remained mostly fields until the end of the 18th century. A raised road ran through the centre along which houses and businesses prospered, but the surrounding meadows flooded with predictable regularity. Only in the late Georgian era were the market gardens sold off piecemeal for development, and the arrival or Waterloo station in 1848 sealed the area's fate as yet another swathe of urban London. Drainage to the south had been provided by the Neckinger, whose reputed source was a pond on Lambeth Road at the edge of St George's Fields. A public house was established here called the Dog and Duck, named after two neighbouring ponds whose outlines allegedly resembled the beasts in question. Close by was established the Bethlem Royal Hospital, an infamous asylum whose buildings are currently home to the Imperial War Museum [photo][photo]. There are no pubs or ponds in Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park today. Instead the northwest corner of the park is covered by flowering bulbs planted in memory of "Rita, the lady with the little dog". Here too little wannabe soldiers run amok on the grass, at least until their parents drag them inside the museum for a look at the big guns.
There's no sign either of the three artificial millstreams dug to feed water between the Thames and the Neckinger here in the heart of Lambeth. One started under Waterloo Bridge [photo] (not that the bridge was there at the time), then progressed inland through the auditoria of the National Film Theatre (ditto). Past the IMAX and the rail terminus along Waterloo Road, then past the end of Lower Marsh (which did actually exist at the time) to join the other channels near the Ambulance Station on Great Morley Street. A second ditch left the Thames between Blackfriars Bridge and the Tate Modern [photo], following the orange lampposts down Suffolk Street to the cabbies' haunt on the corner of Surrey Row. And the third ditch started between Coin Street and the Oxo Tower [photo], running due south down Hatfields past the Young Vic.
It's amazing how many lost rivers live on as modern boundaries. This third artificial channel, the central of the trio, can be traced today by following the boundary between the boroughs of Lambeth and Southwark. Sure there have been a few administrative tweaks over the years, but council tax rates in the neighbourhood are ultimately dependent on the location of a Georgian ditch. This dividing line continues past the Neckinger's source-pond at the end of King Edward Walk, then hugs the appropriately named Brook Drive round to the east. Today's boundary may finally veer off before this elegant terrace reaches its end, but the Neckinger once continued to the very heart of the Elephant.
THE LOST RIVERS OF LONDON The River Neckinger (part 2) Elephant & Castle
It's hard to imagine Elephant and Castle as a rural riverside backwater. But 250 years ago, then known as Newington Butts, this was a quiet lane on the edge of St George's Fields forded by a small stream. The Neckinger flowed in from the west through the 'Fishmongers Almshouses' - soon to be demolished to make way for Spurgeon's Tabernacle (now a firmly evangelical hotspot) [photo]. It crossed a small village green, long since buried between E&C's two mega-roundabouts. And then it passed east between a row of cottages, now the site of the much derided pinky-red shopping centre. The transformation here is dramatic. The only flow now is of people, bustling around the double-decker mall in search of nothing very expensive [photo]. Here the less-than-affluent folk of Walworth come to buy stuff no rejuvenated hub would ever sell, be that substandard market millinery or a polystyrene tub of goat stew. Outside the front entrance a turreted elephant stands guard, positioned almost directly on the line of the old stream. And high above rises the nearly-complete Strata tower, its trademark turbines relatively well concealed from the streets below [photo].
Next along the Neckinger valley comes the Heygate Estate. If you thought the shopping centre was grim, this similarly-dated architectural project beatsall. A series of residential "barrierblocks" surround the site, each ridiculously long and crammed with stacked-box accommodation [photo]. The various parts of the site are linked by elevated walkways, while ground level is reserved for the parking of cars. No wonder Southwark Council took a long deep look at their creation and decided the the only way forward was to demolish all 25 acres. Tenants started being moved out two years ago, and the Heygate now resembles a ghost estate inhabited by a last few lonely souls [photo gallery]. Every abandoned window is being blow-torched shut, and every quarter-mile balcony sealed off at either end [photo]. And yet there's still full access to the walkways and stairwells, not just for the remaining 5% ofresidents but for any urban adventurer who fancies poking around abandoned concrete purgatory [photo]. But hurry, if you think you're brave enough, because it won't be too long before proper demolition begins and this inhuman jungle is reborn as aspirational Heygate Boulevard.
THE LOST RIVERS OF LONDON The River Neckinger (part 3) Bermondsey
The Neckinger followed the line of the New Kent Road before passing just to the north of the Bricklayers Arms gyratory and passing into Bermondsey. It ran immediately behind Tower Bridge Road, in an area once the preserve of large scale industry. Hartley's built their jam factory on the former riverbank in Rothsay Street, employing more than 2000 locals to squish sugary fruit into glass jars. It'll not surprise you to hear that their plant is now a gated residential development called The Jam Factory, retaining the Hartley name only in white bricks across one wall and down a chimney[photo]. Another pocket of ultra-modernity can be found just downstream at Bermondsey Square. Look one way and it's a bijou plaza with its own hotel, micro-cinema and pavement cafe [photo]. Look another and it's a glittering bikeshed surrounded by mysterious multi-coloured icosahedrons [photo]. But look south and one defiant corner of Georgian terrace remains... and that's still the side of the Square where anyone with taste would prefer to live.
