GHOSTS OF LONDON.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20222, 7 October 1927, Page 12

GHOSTS OF LONDON.

OLD ROMAN RIVERS. SOME INTERESTING HISTORY. STREAMS UNDER STREETS. Most Londoners, reading of the recent Cornhill subsidence, have been surprised to know that the anc.ent and historic river, the Walbrock, on whose banks the Romans built their villas, still finds its way to the Thames, 20ft below modern London. It is not by any means the only ghost river possessed by London. A correspondent of the Daily Express gives some particulars of the lives ol the half-forgotten rivers. Eighteen centuries ago a traveller approaching London from the west would have been obliged to ford four important rivers before he found h.rasolf in the little redroofed Roman town near the present Bank of England. The first was the Westbourne, the second the Tyburn, the third the Fleet, and die fourth the Walbrook, on whose banks stood Roman London. All four now he many feet below the present level of London. They are built over, confined in culverts, or incorporated, most un romantically, in the main drainage system; but at least three of them are still alive and trickling 1 The Westbourne rises in the Hampstead and Highgate Hills and flows south to Knightsbndge, which owes its name to a bridge that spanned the Westbourne there. Two knights are said to have had a fierce battle on this bridge. The old stream is now carried by the Ranlagh sewer, the pipes of which follow approximately the ancient course of the Westbourne. No doubt many Londoners have noticed a huge culvert running 15ft above the platform of Sloane Square Underground Station. That culvert contains all that is left of '.he Westbourne! The water is discharged into the Thames about 200yds above Chelsea Bridge. HISTORY OF THE TYBURN. The Tyburn,' which rose at Shepherd's Well, at the top of Fitzjohn’s avenue, tan though the narrow passage which used to mark off the gardens ot Devonshire and Lansdowne Houses, flowed across Picadilly, across the Green Park, under the* site of Buckingham Palace, where it divided into three streams. The first ran to the Thames, via Vauxhall Bridge road', the second into St. James’ Park, the third through the Abbey grounds to Westminster, where the monks of that day made it turn a millwheel named the Abbot’s Mill. The name survives in Millbank. What has happened to the Tyburn? In 1812 it was connncd within a dark sewer which poured its waters into the Thames 300yds above Vauxhall Bridge. In 1865 when the Metropolitan St. John’s Wood Railway was constructed, this sewer was cut, and was apparently never joined again. Mr J. George Head, the surveyor, and an expert on London’s buried rivers, stated in a lecture some years ago that if the Tyburn still flows it is probably making its way along its old channel, lie said also that if the curiously winding streets of Alayfair are examined they suggest that they were formed in the first place by the course of the stream. The Fleet, or Holebourne (hence Holborn), is undoubtedly the most lively of all the buried rivers of Londori. One branch of it rose near the Vale of Health, Well-walk, Hampstead. In the old days it flowed south, gaining tributaries, toward King’s Cross. Some idea of the Fleet's size in remote times can be gained by the fact that the deep valley between Fleet street and Ludgate Hill was cut by its torrents. A MIGHTY ROMAN RIVER. In mediaeval days ships used to sail up and anchor at Holborn Bridge. In Georgian days the Fleet Ditch became a synonym for dead cats, so the river was " arched over. In 1885 it was made part of the metropolitan sewers, where it still flows quite vigorously, emptying itself into the Thames at Blackfriars. At low tide a cloud of sea gulls marks the outlet. The Walbrook, which flows north across the Bank of England, and formerly emptied itself into the Thames at Dowgate, was a mighty river in Roman times. Its month was JCOft broad. On its banks stood fair villas. Galleys sailed up as far as Bucklersbury Mr Head has described the hidden rivers of London as follows:—“There are trickling rivulets of pure water buried deep under our feet, creeping along the old channels with quiet persistence. They are the ghosts of the rivers that once beautified London Town, and in the words of <he old historian, ‘ Whose sweet, wholesome, and clear waters, flowed rippling over the bright stones.’ ” The “ ghosts,” as the water below Cornhill proves, can haunt and startle London