Lost Rivers of London by John Rennie
The City of London wouldn’t be here at all if it weren’t for the River Thames. And the reason that the East End is more than just a collection of country hamlets is because of its history as a river gateway to the City, as people and produce poured into London from around the world over the last two millennia.
But the Thames isn’t the only river in the history of Tower Hamlets. Once there were other watercourses, now buried beneath the industrial and residential development of the East End, but all of which played their part in its past.
Until the dissolution of the monasteries by King Henry VIII in the 16th century, the Abbey of St Mary Graces stood at Tower Hill, not far from the subsequent site of the Royal Mint.
Old maps of the abbey show a river running down each side of what was then
called Nightingall Lane – now renamed Thomas More Street. Some sources suggest that the river rose at what is now Royal Mint Street. But Kenneth Reid, writing in the archives of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society back in 1954, makes a more realistic claim that it followed a course from Wellclose Square, which fits in better with the contours of the land.
Wapping’s Crashe Mill
It was possibly on this river that Wapping’s Crashe Mills stood. This watermill is
recorded in 1233 as belonging to the Priory of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, and was a tidemill, most likely providing power for the milling of grain.
The unromantically named Black Ditch appears on Horwood’s map of the parish boundaries of London, which appeared in 1799. The river apparently rose at Rhodeswell Road in Stepney, and headed east as far as Bromley-by-Bow before looping back in an arc across what is now the start of the East India Dock Road. It then fed into the Thames at the easternmost end of Narrow Street.
Veitch’s plan for the Sewerage of the Metropolis, which appeared in 1851, shows the Black Ditch as now being an underground watercourse, little more than a sewer. And Joseph Bazalgette’s massive programme of underground waterworks for the City in the mid- and late-1800s enclosed many ancient streams and rivers in pipes, and transformed them into waste and outflow sewers.
The lost River Walbrook
Strange to think that, hundreds of years ago, there were major rivers feeding into the Thames from the banks of the City. The Walbrook – which gives its name to the existing City ward – was fed by one tributary which rose just to the east of Aldgate and another which appeared by the side of Shoreditch High Street.
The Walbrook gave into the Thames between Southwark and London Bridges, but began to be choked with rubbish during Roman times. It was excavated, canalised and used for traffic up to medieval times. It was finally covered over in 1440 at the instigation of Robert Large, Lord Mayor of London.
The untamed River Lea
Before its canalisation, the River Lea was a far more sprawling waterway, and one of its major tributaries was Hackney Brook. Now completely lost, Hackney Brook rose at two points near the Holloway Road, crossed Mare Street – known as Merestret back in 1443 – and flowed down to Hackney Wick before meeting the Lea a little way to the south. The Hackney Brook was no minor stream. The Report on the Public Bridges of Middlesex, published in 1825, described the brook flooding to 100ft in width at Hackney Wick Bridge.
All these rivers are now hidden, but they still flow along their ancient courses. Nowadays, they are only seen when torrential rain causes flooding, but they are there just the same, forming a large part of the Victorian sewer system that still serves London.
Further reading: The Lost Rivers of London, Nicholas Barton, published by QPD.