At St Mary Magdalen church [photo], the Neckinger turned right. Despite being more than 300 years old this isn't Bermondsey's oldest place of worship, not by a long chalk. Nearby stood BermondseyAbbey, a Cluniac priory dating back to the Norman invasion, and at one time second in importance only to Westminster across the Thames. BermondseySquare marks the site of the monks' inner courtyard, while the main church building straddled modern Abbey Street to the east [photo]. The top end of the nave is marked by a commemorative plaque on the wall of a block of council flats overlooking Tower Bridge Road [photo]. Much of BermondseyAbbey survived Henry VIII's dissolution, only to have its stone plundered for the construction of other local buildings over succeeding centuries. Today no trace remains, bar parts of a gatehouse along the western end of Grange Walk (lovely street, Grange Walk). As for the Neckinger, the stream was reputedly navigable all the way from the Abbey down to the Thames. Nearly there, only half a mile to go.
THE LOST RIVERS OF LONDON The River Neckinger (part 4) Neckinger Mills
Where there's a river, there's often a mill. The Neckinger had several, mostly on the tidal stretch close to its mouth, with some dating back to Tudor times. Only one survives, although it's a rather more recent 19th century building resembling more the dark satanic mills of the Industrial North. Neckinger Mills were originally owned by papermaker Matthias Koops - reputedly the inventor of recycled paper. In 1805 he sold up and handed the keys over to the Bevington family, who continued their leather-making activities on site until 1950. Their tannery was typical of Bermondsey's light industry, all long since swept away (along with the river that powered them). The mill buildings live on as office space with "character features", and half the ground floor is currently available for rent at very non-Victorian rates. [photo]
The river's name lives on in several guises nearby. To the south is the Neckinger Estate, home to more than 300 fairly anonymous post-war apartments. The road alongside goes by the unusual single-word name of "Neckinger", and runs down to the elegant old Town Hall on the corner of Bermondsey Spa Gardens[photo]. The river was once fed by a chalybeate spring here, to which fashionable Londoners flocked in the late 1700s to drink the waters. The only fashionable waters here today are those thrown into the gutter by runners on the London Marathon, who would have crossed the Neckinger close to the modern Bermondsey Spa development on Jamaica Road [photo]. Close by there's even a Neckinger Street, now reduced to a stubby sideroad on the Arnold Estate and lacking even a nameplate to remind passers-by of its watery past. [photo]
THE LOST RIVERS OF LONDON The River Neckinger (part 5) Jacob's Island
And finally, quite the most complicated ending of any of London's lost rivers. A series of tidal ditches ran towards the Thames, dug courtesy of the monks upriver at Bermondsey Abbey, and forming a roughly rectangular grid. Originally the surrounding land was taken up with orchards and market gardens, but by the late 17th century a dense commercial area of factories, warehouses and mills had grown up. The area became known as Jacob's Island, a 'rookery' where the poorest folk lived side by side with polluting waste in slum conditions. By Victorian times the lower Neckinger was nicknamed "The Venice of Drains" and "The Capital of Cholera". Dickens immortalised the place as the final refuge of Bill Sikes in Oliver Twist ("dirt-besmeared walls and decaying foundations; every repulsive lineament of poverty, every loathsome indication of filth, rot, and garbage; all these ornament the banks of Folly Ditch"). If you'd like to know more about Jacob's Island, Howard has the definitive webpage.
The old slums have been wiped away, more than once, and the latest development on Jacob's Island is a gated community called Providence Square. Even the central water feature is pristine, supporting waterfowl and lush vegetation rather than puddles of pathogenic bacteria [photo]. Dickens might still recognise a few of the surrounding wharves along Mill Street, whose lofty brick façades tower above the uglier modern infill alongside [photo][photo]. Where dockers laboured and urchins crawled, now Ocado delivers and suited businessmen pop out for a fag. Beyond the line of wharves is the Neckinger's original outfall [photo], later diverted to feed a Thamesside watermill. This stumpy inlet is St Saviour's Dock, first widened by the medieval monks of Bermondsey Abbey for convenient off-river mooring [photo][photo]. Today a hydraulic cable swing bridge crosses the mouth [photo], close to a cluster of riverfront houseboats which dip in and out of the mud twice a day [photo]. The ancient Neckinger marks the eastern tip of London's South Bank, beyond Shad Thames, beyond the Design Museum, beyond which tourists rarely venture. [photo]
THE LOST RIVERS OF LONDON Counter's Creek An overview
Counter's Creek, named after a medieval bridge over Kensington High Street, ran for four miles in an almost straight line from Kensal Green to the Thames at Chelsea. It may have been a relatively insignificant stream in its day, but its course has left a lasting legacy across West London.
