London Souvenirs

by Charles William Heckethorn

But London was not always so deadly level and so waterless as it is now. In ancient days there were high hills and deep valleys in the very heart of it. From the river Lea to the river Brent on the northern side of London there were numerous rivulets and brooks descending from the northern heights through the City and its western outskirts into the Thames, brooks and rivulets which at times assumed such dimensions as to cause serious inundations. It was the same in the south of London, where from the Ravensbourne to the Wandle similar watercourses reached the Thames from the southern hills.

All those brooks between the four rivers we have named, and which alone are still existing, have totally disappeared. What were their features, when they still flowed from northern and southern heights, and what were the causes and the process of their disappearance, we now intend to investigate, by proceeding from east to west, and taking the northern shore of the Thames first.

The site on which the Romans founded London was the rising ground on the northern bank of the Thames, from the present Fish Street Hill, or Billingsgate, to the Wallbrook. At a later date of their occupation they extended the City eastward to the Tower, and westward to the valley of the Fleet. Then the valley of the Wallbrook divided the City into two portions of almost equal size. To the north the buildings extended to the present Aldgate and to Moorfields, and westward to Newgate and Ludgate. The wall which encompassed the town began at the Tower, and in a line with various bends in it terminated at the Arx Palatina, somewhere near the present Times office. On the east of the town, where the country was flat, there was a marsh, extending to the river Lea. To the north-west were dense forests stretching far into Middlesex, and abounding with deer, wild boar, and other savage animals. This forest was partly the cause of the many brooks, which in those days watered London from the northern heights; it being a well-known fact that trees absorb and retain moisture.

It is doubtful whether there were any Roman buildings west of the Fleet; Fleet Street and the Strand certainly were then undreamt of, and did not come into existence till centuries after the Romans had left our island. To the west of the present Strand, the ground lying very low, it was frequently inundated by the river, and there are persons still living who can remember Belgravia and Pimlico as a dismal swamp. Westminster Abbey stood on an island, which rose above the marshy environs, and even as late as the times of Charles II. occasional high tides converted the palace of Whitehall into an island.

The great forest of Middlesex above mentioned came close to the City wall; it had, in fact, occupied a portion of the site on which the City was built, and as much of it had been cut down, and so much space cleared, as the builders required for their operations. But the nature of the forest ground could not be as readily changed. It was still full of moisture, and numerous rills continued to flow through it. Now, one of the most important of them was the Langbourne.

This watercourse, so called because of its length, took its rise in ground now forming part of Fenchurch Street. It ran swiftly through that street in a westward direction, across Grass, now Gracechurch Street, into and down Lombard Street—where many Roman remains have been discovered—to the west of St. Mary Woolnoth Church, where it turned sharply round to the south and gave name to Sherbourne Lane, so termed of sharing or dividing, because there it broke into a number of rills and so reached the Thames. From this watercourse Langbourne Ward took its name. Thus says Stow, but he adds that in his day (1598) this bourne had long been stopped up at the head, and the rest of the course filled up and paved over, 'so that no sign thereof remaineth more than the name aforesaid.'

Some modern historians, Mr. Loftie, for instance, deny the existence of the Langbourne altogether. 'Stow says that the Langbourne rose in Fenchurch Street and ran down Lombard Street. It does not seem to have occurred to him that the course indicated is up hill,' Mr. Loftie objects. But Fenchurch Street was then, as it is now, considerably higher than the outfall of the Langbourne into the Thames, and what do we know of the then levels of the streets through which it was said to have run? Upwards of thirty feet under the present level of Lombard Street Roman remains have been found, and the Langbourne, as we know from various documents, was covered in as early as the latter part of the twelfth century, a time when building increased rapidly under Fitz-Alwyn, the first Mayor of London; moreover, the fenny condition of Fenchurch Street is said to have been due to the overflowing of the Langbourne at its source. Mr. Loftie says that the original name of the Langbourne was Langford; but a ford implies a watercourse, and not a mere ditch or artificial trench, which, receiving the drainage of the immediate locality, fell into the Wallbrook, as Mr. Burt would have us believe. If the Langbourne never existed, whence did Langbourne Ward derive its name?

Proceeding westward, we come to a much more important stream, namely, the Wallbrook.

