Walbrook
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The Walbrook river played a key role in the Roman settlement of Londinium, the city now known as London. It is thought that the river acquired its name from the fact that it ran through or under the London Wall. The stream started in what is now Finsbury and flowed right through the centre of the walled city into the River Thames, near to where Cannon Street Railway Bridge is now located, splitting the settlement in two. It was probably used for fresh drinking water and also for carrying sewage down to the Thames. The Romans built a temple to Mithras on the east bank. The temple was discovered and subsequently excavated during rebuilding work after World War II. The Roman Governor's palace was also located on the east bank of the stream, near to its entry point into the Thames. It is said that, when Londinium (also known then as Caer Lundein) fell to the invading Saxons in the late 6th century, all the British (Celtic) inhabitants were forced to live on the east bank of the Walbrook while the Saxons would reside on the west. This ancient division endured as the east side — or East End — continued to suffer in poverty while the west side — of West End — flourished.[citation needed]
The Walbrook river now runs completely underground. The only evidence above ground that the stream is there is a street called Walbrook, which runs parallel to its course. On the street is a church called St Stephen Walbrook, which originally stood on the west bank of the stream, but was rebuilt around 1439 on the east side. In 1666 the church burned down in the Great Fire of London and Sir Christopher Wren built a new church there in 1672 to replace it, which still stands. The historic London Stone, which would have been a highly important religious symbol in Roman as well as pre-Roman London, is also minutes from Walbrook, as is the present-day Bank of England.
In the 1860s excavations by General Augustus Pitt Rivers uncovered a large number of human skulls, and almost no other bones, in the bed of the Walbrook.[1] This has been seen as reminiscent of a passage from Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain (ca. 1136) in which a legion of Roman soldiers who surrendered to Asclepiodotus after being besieged in London were decapitated by his allies the Venedoti, and their heads thrown into a river called the Gallobroc.[2] However, Geoffrey's History is notoriously unreliable, and some historians consider these skulls to be a result of the rebellion of Boudica.[3]
During the 'Carnival Against Capitalism' on June 18 1999, a fire hydrant was let-off on Dowgate Hill by Reclaim the Streets to symbolically represent the freeing of the Walbrook.[4]
The Walbrook is one of many "lost" rivers of London, the most famous of which is the River Fleet.
[edit] References
- ^ Lewis Thorpe, The History of the Kings of Britain, Penguin, 1966, p. 19
- ^ Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Regum Britanniae 5.4
- ^ John Morris (1982), Londinium: London in the Roman Empire p. 111.
- ^ Wat Tyler(2003), Dancing at the Edge of Chaos: a Spanner in the Works of Global Capitalism, in, Notes From Nowhere (Eds.) We Are Everywhere: the Irresistible Rise of Global Anticapitalism188-195. Verso, London/New York 2003 ISBN 1-85984-447-2
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Map showing the location of the street named Walbrook
- Map showing the location of remains the temple of Mithras
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