The river's first transformation was from natural stream to artificial channel. In 1827 the speculative Kensington Canal was built along the alignment of Counter’s Creek between Kensington High Street and Battersea Reach. The canal rapidly proved highly unprofitable and so was sold off to a railway company, who built an equally unprofitable line up the valley to link Kensington Docks with Willesden.
The river's second transformation was from canal to railway. In 1863 the Kensington Canal was filled in with ballast and then tracks were laid on top, allowing the West London Railway to run connecting services between Willesden and Clapham. This line was a success, and lives on today as part of the London Overground network. Catch any train from Shepherd's Bush to Imperial Wharf and the modern journey mirrors the old river bed.
The original line of Counter's Creek still forms much of the boundary between the boroughs of Hammersmith and Fulham to the west and Kensington and Chelsea to the east. Its waters may long have been diverted down an unseen sewer, but the creek's path can still be traced with relative ease.
THE LOST RIVERS OF LONDON Counters Creek 1) Kensal Green Cemetery
Counter’s Creek arose from springs beneath Kensal Green, on gentle slopes just to the south of the Harrow Road. Before the 19th century there was little here but farmland, then in 1801 the Paddington Arm of the Grand Junction Canal carved through from west to east, severing the headwaters of the fledgling brook. [photo]
It was on this unforgiving clay soil, sandwiched between the road and the canal, that London's first garden cemetery was established in the early 1830s. The General Cemetery of All Souls, Kensal Green was created as a peaceful final resting place for well-to-do Londoners, and was inspired by a visit to Père-Lachaise in Paris.
Kensal Green is only the first of London's "Magnificent 7" Victorian cemeteries to lie along the former banks of Counter's Creek. But the ridges and valleys visible here today aren't river-worn, they’re nothing more than funereal landscaping. [photo]
Following Counter's Creek: If it wasn't for the canal, it would be really easy to follow the river's path south from the cemetery. The canal and the railway, that is. It's easy to follow on a map, you simply follow the borough boundary, but in real life the canal and the railway get in the way. Instead you have to hope that the gate out of the cemetery into Scrubs Lane is unlocked, then turn south through light industrial nothingness. A hop across Mitre Bridge, bypassing a railway maintenance depot, then duck back under the viaduct towards Little Wormwood Scrubs. All told it's a one mile detour. The river had it easy.
THE LOST RIVERS OF LONDON Counters Creek 2) Little Wormwood Scrubs
Wormwood Scrubs, for centuries a single expanse of unfertile upland, was divided into two unequal chunks by the coming of the railways. The larger western section gained notoriety through construction of a Victorian prison, while the severed eastern 10% became the lesser-known Little Wormwood Scrubs.
Counter's Creek once ran in a rivulet along the eastern perimeter of Little Wormwood Scrubs, with the line of the river marking the parish boundary between Kensington and Hammersmith. In the late 19th century several estates sprang up on the Kensington side, and residents soon came to rely on the Scrubs for their recreation.
In 1892 the Metropolitan Board of Works decided that a "portion of the brook on the eastern boundary should be widened and kept full by means of weirs and that a gravel walk should be formed alongside with a plantation for shade". The river became a purely ornamental feature, fenced off behind iron railings, for viewing only.
Persistent drainage issues arose, which led to the channel being concreted in 1924 and ultimately covered over. Little Wormwood Scrubs feels distinctly less ornamental today, and only a meander in the concrete footpath survives as a hint to its secret past. [photo]
Following Counter's Creek: From Little Wormwood Scrubs, unlikely as it sounds, head south towards the North Pole [photo]. That's a pub on the eponymous North Pole Road, where there used to be a station but now there isn't. Counter's Creek ran roughly parallel to Latimer Road, which used to be an important thoroughfare but no longer has the traffic to justify its width. Severed in its prime by a much larger road, it no longer reaches as far as the H&C tube station to which it gives its name.
THE LOST RIVERS OF LONDON Counters Creek 3) West Cross Route
Not content with burial beneath a canal and then a railway, almost the entire length of Counter's Creek might have disappeared beneath a motorway had post-war planners had their way.
The West Cross Route was to be one small part of a major orbital road system for London called Ringway 1. This western link would have joined Willesden Junction to the Chelsea Embankment via an eight lane motorway. Plans show the intended route hugging the existing West London railway, in places running directly above the tracks on a concrete viaduct.
Unfortunately for motorists, but fortunately for owners of the many properties that would otherwise have been demolished, only one short section of the West Cross Route was ever built. This was the M41 linking the White City and Holland Park roundabouts – much as Counter's Creek once did except more direct and rather faster.
Public outcry following construction of the neighbouring Westway led to the remainder of the Ringway plan being permanently shelved in 1973. Today only two stumpy concrete spurs off the White City roundabout, directly above the river's former course, survive as evidence of the former motorway's elevated northward threat. [photo][photo]
Following Counter's Creek: The space under the Westway, where the river once ran, is now taken up by the Westway Sports Centre. A marvellous example of communal ingenuity, its sports hall, climbing wall and basketball courts are squeezed within and beneath the centre of a giant roundabout. There's even a 'fives' court, which feels terribly snooty for the children of a hapless housing estate, but has been provided by a long-standing charitable outreach project initiated by Harrow School. As for the Westway stables, who now run riding lessons beneath the A40 [photo], this is where Steptoe and Son used to be filmed. BBC Television Centre is but a brief clip-clop away.
