"there are in actual fact over a dozen natural water courses flowing through Britain’s capital. Many of them played important role in the development of the city, as the location of mills, the source of drinking water and as open sewers. Most of them have been pushed totally underground, forced into culverts, out of sight and out of mind – even if some of them have left their mark on the city’s topology. This map shows and names some of those lost rivers of London, all tributaries to the Thames...
Stamford Brook flows into Hammersmith Creek before discharging into the Thames. Its name comes from ‘stoney ford’, and is remembered in Stamford Brook tube station…
Counter’s Creek can still sometimes be spotted by commuters on the westbound platform of West Brompton tube station, but only after heavy rainfall. Its tidal mouth is known as Chelsea Creek…
…the River Westbourne has left its mark on London toponymy, mainly by the other names it has been called through the centuries: Kilburn, Bayswater, Serpentine, Bourne, Westburn Brook, Ranelagh and Ranelagh Sewer. Kilburn and Bayswater nowadays are well-known areas in London. The Serpentine, formed in 1730 to beautify Hyde Park, was fed with the Westbourne’s waters until 1834, by which time it had become too polluted. Another area owing its name to this stream is Knightsbridge – named after a bridge over the Westbourne…
…two springs on Hampstead Heath, directed into two 18th century reservoirs (Highgate and Hampstead Ponds) thereafter combine to form London’s largest underground river. The upper reaches were known as the hollow stream (‘Holborn’ in Anglo-Saxon, hence the name of that London area), its lower reaches as the Fleet (from Anglo-Saxon for ‘estuary’)…"
Credit for image and the above text (and much, much more) to the often-interesting Strange Maps website.
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