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The church, now demolished, was rebuilt on an arch over the river in 1456. In 1739 the Walbrook was described as “a great and rapid stream … running under St. Mildred’s church steeple at a depth of sixteen feet.” The Bank and theMansion House are built upon the alluvial deposits from the river.
    From St. Mildred, Poultry, the river ran south beside the Roman temple of Mithras that had been erected on the bank beside it. It then descended towards the Thames on a path 50 yards to the west of the present street named Walbrook, where it ran besideSt. Stephen upon Walbrook. It then flowed down toCloak Lane, named after
cloaca
or sewer. The attachment of churches to the river—or of the river to churches—is confirmed by the fact that at Cloak Lane there stood another church,St. John the Baptist upon Walbrook.
    It then ran downDowgate Hill towards the Thames with such force that in 1574 a young man of eighteen tried to leap across it but was carried away by “such violent swiftness as no man could rescue or stay him till he came against a cart wheel that stood in the watergate before which he was drowned and stark dead.” These are the violent waters that now lie 35 feet under the ground. Yet they do mark the world above the ground. A sharp turn in the river’s course became Elbow Lane, later changed to College Street. A dip alongCannon Street, betweenBudge Row and Walbrook, still signals the valley through which it passed.
    So the Walbrook began at a sacred well and touched at least six holy places in the course of its journey. Another testimony to its character may be found in the discovery of skulls deposited in its waters at somepoint in the first century. Forty-eight human skulls were found in the bed of the river, during excavations in the middle of the nineteenth century, and more recent investigation has shown that they were deliberately immersed without their lower jaws; the colour of the bones suggests that they had been exposed after death. It is very likely, therefore, that the Walbrook was the site for ritual activity. At the time of the immersion of the skulls it was some 12 feet in width but relatively shallow. It then fell into a decline, but was rescued for use in the eleventh and twelfth centuries when it was described as “a fair brook of sweet water”; the growth and intensification of London meant that, by the thirteenth century, it had become an open sewer full of dung and other refuse. By the sixteenth century it was largely covered. It had begun another phase of its long life.
    Yet it still had its uses. It was an administrative boundary whereby according to Stow “the procedure, according to ancient usage of the City of London, is wont to be that eighteen men must be chosen from the east side of the Walebroke, and eighteen men from the west side” for various civic duties. Stow also reports that twelve wards lay on the west side of the river, and thirteen wards on the east. In its lower reaches, for example, it divided the wards of Dowgate and Vintry. Its etymology may be
wealas
, or stream of the Britons, encouraging speculation that the Walbrook separated the native Britons from the Roman administrators. But that mustremain in the realm of theory only. Other London rivers acted as the boundaries of wards or parishes, and their invisible presence still marks a difference in atmosphere between adjacent City neighbourhoods.
    T he Tyburn springs up inHampstead and journeys south throughSwiss Cottage andRegent’s Park before it joins with a tributary and follows a meandering path into central London. The twists and turns ofMarylebone Lane accurately plot its course. The primeval force of water has created these shapes, cutting its way through clay that has now become brick. Old sketches delineatethe Tyburn in this part of its progress, flowing through fields with flowers and bushes beside its banks. If you look carefully enough you can still glimpse the hills and valleys of the original