114 J. E. LITTLEBOY — THE BXJLBORNE AND GADE, 



Aldbury meadows, it but rarely happens that any water is to be 

 found, and even in the wettest seasons no current is perceptible. 

 The Dudswell meadows may fairly be considered as the present 

 source of the Bulborne, and, as Dudswell is three miles nearer 

 London than Park Hill, it is evident that the little river has ceased 

 to flow over at least that distance of its former course, and also that 

 the feeder from Aldbury has altogether disappeared. This altera- 

 tion must of necessity have been caused by a permanent depression 

 of the plane of saturation in the surrounding Chalk formation, and 

 it is more than possible that it has resulted from the cutting of the 

 Grand Junction Canal and the artificial drainage thereby created. 

 If I am correct in this hypothesis, I am afraid that it affords a 

 rather ominous prognostication of the possible effect of the opera- 

 tions of the Colne Valley Waterworks on the waters of the Yer and 

 Colne. 



The Bulborne, after rising, as I have said, in the Dudswell 

 meadows, pursues its course onwards by Northchurch to Berk- 

 hampstead, as lively a little stream as ever invited the tarriance of 

 trout or grayling. Below North church the development of the 

 trade in watercresses has told its tale ixpon the river ; wherever a 

 tributary spring could be detected, or in places where it has been 

 found practicable to divert a portion of its current, large artificial 

 watercress beds, extending over many acres, have been laid out and 

 planted on what was formerly meadow land, and I am informed 

 that the breakfast tables not only of London, but of Liverpool, 

 Manchester, and the large Yorkshire towns, are daily supplied with 

 cresses, the produce of our little Bulborne. 



The growth of watercresses in this district has, no doubt, been 

 fostered to a large extent by the equable temperature of the 

 stream. Issuing from the base of the Chalk hills but a few miles 

 distant, and constantly receiving additional supplies from a similar 

 source, the water of the Bulborne but rarely freezes, and even 

 during the heat of summer it possesses a most agreeable and 

 refreshing coolness. 



At the top of Berkhampstead, about halfway between the river 

 and the turnpike road, St. John's Well — a spring that bubbles up 

 under cover of a little shed near the spot where once stood the 

 Hospital of St. John the Evangelist, founded in the reign of King 

 John by Geoffrey Fitz-Piers, Earl of Essex, for the cure of lepers 

 — discharges, down the side of the lane that derives its name from 

 the well, a constant supply of sparkling water, as delicious in 

 flavour as ever 



" Babbled over pebbles." 



Unfortunately for Berkhampstead it is not allowed 



" To join the brimming river " 



in its unpolluted state, but is made the vehicle for receiving a large 

 portion of the drainage from the upper part of the town. It 

 renounces almost iminediately the patronage of the Evangelist, and 

 under the very appropriate soubriquet of the " Back or Black 