THE LOST RIVERS OF LONDON Counters Creek 4) Holland Park
Holland Park could never have become one of London's most desirable neighbourhoods had Counter's Creek remained visible. Upper classes homeowners would never have tolerated a smelly rubbish-strewn stream as their main form of waste disposal, so the area's transformation from rural estate to residential development rested on the construction of an expensive sewer.
Landowner Lord Holland seized his chance when the West London Railway asked to lay tracks across the west of his estate, granting passage subject to the burial of Counter's Creek. A deal was struck in 1838, and one mile of river duly vanished. Two major housing developments sprang forth – the Norland and Holland Estates.
The new sewer followed St Ann's Road southwards, then carved through a gap in the splendid stuccoed arc of Royal Crescent [photo]. From here it continued downhill via Holland Villas Road – a street still hugely aspirational even by Holland Park standards.
The river may now flow out of sight, but basement inundation remains an ever-present risk. In the sodden summer of 2007, for example, particularly heavy rainfall caused Counter's Creek sewer to overflow and more than 450 local properties were flooded.
Following Counter's Creek: To trace the river south from the Westway, stick to the east side of the dual carriageway. Not the side where the mega Westfield shopping centre is [photo], but the opposite residential flank [photo]. Here highrise council estates cosy up against uber-affluent Notting Hill, with Counter's Creek forming the stark boundary between the two. Once past the Holland Park roundabout, your best bet for following the river's course is to hop on a train.[photo][photo]
THE LOST RIVERS OF LONDON Counters Creek 5) Counter's Bridge
At the far end of Kensington High Street, on the main road to Hammersmith and all points west, is the location of the medieval bridge that gave Counter's Creek its name.
It's fortunate that the river wasn't named too early. During the 15th century this crossing was known successively as Contessesbregge, Contassebregge, Cuntassebregge and Countesbregge – at least one of which might have proved terminally embarrassing in later years. The noblewoman to whom the bridge refers is thought to be Matilda, Countess of Oxford, then in residence at Earl's Court.
The view north from the modern bridge is dominated by the iron and glass covered halls of the Olympia exhibition centre [photo]. The first and largest of these was erected in 1886 as the National Agricultural Hall, although the space within was soon taken over by less pastoral exploits such as the Motor Show and Ideal Home Show.
And that's no stream down there, that's the old West London Railway exploiting the creek's former course. The cutting may be considerably wider than the brook here ever was, but the entire line remains an under-served backwater, with sporadic services up and downriver to nowhere terribly exciting. [photo][photo]
THE LOST RIVERS OF LONDON Counters Creek 6) Kensington Canal Lock
In the early 18th century, at the height of canal mania, it seemed like a good idea to transform the lower two miles of Counter's Creek into "a Canal for the Navigation of Boats, Barges and other Vessels." The perfect route, so shareholders hoped, for transferring cargo inland from the Thames. Thus was the Kensington Canal created, linking Chelsea to a new dock basin just south of Counter's Bridge.
The canal opened with a flourish in 1828, but it led nowhere useful and traffic soon proved 'very limited'. Eleven locks would have been needed to extend the navigation north to the Grand Junction Canal, but no further investment was forthcoming. It wasn't long before the entire canal was sold off to the West London Railway and most of the waterway disappeared beneath its tracks. Limited trade continued on a short stretch south of the King’s Road, delivering coal to the Imperial Gas Light and Coke Company, with the last barge running in 1967.
The dock basin disappeared beneath a Homebase store in the 1990s, leaving a boarded-up lock-keepers cottage as the last surviving remnant of the Kensington Canal. Alas the arrival of a Tesco hypermarket on the West Cromwell Road sealed its fate and, despite considerable local opposition, the cottage was demolished in 1998 to make way for a particularly unattractive multi-storey car park. [photo]
THE LOST RIVERS OF LONDON Counters Creek 7) Earl's Court
In the early 19th century the site of the future Earl's Court Exhibition Centre was an unremarkable patch of market gardens on the banks of Counter's Creek. A trio of railway lines sealed its fate. One was the West London Railway, built along the line of the river. The other two belonged to the Metropolitan and District Railways, which bifurcated to the west of Earl's Court station hemming in a triangle of unwanted wasteland.
The triangle's potential was recognised by showman John Robinson Whitley who hired the site in 1887 to host an American-themed exhibition. His star turn was the Buffalo Bill Roughriders and Redskin Show, a Wild West spectacle which drew large crowds including Queen Victoria and William Gladstone. Further exhibitions followed and an extended entertainment park was created, but interest slowly waned and all were shut down during WW1 to make way for a Belgian refugee camp.
