The Groundwater Diaries

The Groundwater Diaries, first published in 2003 by Flamingo, is a heavily illustrated London travel book, redemptive quest to discover and walk the routes of  long-buried rivers, in which I use old maps, hallucinogenic high strength lager, dream analysis and an old coat hanger to help me find the city's lost streams. Over the course of a year I walked the routes of many of these lost tributaries of the Thames, drew some sketches and read history books. The book covers the great themes of existence - punk, football, feminism, beer, nurses, politics, free jazz, jellied eels, Dickens, offal, capitalism, sex and death. 

It became an obsessive project.. My feeling was that by tracing these lines I was acknowledging my own buried psychic discomfort, at the same time being open to the mind-altering powers of extra strong lager as a water divining tool.

"The oddest of books, it is an endearing eccentric's humane outlook on life delivered with a rapier wit that can unravel an entire culture as much through its tackiness as its deep-rooted histories."
The Herald

"It's irresistible...bizarre but quite brilliant."
The Bookseller

The New River - Turnpike Lane to Clerkenwell

London is a city of invisible boundaries. Areas alter in atmosphere or architecture in the space of a few yards, and a reason for this might be that the rivers which once flowed were often the borderlines between ancient parishes and settlements. You might walk down a street now and suddenly notice a change in the air. Chances are you have walked across the course of an underground river. The New River would have been no different. Although a recent addition to the waterways of London (about 400 years old), when it was built it would have run through mostly open countryside and settlements would have grown around it.

Some portions of the New River are visible to the naked eye. Yet these sections (for instance, Turnpike Lane to Finsbury Park), which flow silently behind housing estates and terraced streets, seem somehow not as alive as those which have disappeared. It's the ghost parts of the river, now covered by houses, gardens, shops, parks and roads, that get me going more than the algae scum cuts I can see filled with bikes, shopping trolleys and empty plastic Coke bottles.

Searching for lost rivers is, in a way, a spiritual journey, searching for things that I once valued but have lost, like my Yofi acoustic guitar, God, my grandfather's retirement watch, a sense of childlike wonder at the universe, old girlfriends' phone numbers, a large cardboard box containing copies of the New Musical Express from 1979-82, my Sex File. 

The Westbourne - the River of Punk

The Westbourne, a river of similar size to the Fleet, flowed from Hampstead down through Hyde Park to Sloane Square and into the Thames at Chelsea. According to Victorian pedants, the river was originally called the Kilburn (Cye Bourne - royal stream) but has been known, at different times and in different places, as Kelebourne, Kilburn, Bayswater, Bayswater River, Bayswater Rivulet, Serpentine River, Westburn Brook, the Ranelagh River and the Ranelagh Sewer. 

But one name for the stream that the historians have mostly ignored, in their race to be right, is the one that is perhaps the most apt - the River of Punk. For, back in the mid to late seventies, a wealth of bands sprang up around the Westbourne's banks and in the pubs and clubs that mark its course. Had not the river been buried just like the hopes and dreams of thousands of kids across recession-hit Britain? Somehow, these kids had picked up on the energy of the buried stream and transformed it into three-chord guitar gold.

Bibliography

These are some of the books I read while researching The Groundwater Diaries. I've also included some other influential texts which I've enjoyed over the years as well as recent relevant books I've picked up since I finished my research. 
The Lost Rivers of London - Nicholas Barton
(Historical Publications - revised edition 1993)
Originally written as a Phd thesis in the early 1960s, it's been updated and reprinted a few times in book form since then. Up there with the 1972 Topical Times Football Book as one of the great texts of the 20th Century. Concentrates more on the bigger streams. Particularly good on industrial uses for the rivers. Some great old illustrations. At the back is a lovely sketch map with the routes of many of the rivers drawn in. 

London Under London - Richard Trench and Ellis Hillman (John Murray Publishers - 1984)
Similar book to the above but takes a wider view of underground London - sewers, tube lines etc - so far less detail about the rivers. Still worth getting hold of, though.

