But the earliest mention of the stream, or streams, in A.D. 951, when it was called "Teoburne," seems to settle the point, beyond reasonable doubt.
The valley of this vanished stream can still most clearly be perceived, in the very marked dip in the road at this point, and its course onward towards the Thames may be traced by Brook Street and Half Moon Street, to Piccadilly (where a similar dip in the road will be found) and so into the Green Park.
The westward march of London in course of time moved on the Tyburn "Elms," to a site midway between the two branches of the Tye Burn, and fixed the scene of execution for some two centuries at what was later known as "Tyburn Gate," until at last "Tyburn," as a Golgotha, ceased to be, in 1783.
There was probably an excellent reason for this selection. The spot was certainly not near either of the bournes, but it was, as already pointed out, at a junction of roads, and it was then a place where the greatest publicity could be given to the ways of justice—or what passed for such—with the breakers of laws. It was not, according to ancient accounts, a nice place, even before the gallows was erected there; being nothing but a barren heath, standing rather high above the surrounding country, and with no houses near.
The road to this last Golgotha of London, before executions took place outside Newgate prison, is known by many names to-day: Holborn, High Holborn, New Oxford Street, and Oxford Street, along whose course it would now be difficult to point out many historical survivals. The church of St. Sepulchre still stands, as of yore, immediately without the site of the ancient City wall, and seems to many well versed in the gloomy memories of the spot, to bear an ominous name, until it is, with a little thought, recognised to be really dedicated in memory of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. An ironic fate, indeed, it was that for so many centuries associated its name with the last moments of the capitally convicted.
Its tower is prominent even now, but it was even more striking—though more closely hemmed in with houses—before the Holborn Viaduct, in 1867, superseded the road that in the old days plunged down into the deep valley of the Fleet River, that Old Bourne, or Hole Bourne, so greatly in dispute among antiquaries, and crossed here by Holborn Bridge, until the improvements of the viaduct-building age overbuilt the valley, and swept away the bridge and the surrounding streets into the limbo of forgotten things.
"All, all are gone, the old familiar faces," sighed the poet; and the thing remains just as true and as sad when we substitute "places" to suit our own present needs. Newgate prison is gone and Skinner Street is abolished, that once stood immediately adjoining St. Sepulchre church, and the only vestige remaining of it is a very plain tablet dated 1802, that may be found by the diligent and the quick-sighted in the dungeon-like crypt of the Guildhall Museum. The dirty alleys are gone too, and that is no loss—and gone also is what was known to Cockneys as "'Obun 'ill." Holborn Hill, which, it need perhaps hardly be explained, was the true name of this eminence, was not an Alp, nor even a Plinlimmon, but it remained to the very last a terror to London drivers, especially of heavy vehicles. It was a great thing when Holborn Viaduct was built, to have abolished those exceeding-steep gradients which faced all eastward—and westward—going traffic, and were terribly exacting to horses, especially in damp, greasy weather.
