There are just two remaining open rivers in inner South London: the River Wandle in Wandsworth to the west; and the Ravensbourne in Lewisham to the east. Yet between these two, there are a cluster of long-vanished smaller streams: the Falcon Brook, the Heathwall, the Effra, the Earl’s Sluice, each with their own smaller tributaries, which disappeared from view into sewers in the 1860s as part of Joseph Bazalgette’s London Main Drainage scheme.
It is these absences that provide the focus for an unusual cycling tour led by Jon Newman: archivist, tour guide and self-appointed historian of their vanishings. This eight mile semi- circular tour, starting at Clapham Junction and finishing on the Thames at Nine Elms, provides an introduction to the landscapes and history of these rivers’ lower reaches. It also provides a context for the history of the growing nineteenth century debates about public health, urbanisation, water supply and drainage and the need for a solution to London’s increasingly polluted rivers. Bazalgette’s hard-engineering solution was not supposed to leave visible traces, but Jon’s tour will reveal how the lines of these rivers can still be read today: in the lie of the land, through subsequent development patterns, in the river trees still found growing above vanished river banks, and in the survivals of stink pipes, manhole covers and other street furniture.
Highlight of the route include: the valley of the Falcon Brook in Battersea, a surviving Anglo-Saxon boundary marker, the River Effra, the western tributaries of the Earl’s Sluice and mouths of the Effra and Heathwall at Nine Elms.
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