2. South of the Thames.—Wandsworth, Battersea, Lambeth, Southwark, Camberwell, Bermondsey, Deptford, Lewisham, Greenwich, Woolwich (with a small part of the north bank).

These names are all in common use, though their formal application is in some cases extended over several districts of which the ancient names remain familiar. Each borough is noticed in a separate article.

I. Extent and Site

The County of London is bounded N. and W. by Middlesex, E. by Essex and Kent, S. by Kent and Surrey. The Metropolitan police area, or “Greater London,” however, embraces the whole of Middlesex, with parts of the other three counties and of Hertfordshire. Its extent is 443,419 acres or nearly 693 sq. m., and its population is about seven millions. Only here and there upon its fringe the identity of this great area with the metropolis is lost to the eye, where open country remains unbroken by streets or close-set buildings.

Site.—North of the Thames, and west of its tributary the Lea, which partly bounds the administrative county on the east, London is built upon a series of slight undulations, only rarely sufficient to make the streets noticeably steep. On the northern boundary of the county a height of 443 ft. is found on the open Hampstead Heath. The lesser streams which flow from this high ground to the Thames are no longer open. Some, however, as well as other natural features effaced by the growth of the city, retain an historical interest through the survival of their names in streets and districts, or through their relation to the original site of London (in the present City). South of the Thames a broken amphitheatre of low hills, approaching the river near Greenwich and Woolwich on the east and Putney and Richmond on the west, encloses a tract flatter than that to the north, and rises more abruptly in the southern districts of Streatham, Norwood and Forest Hill.

In attempting to picture the site of London in its original condition, that is, before any building took place, it is necessary to consider (1) the condition of the Thames unconfined between made banks, (2) the slopes overlooking it, (3) the tributary streams which watered these slopes. The low ground between the slight hills flanking the Thames valley, and therefore mainly south of the present river, was originally occupied by a shallow lagoon of estuarine character, tidal, and interspersed with marshy tracts and certain islets of relatively firm land. Through this the main stream of the Thames pursued an ill-defined course. The tributary streams entered through marshy channels. The natural process of sedimentation assisted the gradual artificial drainage of the marshes by means of embankments confining the river. The breadth of this low tract, from Chelsea downward, was from 2 to 3 m. The line of the foot of the southern hills, from Putney, where it nearly approaches the present river, lies through Stockwell and Camberwell to Greenwich, where it again approaches the river. On the north there is a flat tract between Chelsea and Westminster, covering Pimlico, but from Westminster down to the Tower there is a marked slope directly up from the river bank. Lower still, marshes formerly extended far up the valley of the Lea. The higher slopes of the hills were densely forested (cf. the modern district-name St John’s Wood), while the lower slopes, north of the river, were more open (cf. Moor-gate). The original city grew up on the site of the City of London of the present day, on a slight eminence intersected by the Wal- or Wall-brook, and flanked on the west by the river Fleet.

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These and other tributary streams have been covered in and built over (in some cases serving as sewers), but it is possible to trace their valleys at various points by the fall and rise of streets crossing them, and their names survive, as will be seen, in various modern applications. The Wallbrook rose in a marsh in the modern district of Finsbury, and joined the Thames close to the Cannon Street railway bridge. A street named after it runs south from the Mansion House parallel with its course. The Fleet was larger, rising in, and collecting various small streams from, the high ground of Hampstead. It passed Kentish Town, Camden Town and King’s Cross, and followed a line approximating to King’s Cross Road. The slope of Farringdon Road, where crossed by Holborn Viaduct, and of New Bridge Street, Blackfriars, marks its course exactly, and that of Fleet Street and Ludgate Hill its steep banks. The name also appears in Fleet Road, Hampstead. From King’s Cross downward the banks were so steep and high that the stream was called Hollow or Hole-bourne, this name surviving in Holborn; and it was fed by numerous springs (Bagnigge Well, Clerkenwell and others) in this vicinity. It entered a creek which was navigable for a considerable distance, and formed a subsidiary harbour for the City, but by the 14th century this was becoming choked with refuse, and though an attempt was made to clear it, and wharves were built in 1670, it was wholly arched over in 1737-1765 below Holborn Bridge. Continuing westward, the most important stream was Tyburn (q.v.), which rose at Hampstead, and joined the Thames through branches on either side of Thorney Island, on which grew up the great ecclesiastical foundation of St Peter, Westminster, better known as Westminster Abbey. There is no modern survival of the name of Tyburn, which finds, indeed, its chief historical interest as attaching to the famous place of execution which lay near the modern Marble Arch. The residential district in this vicinity was known at a later date as Tyburnia. The next stream westward was the Westbourne, the name of which is perpetuated in Westbourne Grove and elsewhere in Paddington. It rose on the heights of Hampstead, traversed Paddington, may be traced in the course of the Serpentine lake in Hyde Park, ran parallel to and east of Sloane Street, and joined the Thames close to Chelsea Bridge. The main tributaries of the Thames from the north, to east and west of those described, are not covered, nor is any tributary of importance from the south entirely concealed.

Geology.—London lies within the geological area known as the London basin. Within the confines of Greater London the chalk which forms the basement of this area appears at the surface in isolated patches about Greenwich, while its main line approaches within 10 m. of the City to the south and within 15 to the north-west. In the south and north-west the typical London clay is the principal formation. In the south-east, however, the Blackheath and Woolwich pebble-beds appear, with their belts of Thanet sands bordering the chalk. Valley gravel borders the Thames, with some interruptions, from Kingston to Greenwich, and extends to a wide belt, with ramifications, from Wandsworth south to Croydon, and in a narrower line from Greenwich towards Bromley. Brick earth overlies it from Kensington to Brentford and west thereof, and appears in Chelsea and Fulham, Hornsey and Stoke Newington, and in patches south of the Thames between Battersea and Richmond. The main deposits of alluvium occur below Lambeth and Westminster, and in the valley of the Wandle, which joins the Thames from the south near Putney. In the north and west the clay is interspersed with patches of plateau gravel in the direction of Finchley (where boulder clay also appears), Enfield and Barnet; and of Bagshot sands on Hampstead Heath and Harrow Hill. Gravel is found on the high ground about Richmond Park and Wimbledon. (See further [Middlesex].)