78 LONDON DISTRICT. 



and New Bridge Street. For many centuries the mouth was navigable 

 as far as Holborn Bridge, this part being the Fleet proper. Above that 

 point the stream was known by several names, such as the Turnmill 

 stream from the number of Mills utilizing its power or the River of Wells 

 from the number of springs on its banks (see below). 



The Wall Brook rose in the marshy tract of Moorfields, beyond Moor- 

 gate, flowing through the sites of the Bank and Mansion House, to the 

 Thames at Dowgate; the mouth, as in the case of the Fleet, formed one 

 of London's ports in early times ; its liability to flood has been mentioned 

 (p. 28). From its position athwart the city the Walbrook was the 

 earliest of the London streams to be ' buried,' part of it having been 

 arched over in late Roman times, and practically the whole by 1473. 

 The marsh of Moorfields was partly caused by the Roman wall impeding 

 the natural flow of the water. 



The courses of these ' buried streams ' have been carefully studied, 

 notably by Mr. J. G. Head, 1 and are shown on the 6-inch geological 

 maps. The subject is not without difficulty, since some have perished 

 leaving no name, such as that flowing under the bridge in the Strand, 

 while the Langbourne, fully described by Stow as a tributary of the 

 Walbrook, is probably mythical. Mention should also be made of the 

 Hackney Brook, a tributary of the Lea ; part of its valley is indicated 

 on the map, Sheet 2, by the narrow outcrop of London Clay running 

 south from Stoke Newington to Shacklewell. 



THE SOUTH SIDE. 



Of the tributaries of the Thames on the south or right bank, few of any 

 importance are ' buried,' those flowing above the Wandle or below the 

 Ravensbourne being open and shown on the map, though a part of the 

 Quaggy, a tributary of the latter river, is concealed at Lewisham. 



The Falcon or Battersea Brook rose near Balham and flowed down the 

 valley between Wands worth and Clapham Commons. From Clapham 

 Junction it turned westward, the mouth being still visible between 

 Wandsworth and Battersea railway bridges. Another exit, perhaps in 

 part artificial, was to the east and along the strip of alluvium, shown 

 on the map to Nine Elms. Perhaps these two mouths were originally a 

 backwater of the Thames and so formed the eyot of Battersea. 



The Effra rose in the hills of West Dulwich and Streatham at a height 

 of 378 ft. above O.D., and followed a course of some 4 miles to the Thames 

 near Vauxhall Bridge. 2 It was formerly navigable to Merton Bridge, near 

 Kennington Gate; in Elizabeth's reign a nobleman living at Brixton 

 proposed to render the stream navigable for the Queen's Barge up to his 

 house, but the project was not carried out. On Rocque's map of the 

 Environs of London (1745) the stream is called the Shore, an old form 

 of the word sewer. 



The Neckinger, with sources near Denmark Hiil and Forest Hill, 

 flowed through Bermondsey to St. Saviour's Dock, branches of it 

 surrounding Jacob's Island, familiar to readers of Dickens' It crossed 

 the Kent Road at St. Thomas Waterings, mentioned by Chaucer. 



SPRINGS. 



The springs of the district are fully described in the Water Supply 

 Memoirs of the various counties, those of London itself being dealt with 

 from the historical point of view by Mr. A. S. Foord 3 



1 ' The Buried Rivers of London,' Proc. Auctioneers ' Inst., 1908. 

 2 Leighton, D., Proc. OeoL Assoc., vol. xxiii, 1912, pp. 172 174. 

 8 * Springs, Streams, and Spas of London,' 1910. 



