The Walbrook is a ‘lost river’ of London. It is not lost in the sense that people don’t know where it runs – instead it is now buried beneath the streets of the City of London and is lost from view.
Nearer to its source, it was long ago culverted but still runs under streets – occasionally constructing foundations for new buildings will reveal the Walbrook temporarily before the tunnel is remade and the new edifice put on top.
Further downstream the course is known from old maps and viewing dips still evident in the urban landscape. But more modern sewers have redistributed the waters.
The Walbrook was one of the most important rivers of London – it split Roman London into two – west of the valley rose Ludgate Hill, the later site of St Paul’s. East of the stream, land rose to form Cornhill. West of the Walbrook was a more functional city but the eastern bank housed the Temple of Mithras.
In Roman times, the river was used for its fresh water upstream with Londoners’ waste dumped further downstream and also straight into the River Thames.
The Romans left and London was largely abandoned for a few hundred years but today we known the stream by the name the next occupiers – its Saxon name means wala, meaning “foreign” and broc meaning “brook.”
In passing Wal is quite an interesting prefix generally used by ancient Europeans tribes and languages – not just the Saxons – to indicate ‘pertaining to people who are not us’. Beginning with a W, scattered throughout Europe we have Wales, Wallonia, Wallachia and more.
For linguistic reasons not part of this article on a lost river, the initial letters of W and G were more interchangeable in earlier times – so war/warden (English) and guerre/guardian (French) mean the same thing. But Galway, Galloway, Galicia, Gaelic similarly come from being names for foreigners: “those people over there”.
One source of this foreigners’ river rose at a point marked on John Rocque’s 1745 map as Holywell Mount. This slight elevation has now disappeared beneath modern Shoreditch. It lay under the eastern end of Luke Street, near to the junction of Holywell Lane and Curtain Road.
The Walbrook continued passed Moorfields and flowed south through the City of London, and flowed into the River Thames in the ward of Dowgate.
While the Walbrook was once a source of fresh water for the people of London, the area around it became very unsanitary in Anglo-Saxon and Norman times. Because of both regular flooding and the pollution of the river, the Walbrook was initially surrounded by mostly open gardens and marshland.
The Walbrook thrived in medieval London because it provided power to drive mills. Tanners, and leatherworkers used this natural source of power – as a result craftspeople set up their shops directly along the river.
The Walbrook was crucial for trade. Dowgate was the connection between the Thames and the rest of the City of London, which allowed the downstream area of the Walbrook to be used for international exports.
By 1598, the stench of the Walbrook had caused the beginning of the end of the open river. The streets and lanes through which the Walbrook passed were vaulted and houses were built over it, covering any remnants of the river.
It is from Holywell Mount that we begin our route tracing the ancient Walbrook.
Curtain Road
Appold Street
Broadgate Circus
Blomfield Street
London Wall
Lothbury
Walbrook
Dowgate Hill
Walbrook Wharf
Walbrook the River on which London was Built