Ceramic London

Artist Loraine Rutt has produced this highly impressive ceramic relief map of London's lost river system.  It is both lovely and very useful.  Relief maps of London are a surprisingly rare commodity but Loraine's realisation of the city's landscape shows us the big picture usually obscured by the detail.  It's hard to see the hill and valleys, hidden as they are behind the multiple distractions of buildings and streets.

Stripped back to gleaming white, strokeable porcelain, all becomes clear.  London was built in the wide, shallow Thames terraces, before snaking along the valleys of its tributaries.  Rivers such as the Fleet, Tyburn, Westbourne, Effra carve notches in the hills of the north and the south.  The road and railways followed, and from the valley floors London began its assault on the high ground.

There's something medical, anatomical about this piece. It's a knot of sinuous muscle bunched around atrial chambers.  Peer closely enough, and I suspect the blue veins are gently pumping.

South East London Folklore

I had the pleasure last night to talk to the legendary SELFS - the South East London Folklore Society. It was, as always, a room full of people who know their rivers and their South East London, so I gave them a special South London-only overview, including the Wandle's liquorice field full of Jutish bones and the spectre of John Ruskin, hauting the banks of the Wandle, the Effra and the Earl's Sluice.

SELFS meets every second Thursday of the month in the upstairs room at the Old King's Head, Borough High Street. Its many pleasures include a rare chance to speak with a portrait of Henry VIII peering over the top of your slides, looking unimpressed, some tasty Cornish ale on tap, and of course the best talks and events listing in London. Thanks to Nigel of Bermondsey.

Big hole in Hampstead

On Redington Road in Hampstead, all is not as sedate as it may seem. Last week a hole opened up unexpectedly in the middle of the road. And not just any hole, a "gaping cavern". The photo (by Nigel Sutton in the Ham & High) shows Cllr Chris Knight being sucked into its yawning maw.

The article doesn't make the connection, but Redington Road is crossed by the buried River Westbourne on its way down from Branch Hill towards West End Green. It be clearly heard flowing under a manhole cover at the north end of Redington Gardens, and an unmissable valley crosses Redington Road with the river underneath. The Westbourne rolls off the Hampstead Ridge and is also known as the Kilburn further south. It is famous for crossing the District Line at Sloane Square station in a fat pipe.

Not only that, there are tributaries in the area. A local resident tells me he hit water nearby on Oak Hill while sinking piles for his garden wall. The water was flowing, 3.8m below the surface. This is likely to be the reported, but unmapped Tyburn tributary which flows down Oak Hill to Redington Gardens. Another tributary flows into the valley from Telegraph Hill opposite.

The trend for basement extensions in the wealthy back streets has Londoners interested again in long-forgotten streams. It looks as though people would be wise to check what may be under their houses before they book the JCBs.

Ride the rivers

I am delighted to see that Southwark Cyclists have got creative with Lost London Rivers, and are planning to cycle the lot. What an intrepid set of urban adventurers. Some of these walks will prove a cycling challenge, but I'm sure they're up to it. I'd like to see, for instance, a calvalcade of cyclist rolling down the mews of Mayfair on trail of the Tyburn surprising the Jaguar owners, or bombing across the Broadgate Centre following the Walbrook and, with any luck, annoying the security guards in the process. Be careful on the Elephant and Castle roundabouts though, which have the Neckinger diving beneath them. And some of the wilder Fleet passes on the high ground of Hampstead Heath may require mountain bikes and suspension to navigate safely.

I'd also recommend fixing a dowsing rod to the handle bars to find out whether it works like an automatic pilot. The bikes will find their own way: all you need to do is freewheel.

Underground living

News from Leamington Spa, where the perennial story of what sewermen find in the sewers is exciting the Leamington Observer. Somewhat lacking in perspective, they report breathlessly that objects recently found in the Leamington sewers include golf balls (quite small really) and a three-piece suite (a what?).

There's something going on here, an inexplicable phenomenon that recurs generation by generation like Springheeled Jack. Furniture, apparently too big to fit through the entrances to a sewer system, has been found underground before. Eric Newby, in his book of travel articles A Traveller's Life, toured several of the London sewers which contain its buried rivers. He was taken on trips along the Fleet and the Tyburn where, explaining at one point that they were below Buckingham Palace, his guide added "You can take it from me that what come down doesn't have 'By Appointment' written on it."

But the same sewermen also told him about the time they found a complete iron bedstead in the Fleet sewer, and concluded that the only way it could have got there was for someone to have dismantled it, and reassembled it below.

Maybe the key to this mystery lies with the the mysterious inhabitants of the Paris Catacombs, who built an underground cinema complex stocked with noir and thrillers, and a a restaurant with "a pressure cooker for making couscous". The Leamington underground doesn't ask for nearly as much, just somewhere to sit in comfort. And maybe indulge in a spot a of golf.

Lost London Rivers launch

The launch party for London's Lost Rivers: a Walker's Guide will be on Wednesday 14th September, at Clerkenwell Tales bookshop - 30 Exmouth Market, London EC1R 4QE.

Books will be available at the stunningly discounted price of £10, there will be a display of prints of SF Said's amazing photos, The Effras will be performing an acoustic number, and there will be mini-walk to a pub on the Fleet.

Everyone is welcome. Come along!

London's Lost Rivers - now available

London's Lost Rivers: a Walker's Guide is now available to order online from Strange Attractor Press. It will be published on 5th September.

It is chock full of river walks - 10 in all - with everything you need to explore London's vanished riverscapes. In the course of these walks you'll peer down drains, listen at manhole covers, find rivers hidden in the bushes, and walk on Thames beaches.

Discover why the Oval is oval; what spirit was made with Fleet water; which buried river was known as the Tigris and which the Nile; which part of south London was the world's lavender capital; and which rivers flow under the Bank of England and Buckingham Palace.

It's an essential book for anyone curious about what lies under their feet.