'Some Lost Rivers of London' - Alan Ivimey (Fleetway House - 1926)
A Chapter in the Wonderful London series of books. Short (but to the point) romantic view of the lost rivers, with some nice digrams. Probbaly hard to find - I;d lend you my copy but I;m always lending my favourite books to people and not getting them back. So get your own.

Springs, Streams and Spas of London - AS Foord (Unwin - 1910) 
Wide-ranging survey and history of London's wells. It's an early twentieth-century volume so long out of print, although most history libraries seem to have a copy. Would be worth updating or someone writing a more contemporary version. But not me.

The Growth of Stoke Newington - Jack Whitehead (Jack Whitehead - 1985)Mostly of interest to locals, nevertheless an interesting way of approaching local history (ie. bung in loads of old maps and charts).
The Fleet - It's River, Prison and Marriages - JE Ashton (Unwin - 1890)
Victorian era study of the Fleet's history. Lots of stuff about conditions in the prisons. Beautiful old map in the front.

'Address to the Auctioneers Auctioneers Institute of the United Kingdom' - JG Head (Guildhall Library - 1907)
A short pamphlet from 1907 - a time of peace and prosperity when lots of people were interested in mad stuff like underground streams. It concentrates on the problems of building above lost rivers.

Glimpses Of Ancient Hackney And Stoke Newington - Benjamin Clarke (Hackney Society - 1986. First published 1894)
Mid nineteenth-century East End bloke talks about how great London was in the good old days.

The Romance of the New River - Metropolitan Water Board (Metropolitan Water Board - 1926) 
Big book with lots of black and white pictures of water. Probably only of interested to obsessive types, except for mention of The New River: A Romance of the Time of Hugh Myddleton by Edmund Fitzgerald. When I saw this I nearly fell off my chair. Shit, I thought, there's nothing new to say is there. So much for my great film ideas. 

The Water Supply of the County of London from Underground Sources - Stephenson Buchan (HM Stationary Office - 1938)
Well, I must have looked at this because I took some notes but I don't really remember it. It's in Haringey History Library, if you're interested.

The Modern Antiquarian - Julian Cope (Harper Collins)
For some reason I neglected to mention this classic in my bibliographical notes for the book. I didn't really use it to research The Groundwater Diaries, but Cope's attitude and ideas have had some influence, particularly the interview he did for Q magazine in the mid-90s. This led me off on a long walk along the Ridgeway to Avebury and got me out walking the streets of London, making notes and drawings. 

Lights Out for the Territory - Iain Sinclair (Granta Publications - 1997) 
After you've read this book, walking around the capital will never be the same again. Sinclair's dense prose sometimes brings each slow step to life, as he and photgrapher Marc Atkins chart London's psychogeography. One of the best books of the 90s, Lights Out will probably turn out to be one of the most influential.

History of Muswell Hill - Ken Gray (Hornsey Historical Society 1999)
People and Places: Lost Estates of Highgate, Hornsey and Wood Green Joan Schwitzer (Editor) (Hornsey Historical Society 1996) 
Notes ahd Queries 
Effra: Lambeth's Underground River - Ken Dixon (Brixton Society - 1993) 
A History of Brixton - Alan Piper (Brixton Society - 1996)

Oxford Dictionary of London Placenames - AD Mills (Oxford Univesity Press - 2000) 
The Pickwick Papers - Charles Dickens The London
Encyclopaedia - Ben Weinreb and Christopher Hibbert (MacMillan - 1983) 
The London Scene - Lewis Melville and Aubrey Hammond (Faber and Gwyer Ltd - 1926) 
Ley Lines: A Comprehensive Guide to Alignments - Danny Sullivan (Judy Piatkus Ltd - 1999) 
Prehistoric London: It's Mounds and Circles - EO Gordon (The Covenant Publishing Company Ltf - 1925)
Silly Verse for Kids - Spike Milligan