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Square tube station. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries it ran through desolate fields and muddy swamps, but the territory was drained and covered before being transformed intoBelgravia. Eleven streets in Paddington are named after the river—among themWestbourne Grove andWestbourne Gardens—and Bourne Street in Chelsea follows its course. It is often possible to track the path of the river by contemplating the street names on the outer surface. The Westbourne is now known as theRanelagh sewer.
    The Effra descends fromNorwood, South London, making its way throughDulwich andHerne Hill before enteringBrixton; it was 6 feet in depth here, and from bank to bank measured 12 feet.
    It was wide enough to support large barges, andKing Canute is recorded to have sailed upthe Effra toBrixton. The name itself derives from
yfrid
or torrent. At the beginning of its descent, inNorwood, there still stands an old cottage named “The Boathouse.” On the Brixton Road small bridges connected the houses with the road itself; the grass verges on either side of the road still mark the banks of the river. The old riverscape survives. There is a Water Lane and a Coldharbour Lane and a Rush Common in Brixton. The Effra then ranpast what is now the south side of the Oval before leavingKennington and reachingVauxhall. A stage or platform was erected, during the mid-Bronze Age, at the point where the river flows into the Thames; the place where rivers meet was deemed to be holy.

    The Westbourne tumbling from the Serpentine in 1800 (illustration credit Ill.8)
    The history of the Effra is representative. Its upper parts were relatively clear and clean; in the latter part of the eighteenth century it was a swiftly running and amiable stream guarded by laburnums, hawthorns and chestnut trees. As it approached the suburbs of the city, however, it gradually became fouled until it was little more than a sewer. It was eventually covered by brick and building. There is still a small open stretch in Dulwich, and the Effra overflows into areas ofDulwich Park andDulwich Common. Although it is largely concealed it can still flood its neighbourhood at times of heavy rain; the adjacent area was last inundated in the summer of 2007. Further downstream it can only be entered through the sewers of the Effra Road inBrixton, but there have been suggestions that parts may be opened up once more as a fitting addition to the London environment.
    T he Walbrook lies to the north, in theCity of London, where a narrow street is still devoted to its memory.John Stow was already mourning its disappearance at the end of the sixteenth century. “This water-course,” hewrote, “having divers bridges, was afterwards vaulted over with brick, and paved level with the streets and lanes where through it passed; and since that, also houses have been built thereon, so that the course of Walbrooke is now hidden underground, and thereby hardly known.”
    We can revive that course in the imagination. It rose in the vicinity of Holywell Street inShoreditch, and indeed that sacred spring may be its source. There are signs of a Roman shrine at this spot. It then ran southwards towards the city on a course now marked out by Curtain Road and Blomfield Street; it passed across the wall just to the west of the church of All Hallows; an aqueduct was found here, buriedat a depth of 20 feet. An arch was found at its southern end lined with moss; at some time, therefore, the channel had been above the ground.
    From this point the river flowed south-west until it reached Tokenhouse Yard, a little to the north-east of the Bank of England; it may have been enlarged by one or two small tributaries and, when it was still visible, at least four bridges were built across it. The church of St. Margaret Lothbury was also erected on vaults above the flowing water. The Walbrook then turned slightly to the south-west and coursed beneath the Bank, from where it ran beneath St. Mildred, Poultry.