The present triangular exhibition hall dates back to 1937 [photo][photo]. It was one of the largest reinforced concrete structures of its day and conceals an Olympic-sized swimming pool at its heart. A second major hall, the barrel-roofed Earl's Court Two, was constructed alongside in 1991. It stands directly above West London Railway tracks and boasts Europe's largest unsupported roof span. [photo]
THE LOST RIVERS OF LONDON Counters Creek 8) Lillie Bridge
Bridges were plentiful in the lower reaches of Counter's Creek. Lillie Bridge was built to carry the Old Brompton Road across the stream [photo], and still gives its name to the railway depot west of Earl's Court station.
Peer over the edge of platform 4 at West Brompton station and you might still see what looks like Counter's Creek disappearing into a big pipe alongside the railway. It's not the genuine article alas, merely a water feature in a council-run wildlife garden, although it does serve as drainage almost precisely where the old river ran. [photo]
A few yards up the slope is the site of Lillie Bridge Athletic Ground whose sporting star shone briefly but brightly in the late 19th century. The arena's greatest claim to fame, long forgotten except by pub quiz afficionados, is that Lillie Bridge hosted the second ever FA Cup Final. Battersea-based Wanderers retained the trophy here in 1873 by defeating challengers Oxford University two-nil.
On the opposite side of the station, with the railway shielded behind a high brick wall, lie the formal avenues of BromptonCemetery[photo]. This outstanding Victorian burial ground was laid out on water meadows in the 1830s, shortly after Kensal Green upstream, and is filled with characterful monuments surrounding a central colonnade. [photo][photo]
THE LOST RIVERS OF LONDON Counters Creek 9) Stamford Bridge
Chelsea's top flight football ground derives its name from a bridge over one of London's lost rivers. [photo]
This lowly span, now barely noticeable as a mild hump in the Fulham Road over a railway line, has had many names over the years [photo]. In the 15th century it was Samfordesbrigge, meaning the bridge at the sandy ford. 18th century locals knew it briefly as Little Chelsea Bridge, while an 1827 map gives the name as Sandford's Bridge. Further evolution (maybe confusion with Stanley Bridge to the south) nudged Sandford to Stanford, after which there was only one slipped consonant to go.
By the time Chelsea Football Club was established on an adjacent athletics ground in 1905, the locality was most definitely Stamford Bridge. Early supporters cheered from the single East Stand [photo], or else perched themselves atop terraces constructed from earth excavated during construction of the Piccadilly line.
Numerous upgrades have boosted the ground's capacity since, but no amount of Russian roubles can shift the stadium into Chelsea proper. The borough boundary persists along the line of Counter's Creek, ironically leaving Chelsea F.C stranded a few yards into neighbouring Hammersmith and Fulham. [photo]
THE LOST RIVERS OF LONDON Counters Creek 10) Chelsea Creek
Counter's Creek used to flow south into the Thames at Battersea Reach, but construction of the Kensington Canal diverted its last few hundred yards eastward along an artificial tidal waterway known as Chelsea Creek. The water here was only deep enough to be navigable at high tide, and this impractical oversight is one of the main reasons why the canal failed to make any money.
As recently as the early 1990s it was still possible to trace the old canal back as far as the King's Road, but a council highways depot now covers this part of the filled-in channel. [photo]
The inland tip of Chelsea Creek now lies in a muddy tree-lined basin [photo], conveniently shielded out of sight from the luxury apartment complex at Chelsea Harbour. A steady stream of taxis crawls across the creek's only bridge, helping the isolated Thames-side residents to escape to somewhere more convenient.
The mouth of Chelsea Creek is best viewed from St Mary's Church on the Battersea shoreline, with the twin chimney stacks of the former Lots Road Power Station standing as an imposing backdrop. [photo][photo]
Following Counter's Creek: The last few hundred yards of Chelsea Creek are accessible only by boat. Lots Road Power Station flanks one bank, currently with most of its roof off as the interior is rejigged for flats. On the opposite shore a former warehouse [before] has recently been reduced to a pile of rubble [after], opening up the view, and no doubt this site is destined for apartments too. The Chelsea Harbour development looks like it was attempting to be St Katherine's Dock but forgot to include a dash of character. The architecture's datedterribly in 20 years, and I can only assume the flats look somewhat more desirable on the inside. The site boasts a central marina where over-successful people moor their yachts [photo], and also a Design Centre which is the deadest shopping mall I've ever seen on a Saturday. Riverside living isn't all it's cut out to be.
Three of London's lost rivers, and arguably three of the most important, began their descent in Hampstead. They're the Westbourne, the Tyburn and the Fleet, and from here they each ran roughly southwards and roughly parallel down to the Thames. The Westbourne was the westernmost of this trio, the west stream, or "west bourne". Several streamlets joined forces on the upper slopes to form the river proper, joining together by Kilburn to form what was once a fairly substantial watery presence. Another major tributary fed in from Queen's Park, and then the main stream turned southeast through Maida Vale and Bayswater (only one of whose names is river-related). Next up is the largest remnant of any of London's lost rivers - the Serpentine in Hyde Park - here royally enlarged in the early 18th century to create an ornamental lake. And then south beneath Knightsbridge, on through Belgravia and out into the Thames in the grounds of the Chelsea Royal Hospital. About six miles source to mouth, across some of the most expensive real estate in the capital.
