The Guardians Of London’s Lost Rivers

London is situated upon a river basin and owes its origin to the Thames. Yet once upon a time many other rivers flowed through the city which have been ‘lost,’ mostly absorbed into the modern drainage network or occasionally diverted into decorative water features such as the Serpentine in Hyde Park.

Adam Dant’s latest map celebrates the sources of the lost watercourses of the capital, delighting in the profanity of their transformation from wild streamlets to stinky sewers, through waters swollen by the effluent produced by mythic figures of London lore.

Some discreet digital smudging has been applied to avoid compromising those who read Spitalfields Life in the workplace, office or schoolroom. Unexpurgated limited edition prints are available by mail order for connoisseurs.

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‘If London’s lost rivers ever had anything by way of protective gods, like the Old Father Thames and his wife Isis, then as river guardians they have performed a very poor job indeed it seems – or maybe not.

London’s lost rivers continue to flow, they still have identifiable sources and across this map of what is perhaps  – as the torrent of guide books, novels, exhibitions, walking tours, and maps suggests – the city’s worst kept secret, they maintain a vigorous current.

By manifesting the histories of their meanderings as personifications of their sources, each gets an identity that needs no higher power than that which keeps the springs gurgling. Even without such phenomena, Londoners provide an ample stream of liquid too.

By the Middle Ages, some – most famously the Fleet and the Walbrook – had already become open channels of waste and were culverted over. Yet it was the Victorians who built a system that, by so efficiently hiding the passage of effluvia through the Thames’ tributaries, led to the complete disappearance of these former rivers.

Joseph Bazalgette’s network of vaulted sewers redirected the Tyburn and the Westbourne to good purpose, carrying off those things on which we do not wish to dwell. Would not a guardian of such a lost river be a bit ‘pissed’? I have conjured a cast of perpetually micturating masters and mistresses, depicted according to the particular histories of each river.

Thus, the River Tyburn flows from the ‘pissen-breeches’ of the hanged man at Tyburn’s ‘triple tree gallows,’ while a gang of sailors provide the source of the Neckinger, close to the docks, and the angel which appeared in the branches of a tree in William Blake’s garden is the fountain head of South London’s lost river Peck.’ – Adam Dant

CLICK TO ORDER A COPY OF MAPS OF LONDON & BEYOND BY ADAM DANT

Adam Dant’s MAPS OF LONDON & BEYOND is a mighty monograph collecting together all your favourite works by Spitalfields Life‘s Contributing Cartographer in a beautiful big hardback book.

Including a map of London riots, the locations of early coffee houses and a colourful depiction of slang through the centuries, Adam Dant’s vision of city life and our prevailing obsessions with money, power and the pursuit of pleasure may genuinely be described as ‘Hogarthian.’

Unparalleled in his draughtsmanship and inventiveness, Adam Dant explores the byways of London’s cultural history in his ingenious drawings, annotated with erudite commentary and offering hours of fascination for the curious.

The book includes an extensive interview with Adam Dant by The Gentle Author.

Adam Dant’s limited edition prints including THE GUARDIANS OF LONDON’S LOST RIVERS are available to purchase through TAG Fine Arts