XXll INTRODUCTION. 



A small stream beginning between West Acton and Gunnersbury, 

 and tiowing into the Thames at Hammersmith, is marked in all the 

 old maps. 



Eel-brook, Hell-brook, or Hill-brook, flows south from between 

 Hammersmith and Kensington, and passing between Walham Green 

 and Little Chelsea, flows into the Thames opposite Battersea. 



The West Bourne begins near the hamlet of West End, Hampstead, 

 passes by Kilburn to Westbourne Park, Bayswater, through Kensing- 

 ton Gardens and Hyde Park, across Knightsbridge, along the west side 

 of Sloane Street into the Thames a little below Chelsea Hospital. 

 In Norden's map (1610) it is represented flowing through the centre 

 of Hyde Park. It afterwards contributed to form the piece of water 

 called the Serpentine, which was made about 1730. According to 

 Middleton, the Serpentine was principally supplied with water from a 

 conduit in a close of meadow-land near Bayswater belonging to the 

 Bishop of London, but partly by springs. More recently it has been 

 supplied from a well at the north end, the West Bourne being carried 

 across the Park as a separate sewer. 



The Fleet takes its rise on the south side of the Hampstead and 

 Highgate Hills. It flows south, passing Kentish Town, Old St. 

 Pancras, King's Cross (where Battle Bridge was built over it), the 

 House of Correction, Clerkenwell, Field Lane, the foot of Holborn 

 Hill, and Farringdon Street, to flow into the Thames at Blackfriars 

 Bridge. From Kentish Town its course its now entirely subterraneau. 

 It was originally called the River of Wells,* the Turnmill or Tremill 

 Brook ; more recently the Fleet Dike or Ditch, and now the Fleet sewer. 



The Fleet was formerly navigable up to Holborn Bridge at the foot 

 of Holborn Hill. According to Stow {Survey, Thom's ed. p. 7), 

 Oldborne or Hilborne was a small rivulet which broke out ' about the 

 place where the bars do now stand, and it ran down the whole street 

 till Oldborne Bridge and into the River of Wells or Turnemill Brook.' 

 But in Domesday Book (i. 127 a), ' Holeburne ' is applied to the 

 Fleet above Holborn Bridge at Clerkenwell, &c., possibly from its 

 running in a hollow. 



In the London district there were several other small streams, now 

 converted into sewers. 



The Lang Bourne, so called, according to Stow, ' from the length 

 thereof,' but of which in his time ' no sign . . . remaineth more than 

 the name,' rose from a spring near Magpie Alley, adjoining St. Cathe- 



* From the number of springs thrown out along its course, in consequence of the denu- 

 dation of the gravel. See p. xvi. 



