Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Famous places down the street where I work
The River Tyburn
You can't see it these days, but one of London's lost underground rivers still crosses deep below Piccadilly on its way to the Thames. The river Tyburn rises at Shepherds Well in Belsize Park, just south of Hampstead, flowing south beneath Swiss Cottage to form the lakes in Regents Park. It continues under Marylebone, long buried by the urbanisation of the West End, and on beneath Oxford Street (once called Tyburn Road). It wiggles under Mayfair, skirting both Grosvenor Square and Berkeley Square, before curving to head directly beneath Shepherd Market. It's not clear precisely where the river crossed Piccadilly, but a look at the local contours suggests that it once flowed across the lowest point of the road, beside the Japanese Embassy along what is now Brick Street. You can still see the river's dry valley to the south in Green Park, heading towards the grounds of Buckingham Palace where the underground Tyburn still feeds the Queen's ornamental lake. From here the ancient Tyburn split in two, branching towards Westminster and Pimlico, so creating marshy Thorney Island on whose 30 acres Edward the Confessor chose to build Westminster Abbey.
Hmm, I sense there may be an entire local history month to be based on the lost rivers of London, so I'll stop there.
<< click for Newer posts
click for Older Posts >>
click to return to the main page
