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The Fleet Sewer a.k.a The River Fleet |
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The River Fleet, just reading the words sparks intrigue for many. Being the largest of London's lost
Thames tributaries has helped to preserve the knowledge of its existence; most Londoners will profess to at least
having heard of the Fleet. Aboveground along its former route a variety of associated place names also help to keep this long buried
watercourse in the imaginations of those who unwittingly cross it on a daily basis. It was such imaginings that
roped both myself and st00p back into our childhood pursuit of drain exploring. The River Fleet had caught our imaginations
and following much map reading and book trawling we were determined to see it.
Our first visit in late 2004 was the result of months of planning, recce trips and general hard graft. Of course these
days we're much wiser as to the best way to approach such things, but at a time when this was new territory we were
putting in the man hours which meant that those coming after us wouldn't have to do so in quite the same way. The exploration
of sanitary sewers was uncommon at that time and so when we gained access on that first occassion we walked one
and a half miles of the varying form yellow brick pipe until we eventually turned back as
the atmosphere was heavy and at points unbearable to our unacustomed sensibilities. Even
Siologen who was along with us
agreed it was best to retreat and return better prepared at a later date.
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Our imaginations had run riot a little previous to the first trip and so having a little grey water thrown on the fire
wasn't such a bad thing, and besides, we didn't need to imagine any longer. Having existed in varied forms throughout history,
the Fleet's life cycle is generally accepted as going from navigable river, to narrow brook, to ditch/open sewer, to
bricked over sewer. Piped in, vaulted over, buried alive, the Fleet's brick tomb still serves today.
Confined underground in phases between the 1730s and 1870s
the allure of centuries old brick built tunnels under London still outweighs the thoughts of trudging through a river
of detritus. Like its neighbours of lesser stature, the Fleet sewer has seen some re-modelling at specific points
along its length during the construction of the
M.B.W.s Northern Intercepting
sewers (1859 - 1870) and again at a later date when the
L.C.C. built a second middle level
intercepting sewer (1906 - 1911).
Starting close to Hampstead Heath in the north, the Fleet trunk sewer runs in a roughly south-easterly direction
for just over four miles. Around its mid-way point it passes through King's Cross, formerly the village of Battle Bridge,
and outfalls into the Thames beneath Blackfriars bridge. In addition to the trunk sewer
there are also approx seven miles of smaller branch sewers
that are grouped as part of the Fleet sewer.
To date we have explored roughly two miles of the trunk sewer, from its mid-way point heading downstream to the Thames outfall,
as well as some miles of branch sewer. For some distance upstream of the mid-way point the Fleet sewer is
unnavigable on foot due to the large volumes of water it carries. As a result of this we may not get
to confirm any time soon whether the former village's namesake stone arch bridge, that used to span the Fleet, is indeed incorporated into
the Fleet sewer as is said to be the case.
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Our return visits have always been exciting, one return trip in particular was perhaps somewhat more exciting
than we'd have prefered, read the write up here. All sewers are environments
in which there is no room for complacency and we make certain to keep that in the forefront of our minds
whilst visiting. Over the course of our various
trips we've concluded that the Fleet sewer ranks very highly
in terms of scale and complexity, certainly towards its end reaches where it's a literal rats burrow of
inter-connecting tunnels, huge cavernous spaces, penstocks, weirs, gearing mechanisms, walkways, ladders and huge tidal flaps of doom.
And it's here in this masonry underworld of
Victorian engineering that you might glimpse reminders that this was once a natural watercourse, there's still some semblance of life here
and for them the River Fleet is home.
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For those who would like some further reading I thoroughly recommend that you follow the link, Reviewing the Fleet,
below to visit Diamond Geezer's impressively thorough and insightful blog entry tracing the history and course of the River Fleet
and its immediate surrounds.
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