It's housing that's responsible for most of the Westbourne's disappearance. Newly-built homes wouldn't sell if there was an open sewer running alongside, so developers footed the bill to culvert and cover the contaminated waterway. In the Westbourne's case this created the Ranelagh Sewer, implemented segmentally and not completely covered over until the 1850s. This subterranean Victorian infrastructure still survives and can be wandered down, so long as you're a Thames Water employee or an illegal adventurer with a penchant for muck-filled brick-lined tunnels.
In at least two places the former Westbourne still marks the western boundary of the London Borough of Westminster, most notably as it meanders otherwise-inexplicably through Belgravia. And yes, this is the lost river that supposedly flows through a tube across a tube station. But no, that's not Westbourne Park, which (for a reason) is more than half a mile away from anywhere the river once ran. There's so much to explain about the Westbourne, which I'm planning to do in twelve discrete chunks all the way down from Hampstead to Chelsea. Let's go with the flow.
Other names for the River Westbourne • Cye Bourne, Kelebourne, Kilburn • Bayswater, Bayswater River, Bayswater Rivulet • Serpentine River • The Bourne, Westburn Brook • the Ranelagh River, the Ranelagh Sewer
NDA short distance to the north, one gentle meander unexpectedly inspired an international landmark. In the 1790s the river's natural curve was echoed by an elliptical road built around a former cabbage garden. The Kennington Oval, as this patch of green became known, was leased by the fledgling Surrey County Cricket Club in 1845. The landlord was, and still is, the Duchy of Cornwall. As for the Oval's famous gasometer, this was erected three years later on the site of the former South London Waterworks. This private utility company had drawn water from the tidal Effra via an artificial channel, supplying the local population from two small reservoirs to the north of the cricket ground. Other top-level sports have been played at the Oval over the years, including the first twenty-or-so FA Cup Finals and the first ever England v Scotland Rugby Union match. Rest assured that the Effra never crossed the pristine grass, flowing instead out beyond the southern perimeter road. [photo] [photo]
All of the other lost rivers I'm writing about in this series flow into the Thames. This one's different - it flows into the Lea. Also atypically, it flows eastwards. Utterly typically, it's completely vanished. OK, so there are a couple of telltale fluvial remnants along the way, but not many, and very few that'd make you go "oh blimey, there really did used to be a river here". Things were very different back when Queen Victoria came to the throne, with a considerable stream wending its way round Stoke Newington and through the centre of rural Hackney. But pressure to build housing saw the river rapidly buried, some of it diverted into Bazalgette's Northern Outfall Sewer, and within a generation all brookside vistas had vanished.
The river's path becomes a little clearer somewhere rather famous, around Arsenal's Highbury stadia. If you've ever streamed out of the front of the Emirates and seen a railway bridge off to your left, know that the Hackney Brook used to flow on the other side of that. Then to the north of the stadium proper [photo], approximately underneath the northern tip of the Ashburton Triangle flats [photo]. More railways to cross [photo], and then round the back of Arsenal tube station [photo] through the nature reserve at Gillespie Park. This is a delightful green backwater, lorded over by an ecology centre, created on the site of former railway sidings. The larger pond is artificial, not brook-filled, and a very peaceful place to sit and watch the reed-loving wildlife. [photo]
Even the hurly burly of central Hackney was once a bucolic riverside scene (1820s map). Mare Street was then Church Street, a wigglier affair named after 13th century St Augustine's. The old tower survives*, but the scenic footbridge over the stream has been swept away by railways, progress and shopping [photo]. The river's passing indentation remains evident alongside Hackney Central station, with a definite dip in the road between Iceland and the pawnbrokers opposite [photo]. See Tesco's car park? [photo] That used to be a watercress bed - and quite frankly it'd be lovelier if it still was. The Hackney Brook then flowed north of Morning Lane (formerly Water Lane), roughly along the route of the North London Line. An army of dubious greasemonkeys populate the arches under the viaduct, while to the north lies a curious mix of council blocks, Victorian terraces and Tudor homestead [photo]. It's the council blocks that proliferate, alas, as the valley rolls on.
Wick Road, which lies on the path of the former Hackney Brook, isn't a lovely street. Its one-way racetrack is bounded by a variety of apartment blocks - some tall, others merely squat - with only the occasional glimpse of anything vaguely pre-war lurking in the near distance. Partway down are several traditional pubs (plus a bookmakers) to cater for local residents' most urgent needs, although if they fancy Pukka Pies or Mighty Chicken they have to walk a little further. At the fiveway junction by the Tiger pub there used to be a brook-fed silk mill employing more then 600 local women [photo]. Brookfield Road rises here, its name and gradient the only reminders that this is a former river valley. Meanwhile Wick Road continues gently downhill, past the entrance to Victoria Park, to a mammoth flyover on the A12 [photo] [photo]. This should have been the point where a motorway from Camden joined the melee, but public protest prevented an entire swathe of residential north London from vanishing beneath concrete.