No more striking instance of the changes which Time will effect in the topographical aspect of a locality can be found than that which the disappearance of the Wallbrook has produced within the limits of its own course and in its surroundings. Where now a smooth expanse of asphalte paving covers firm ground (except where rendered treacherously dangerous by sewer-like railway tunnels, in which human beings are shot to and fro like so many rats enclosed in traps in a drain!), extending from Princes Street right across to the Mansion House, and to and down the street called Wallbrook, there, centuries ago, yawned a wide ravine with precipitous sides, at the bottom of which flowed the brook called the Wall-brook, because, rising in the upper fenny grounds of Moorfields, it entered the city through an opening in the wall, somewhere near the northern end of the present Moorgate Street. The brook, towards its southern termination, must have been of considerable width, for barges could be rowed up to Bucklersbury—a fact commemorated by Barge Yard, formerly a kind of dock, but now solid ground, opening into Bucklersbury. The width of the Wallbrook near its outfall was no doubt increased by tributaries, which, flowing from the opposite portion of the City, found an exit on the western bank. There is no doubt that there was a watercourse along the line of Cheapside; the fact is stated positively by Maitland. He says: 'At Bread Street corner, the north-east end, in 1595, one Thomas Tomlinson causing in the High Street of Chepe a vault to be digged, there was found at fifteen feet deep a fair pavement, like that above-ground, and at the further end, at the channel, was found a tree, sawed into five steps, which was to step over some brook running out of the west towards Wallbrook. And upon the edge of the said brook there was found lying the bodies of two great trees, the ends whereof were then sawed off, and firm timber as at the first when they fell. It was all forced ground until they went past the trees aforesaid, which was about seventeen feet deep, or better. Thus much has the ground of this city been raised from the main. And here it may be observed that within fourscore years and less, Cheapside was raised divers feet higher than it was when St. Paul's was first built, as appeared by several eminent marks discovered in the late laying of the foundation of that church.' The mention of Cheapside as a highway does not go back to very early times. In the eleventh century it must have been a mere bog; for, when in 1090 the roof of Bow Church was blown off by a tempest, the rafters, which were twenty-six feet long, penetrated more than twenty feet into the soft soil of Cheapside. The course of the brook just mentioned west of Bread Street is not known; it is doubtful whether it struck off northward by about Gutter Lane, and so towards springs known to exist near Cripplegate, or whether it came from further westward, from the springs which supply the ancient baths in Bath Street (formerly called Bagnio Court), north of Newgate Street.

But we must return to the Wallbrook itself; and, first, as to its course. After entering the City through the opening in the wall, it curved eastward, ran along Bell Alley, crossed Tokenhouse Yard and Lothbury, close by St. Margaret's Church, curved westward again, passing through ground now covered by the north-west corner of the Bank of England; crossing the present Princes Street and the Poultry, it ran under what is now the National Safe Deposit, whence, by an almost semicircular bend, it reached Cannon Street, which it crossed, turning westwardly towards St. Michael's Church, and crossing Thames Street, flowed past Joiners' Hall into the Thames. There were various bridges over the said watercourse. There was one close to Bokerelsberi (Bucklersbury), which in 1291 four occupiers of tenements adjoining the bridge were ordered to repair, according to clauses in their tenancies. There was another over against the wall of the chancel of the church of St. Stephen, which it was the duty of the parishioners to repair, as they were ordered to do, for instance, in 1300. At Dowgate Hill, at the outfall of the Wallbrook into the Thames, there was discovered in 1884 an ancient landing-stage, a Roman pavement in tile, set upon timber piles, with mortised jointing. The stage stood on the left bank of the Wallbrook, facing not the Thames, but the brook. It was twenty-one feet below the present level of Dowgate Hill, and below the churchyard of St. John's. A large quantity of stout oak-piling was also in situ, and the sill of the bridge which crossed from east to west at this spot was seen very plainly. Another landing-stage appears to have existed on the brook at a spot now covered by the National Safe Deposit: it consisted of a timber flooring supported by huge oak timbers, and running parallel with the stream. Adjoining this were evidences of a macadamized roadway, which extended in a line with Bucklersbury, until it reached the apparent course of the brook. Upon the opposite side similar indications appeared, so that here also a bridge may have existed. Another bridge seems to have spanned the brook near London Wall, in Broad Street Ward, with yet another a little more south. It appears that in the year 1300 both these bridges required repairs, and that the Prior of the Holy Trinity, who was liable for those of the first, and the Prior of the New Hospital without Bishopsgate, who was bound to do those of the second, were in that year summoned by the Mayor and Aldermen of London 'to rebuild the said bridges and keep them in repair.'