Comments on: Adam Dant’s Map Of Walbrook

By: Lorraine Savy

Lorraine Savy — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 16:40:43 +0000

City rivers history people fascinating and gaining facades too fast! Hidden rivers heard through gratings ..specially Fleet at Bank …which flowed under Kingsway to thames ..
Still have a love affair with London peeking about on Sundays when the offices are empty
and early morning doorways hold last nights revelry and drugs and pain and homeless
Imagine what “debris” was carried out to the Thames in the past…
A city of blatant riches and poverty
Bank of England and Food Bank

By: Karl.

Karl. — Fri, 05 Dec 2014 13:48:01 +0000

Jill ,I don’t know if you’ve heard about the oral history project that MOLA are currently doing on the original excavations of the temple of Mithras but you might like to check it out here http://www.mola.org.uk/blog/remembering-london%E2%80%99s-greatest-archaeological-discovery
I’m sure they would love to hear from you.

By: Edmund

Edmund — Tue, 23 Sep 2014 18:25:36 +0000

Although James is correct that Walbrook predates the Conquest, the name probably comes from wala/weala (genitive plural of walh) and broc (=brook). The word walh doesn’t mean Briton but ‘foreigner’ and Germanic people applied it to various other groups (eg. the Walloons) as well as non Anglo-Saxons in Britain. The City of London was abandoned after the Romans left and Lundenwic(h) grew up around the Covent Garden/Aldwych area. Alfred ordered the re-occupation and fortification of the original city to defend against Viking attacks but there were no Britons living there! There is absolutely no archaeological record, just Dark Earth, and they would have been deep inside hostile Anglo-Saxon territory. Peter Ackroyd may imply this in his book London but you will not find any archaeologists who agree.

By: Jill

Jill — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 23:46:19 +0000

I used to work in a building at the corner of Walbrook and Cannon Street. In 1954 I watched from our office building the uncovering of the Temple of Mithras.

By: Tina

Tina — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 09:46:20 +0000

One of my favourite rivers and I also do a walk called ‘Walbrook where art thou?’ . Other good sources of information are ‘The Lost Rivers of London’ by Nicholas Barton and ‘Walking on Water’ by Stephen Myers. Stephen is an hydrologist and also does a fabulous ‘who dunnit’ about the disappearance of the Walbrook as a talk to raise funds for Water Aid. These two gentlemen are working together to produce a combined book including, not only the history, but also the geographical and geological implications – dry reading – definitely NOT.

By: John

John — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 02:44:52 +0000

Ol ‘ Father Thames replies,

London builds towers of silver on slave gold and white bone, vertically.
The Lost rivers of silver and red will rise to break their banks, horizontally-
And these Banks, that have such problems with cash flow and liquidity,
Will have flotations of turd, skull and guilt throughout eternity.

Rivers of London arise!
Wallbrook, Effra, Beverley Brook….
You have nothing to lose but your drains!

I am flowing sweetly and never kiss tributaries cynically
Or have risen on my high north sea horse environmentally,
Time, tide, suicides, all that shit, I’ve taken indiscriminately:
but need now to open my veins. Skulls can’t weep for me.

Londoners of the Rivers arise!
They think you are a stream, a footfall, a look…
That you’ve already lost your brains!

I’m here ever as you-courses clay’s rich sediments, us, and London rains.

…..hope you enjoyed this, a simple message, carried away!

John

By: Stuart

Stuart — Sun, 26 Jan 2014 18:35:43 +0000

Very evocative.

Those who liked this might find ‘The Fields Beneath: the History of one London Village’ by Gillian Tindall interesting. Her history of Kentish Town has a chapter on buried rivers.

By: Angella-Dee

Angella-Dee — Sun, 26 Jan 2014 15:39:34 +0000

I have walked the Wallbrook too. Yes, I Can walk on water?

By: Max

Max — Sun, 26 Jan 2014 14:31:40 +0000

Great story…we love the Wallbrook

Wetherspoons Underground Sykogeosophy Club

By: James

James — Sun, 26 Jan 2014 14:04:28 +0000

Most etymologists think the word Walbrook predates the Norman Conquest. It combined two elements; Wal which they think has the same root as Wealh as in Wales and CornWALL and means “Britons”; and Brook which is a word derived from Welsh “bryn” meaning a stream. Tradition has it that when the Anglo-Saxon kings of Essex took Londinium they found Britons living in the old Roman city with this stream running through it. The city became Lundenburg and the new Saxon district was Lundenwych (now renamed Aldwich).