Long-time London resident and avid museum and theatre-goer. I started this blog in 2014, and got serious about it in 2020 when I realised how much I missed arts and culture during lockdowns. I go to a lot more events than anyone would think is sensible, and love sharing my thoughts in the forms of reviews, the occasional thought piece, and travel recommendations when I leave my London HQ.
A walk from Shoreditch to Cannon Street, tracing the lost Walbrook River. This shortest of central London’s lost rivers nonetheless gives the chance to see plenty of interesting history.
This walk follows a route from London’s Lost Rivers: A Walker’s Guide by Tom Bolton.
Finding the Walbrook
Today’s walk, like an earlier one along the path of the River Neckinger, traces one of London’s lost rivers. This time we will attempt to find the Walbrook. Both routes are suggested by Tom Bolton in his excellent book London’s Lost Rivers: A Walker’s Guide, which I would recommend for London history lovers. The book not only traces these lost rivers, but relates many interesting facts and anecdotes from different periods of history.
So we follow in Bolton’s steps along the Walbrook. Despite a slightly uncertain starting point, and no visible waterway today, this river feels a lot more tangible than the Neckinger. This is partly that there is more historic trace of it: its well-documented path is visible on old maps; and there are references to it in historic sources. The other part is more to do with feeling. The streets and alleys down which you wend your way on this walk seem more convincing as former ditches, channels and riverbanks. And this despite the fact that the Roman river’s course was about 35 feet below today’s street level.
On this walk we will encounter William Shakespeare, Daniel Defoe, plague pits, post-modern architecture and medieval livery companies. Join me as we walk along the streets where the Walbrook once flowed.
A Walk Along the Walbrook: Shoreditch
We start our walk just off Shoreditch High Street. The precise source of the Walbrook is now lost, but the most likely candidate is a sacred spring named Holywell. Unfortunately, Holywell is also now lost! But it was somewhere around Bateman’s Row and Curtain Road, where Holywell Priory stood in the medieval period. The priory fell prey to the dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th Century, and the well vanished from maps during the 18th. The area today speaks to a later industrial past.The flowery-looking building marks the site of The Theatre, the remains of which were discovered in 2008. The Theatre was the home of the Chamberlain’s Men, William Shakespeare’s theatre company. This makes it the home of the apocryphal story of the Globe Theatre being dismantled, carried across the river and reassembled in one night in 1598. The Theatre was indeed dismantled and became the Globe, but it didn’t happen overnight. The timbers were stored for several months before they were used to build the Globe the following spring. There is currently work underway to turn the modern building next door into an office block with ‘exhibition, education and performance space‘. Let’s hope the project survives the pandemic.
Plaques nearby on Curtain Road commemorate both the priory and the theatre. On the priory grounds was a ‘Great Horse Pond’ with a brook or sewer flowing from it. This is one of our first historic echoes of the Walbrook
A Walk Along the Walbrook: Onwards to Broadgate
Just a couple of old buildings remain on Curtain Road, nestled between newer neighbours. This little cluster reminds me of the term ‘nail house‘ used in China for homeowners who refuse to move and make building projects work around them. In Shakespeare’s time Curtain Road was the northern boundary of the city with Finsbury Fields opposite, stretching as far as Moorfields. The guidebook quotes Daniel Defoe describing a 1665 plague pit in Finsbury Fields where people ‘came and threw themselves in, and expired there, before they threw any earth upon them.’ Our current situation could be worse, I suppose.Just a little further along and on a sidestreet stands a row of Arts & Crafts houses by Philip Webb. They are now rather dilapidated but must once have been quite smart.At the end of the Arts & Crafts terrace is a long-disused fountain. Would the waters have once come up from the Walbrook?
There are major works going on at Broadgate at the moment. My guidebook describes this as ‘dying-days-of-Thatcher’ architecture. The site was once home to Broad Street Station, demolished in 1984, and an earlier burial ground. It served as burial ground for nearby Bethlem/Bedlam hospital, and also as a plague pit (up to six burials per cubic metre). The Walbrook would of course already have changed its course by the time burials started here.
A photogenic view at Sun Street Passage alongside Liverpool Street Station.‘Fulcrum‘ by Richard Serra also stands on the Broadgate development. My guidebook suggests standing inside it to contemplate its watery underground counterpart, the Walbrook. I contemplated it just fine from up here.
A Walk Along the Walbrook: Around the Bank of England
After a walk across what were once open fields and past where an aqueduct once transported the Walbrook through London Wall, we arrive at Throgmorton Avenue. This is undoubtedly one of my favourite lockdown discoveries. It is a private avenue (wrought iron gates at one end), belonging to two of London’s livery companies (which are more or less medieval guilds). The Worshipful Company of Carpenters owns one end, while the other belongs to (get ready) The Master and Wardens and Brethren and Sisters of the Guild or Fraternity of the Blessed Mary the Virgin of the Mystery of Drapers. Phew, what a mouthful! The Walbrook once flowed down a ditch at one side. Archaeological finds from the area include a dinner set stashed when the Romans were advancing; evidence of a tanning industry in the neighbourhood; and a bear’s skull.
Nearby Tokenhouse Yard, with a dim little alley at one end and the Bank of England at the other, feels very Dickensian.
It’s not in the guidebook, but I just really love this building opposite the Bank of England. It’s in Venetian Gothic style with a frieze depicting trade and commerce. The Walbrook in its later and filthier phase often had to be vaulted over by London residents, including those attempting to reach the church next door.Architect of the Bank of England, Sir John Soane.
At the corner of the Bank of England, Soane built this copy of the Temple of Vesta in the Roman Forum. A handful of watery motifs remind us of the river’s path near here.Our guidebook suggested we pass through the grounds of the Worshipful Company of Grocers. We could not, but admired their coat of arms instead. Why the camel? The Walbrook once flowed under the Grocers’ Hall kitchen.
The Ward of Walbrook Down To The Thames
This post-modern beauty is 1 Poultry, underneath which are remains of a Roman temple. Poultry marks the entry into the London Ward of Walbrook. This is where the most functional part of the river flowed.
We are now on a street named Walbrook. Watling Street passed near here, and within a few metres you can see Mansion House; the Roman Temple of Mithras; and this little church of St Stephen Walbrook.A nice illustration of London history. Mansion House is built on the site of the stocks market, where for centuries meat, fish and produce were sold. Nearby (much later) was the London International Financial Futures Exchange, a pre-computerised trading exchange. LIFFE has passed into the history books in turn, and is commemorated nearby with a statue of a Yuppie. The methods may have changed, but the city stays the same.Across Cannon Street and around a corner is this easily-missed monument. It commemorates the reburial of bodies removed from the graveyard of St John the Baptist upon Walbrook. Although the church burned down in the Great Fire of London, the cemetery remained until the District Line came through here in 1866.
As you make your way down the hill, you may spot this nice little church, founded by Dick Whittington.We are now at Cannon Street Station. Dowgate inlet once ran along near here. Underneath the train station was once a Roman mansion; the Victorian engineers found the Roman concrete foundations so sturdy they were hard to dynamite!There was once a Hanseatic free trade enclave here called the Steel Yard. It had its own currency, German wine, and no women. Elizabeth I expelled the merchants in 1598.And here we are finally at Walbrook Wharf, where the river flowed into the Thames. At low tide it’s almost possible to see the Walbrook exiting via a storm drain. An anonymous end to a once-important river.
Thank you for joining me along the path of the Walbrook. Come back soon for another historic London walk!
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9 thoughts on “Walking the Walbrook – London’s Lost River”
9 thoughts on “Walking the Walbrook – London’s Lost River”