The Neckinger is Southwark's lost river. It earned its name from a macabre installation near its mouth at St Saviour's Dock where was erected a gibbet for the execution of convicted pirates. This became known as the Devil's Neckerchief, a nickname soon echoed by the river flowing out into the Thames. The Neckinger's headwaters rose two miles away on Lambeth Marsh, round the back of what is now Waterloo station. From here it flowed in a grand curve away from the Thames round to Elephant and Castle, then on to Bermondsey through the grounds of the former Abbey. The entire course is unusually flat, with not even the slightest hill at its source, which has led some to suggest that the Neckinger might possibly have been the leftover remains of an oxbow lake. That's probably wishful thinking by geeky geographers, but it might help to explain why the river was linked to the Thames at both ends via artificial channels. Of the three western conduits nothing survives, but a substantial chunk of manmade waterway still lives on downstream of Tower Bridge. Urban expansion swallowed the Neckinger faster than most other inner London rivers, so be warned that much of what I'm about to write is potentially inaccurate supposition. But I'll try to guide you along its two mile length as best I can.
Lambeth Marsh, across the Thames from the Palace of Westminster, remained mostly fields until the end of the 18th century. A raised road ran through the centre along which houses and businesses prospered, but the surrounding meadows flooded with predictable regularity. Only in the late Georgian era were the market gardens sold off piecemeal for development, and the arrival or Waterloo station in 1848 sealed the area's fate as yet another swathe of urban London. Drainage to the south had been provided by the Neckinger, whose reputed source was a pond on Lambeth Road at the edge of St George's Fields. A public house was established here called the Dog and Duck, named after two neighbouring ponds whose outlines allegedly resembled the beasts in question. Close by was established the Bethlem Royal Hospital, an infamous asylum whose buildings are currently home to the Imperial War Museum [photo] [photo]. There are no pubs or ponds in Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park today. Instead the northwest corner of the park is covered by flowering bulbs planted in memory of "Rita, the lady with the little dog". Here too little wannabe soldiers run amok on the grass, at least until their parents drag them inside the museum for a look at the big guns.
It's hard to imagine Elephant and Castle as a rural riverside backwater. But 250 years ago, then known as Newington Butts, this was a quiet lane on the edge of St George's Fields forded by a small stream. The Neckinger flowed in from the west through the 'Fishmongers Almshouses' - soon to be demolished to make way for Spurgeon's Tabernacle (now a firmly evangelical hotspot) [photo]. It crossed a small village green, long since buried between E&C's two mega-roundabouts. And then it passed east between a row of cottages, now the site of the much derided pinky-red shopping centre. The transformation here is dramatic. The only flow now is of people, bustling around the double-decker mall in search of nothing very expensive [photo]. Here the less-than-affluent folk of Walworth come to buy stuff no rejuvenated hub would ever sell, be that substandard market millinery or a polystyrene tub of goat stew. Outside the front entrance a turreted elephant stands guard, positioned almost directly on the line of the old stream. And high above rises the nearly-complete Strata tower, its trademark turbines relatively well concealed from the streets below [photo].
The Neckinger followed the line of the New Kent Road before passing just to the north of the Bricklayers Arms gyratory and passing into Bermondsey. It ran immediately behind Tower Bridge Road, in an area once the preserve of large scale industry. Hartley's built their jam factory on the former riverbank in Rothsay Street, employing more than 2000 locals to squish sugary fruit into glass jars. It'll not surprise you to hear that their plant is now a gated residential development called The Jam Factory, retaining the Hartley name only in white bricks across one wall and down a chimney [photo]. Another pocket of ultra-modernity can be found just downstream at Bermondsey Square. Look one way and it's a bijou plaza with its own hotel, micro-cinema and pavement cafe [photo]. Look another and it's a glittering bikeshed surrounded by mysterious multi-coloured icosahedrons [photo]. But look south and one defiant corner of Georgian terrace remains... and that's still the side of the Square where anyone with taste would prefer to live.
