MAP6 photographer Rich Cutler is exhibiting part of his project The Hole-bourne, which explores London's lost river Fleet. The exhibition is held in the belfry of St John on Bethnal Green from this Friday 11 November until 26 November. There will be a late night showing, talks and drinks on Friday 11 from 6.30 pm till late - just turn up.
ABOUT THE FLEET
There were once three great brooks, rising from the Hampstead and Highgate hills, that passed through London on their way to the Thames, namely the ‘Hole-bourne’, the ‘Ty-bourne’ and the ‘West-bourne’. It is the first of these that will occupy our attention. I use its most ancient name, as is given in old records, and which well described its physical character. It was always, throughout its course, the brook or ‘bourne’ in the ‘hole’ or hollow. But it had other names: some spoke of it as the ‘River of Wells’, and this also was a very appropriate appellation. The ‘River Fleet’ is that by which it was best known. However, the term ‘fleet’ can only be properly applied where it was influenced by the tidal flow of the Thames. Turnmill Brook is another name: this also was local in its use.
No better gift could have been conferred upon a city than a supply of pure water in abundance, as was here given by Nature’s hand, yet never was such a gift so abused. In defiance, it became, in our hands, black with filth, and pregnant with disease. We endured it as a nuisance for six centuries, in the heart of London. Now the whole noisome brook is drained off into Bazalgette’s sewers.
I ask you to follow me as I trace the meanders of this lost stream. But it would be a dry record were I merely to point out its course through the miles of houses that now obliterate it.
Adapted from an essay by the Victorian antiquary John Green Walle