Where there's a river, there's often a mill. The Neckinger had several, mostly on the tidal stretch close to its mouth, with some dating back to Tudor times. Only one survives, although it's a rather more recent 19th century building resembling more the dark satanic mills of the Industrial North. Neckinger Mills were originally owned by papermaker Matthias Koops - reputedly the inventor of recycled paper. In 1805 he sold up and handed the keys over to the Bevington family, who continued their leather-making activities on site until 1950. Their tannery was typical of Bermondsey's light industry, all long since swept away (along with the river that powered them). The mill buildings live on as office space with "character features", and half the ground floor is currently available for rent at very non-Victorian rates. [photo]
The river's name lives on in several guises nearby. To the south is the Neckinger Estate, home to more than 300 fairly anonymous post-war apartments. The road alongside goes by the unusual single-word name of "Neckinger", and runs down to the elegant old Town Hall on the corner of Bermondsey Spa Gardens [photo]. The river was once fed by a chalybeate spring here, to which fashionable Londoners flocked in the late 1700s to drink the waters. The only fashionable waters here today are those thrown into the gutter by runners on the London Marathon, who would have crossed the Neckinger close to the modern Bermondsey Spa development on Jamaica Road [photo]. Close by there's even a Neckinger Street, now reduced to a stubby sideroad on the Arnold Estate and lacking even a nameplate to remind passers-by of its watery past. [photo]
And finally, quite the most complicated ending of any of London's lost rivers. A series of tidal ditches ran towards the Thames, dug courtesy of the monks upriver at Bermondsey Abbey, and forming a roughly rectangular grid. Originally the surrounding land was taken up with orchards and market gardens, but by the late 17th century a dense commercial area of factories, warehouses and mills had grown up. The area became known as Jacob's Island, a 'rookery' where the poorest folk lived side by side with polluting waste in slum conditions. By Victorian times the lower Neckinger was nicknamed "The Venice of Drains" and "The Capital of Cholera". Dickens immortalised the place as the final refuge of Bill Sikes in Oliver Twist ("dirt-besmeared walls and decaying foundations; every repulsive lineament of poverty, every loathsome indication of filth, rot, and garbage; all these ornament the banks of Folly Ditch"). If you'd like to know more about Jacob's Island, Howard has the definitive webpage.
Counter's Creek, named after a medieval bridge over Kensington High Street, ran for four miles in an almost straight line from Kensal Green to the Thames at Chelsea. It may have been a relatively insignificant stream in its day, but its course has left a lasting legacy across West London.
Counter’s Creek arose from springs beneath Kensal Green, on gentle slopes just to the south of the Harrow Road. Before the 19th century there was little here but farmland, then in 1801 the Paddington Arm of the Grand Junction Canal carved through from west to east, severing the headwaters of the fledgling brook. [photo]
Wormwood Scrubs, for centuries a single expanse of unfertile upland, was divided into two unequal chunks by the coming of the railways. The larger western section gained notoriety through construction of a Victorian prison, while the severed eastern 10% became the lesser-known Little Wormwood Scrubs.
Not content with burial beneath a canal and then a railway, almost the entire length of Counter's Creek might have disappeared beneath a motorway had post-war planners had their way.
Holland Park could never have become one of London's most desirable neighbourhoods had Counter's Creek remained visible. Upper classes homeowners would never have tolerated a smelly rubbish-strewn stream as their main form of waste disposal, so the area's transformation from rural estate to residential development rested on the construction of an expensive sewer.
At the far end of Kensington High Street, on the main road to Hammersmith and all points west, is the location of the medieval bridge that gave Counter's Creek its name.
In the early 18th century, at the height of canal mania, it seemed like a good idea to transform the lower two miles of Counter's Creek into "a Canal for the Navigation of Boats, Barges and other Vessels." The perfect route, so shareholders hoped, for transferring cargo inland from the Thames. Thus was the Kensington Canal created, linking Chelsea to a new dock basin just south of Counter's Bridge.
In the early 19th century the site of the future Earl's Court Exhibition Centre was an unremarkable patch of market gardens on the banks of Counter's Creek. A trio of railway lines sealed its fate. One was the West London Railway, built along the line of the river. The other two belonged to the Metropolitan and District Railways, which bifurcated to the west of Earl's Court station hemming in a triangle of unwanted wasteland.
Bridges were plentiful in the lower reaches of Counter's Creek. Lillie Bridge was built to carry the Old Brompton Road across the stream [photo], and still gives its name to the railway depot west of Earl's Court station.
Chelsea's top flight football ground derives its name from a bridge over one of London's lost rivers. [photo]
Counter's Creek used to flow south into the Thames at Battersea Reach, but construction of the Kensington Canal diverted its last few hundred yards eastward along an artificial tidal waterway known as Chelsea Creek. The water here was only deep enough to be navigable at high tide, and this impractical oversight is one of the main reasons why the canal failed to make any money.
THE LOST RIVERS OF LONDON
Three of London's lost rivers, and arguably three of the most important, began their descent in Hampstead. They're the Westbourne, the Tyburn and the Fleet, and from here they each ran roughly southwards and roughly parallel down to the Thames. The Westbourne was the westernmost of this trio, the west stream, or "west bourne". Several streamlets joined forces on the upper slopes to form the river proper, joining together by Kilburn to form what was once a fairly substantial watery presence. Another major tributary fed in from Queen's Park, and then the main stream turned southeast through Maida Vale and Bayswater (only one of whose names is river-related). Next up is the largest remnant of any of London's lost rivers - the Serpentine in Hyde Park - here royally enlarged in the early 18th century to create an ornamental lake. And then south beneath Knightsbridge, on through Belgravia and out into the Thames in the grounds of the Chelsea Royal Hospital. About six miles source to mouth, across some of the most expensive real estate in the capital.
