Nice!

Fleeting BLACKFRIARS Let's finish off my five-part walk down the River Fleet by following the long-buried section through the City of London. It's barely a ten minute walk from Smithfield to the Thames but packed with interest, so much so that 20 years ago I spent a week writing about it, but this'll be a more fleeting precis. Relevant landmarks along the way include Holborn Viaduct, Ludgate Circus and Fleet Street, obviously, plus several structures that weren't here back in August 2005. And OK there's no sight or sound of the river this time but the signs are everywhere. The Fleet enters the City beside Smithfield Market. The area was originally known as Smooth Field, a grassy bank leading down to the river, hence the ideal place for a cattle market. Of the subsequent buildings the closest is the General Market Building, long vacated and currently being reimagined as a home for the London Museum which is due to open next year. The Victorian facade isn't quite ready so is screened at present by a long white hoarding featuring 33 pigeons each decorated by an artist from a different London borough. Here we read "These hoardings are a creative expression of our new brand identity", also that the museum will be "a shared place where all of London's stories cross and collide", and I fear that someone at the museum may have paid their strategic narrative agency too much money. The standout structure hereabouts is Holborn Viaduct, or the Holborn Valley Viaduct as it was known when the foundation stone was laid in 1867. The valley of the Fleet is particularly pronounced here, so for centuries cross-town traffic had been forced to dip down Holborn Hill and climb Snow Hill on the opposite side. The new cast iron span was over 400m long, supported on granite piers, and cost over £2m in conjunction with the associated road improvements. It still looks gorgeous with its red and gold gloss exterior and dragon-supported City arms, plus four statues on the upper parapets representing Commerce, Agriculture, Fine Arts and Science. Look underneath to find arched vaults, one currently occupied by a wine merchant, or head to one of the four corner pavilions to find staircases connecting top and bottom. The two southside stairwells are gloriously evocative whereas the northside pair are modern rebuilds with less character, lifts and in one case a huge tiled mural depicting the viaduct's construction. Holborn Bridge, now Holborn Viaduct, once marked the Fleet's tidal limit. North of here the river was originally known as the Holebourne, literally the stream (bourne) in the hollow (hole), in case you'd never realised how the name Holborn was derived. South of here the river lived out its final days as a canal, Sir Christopher Wren having transformed the filthy channel into what he hoped would be a majestic 50-ft-wide waterway after the Great Fire. Things didn't quite turn out as hoped, the water soon silted up again and under private ownership the canal fell into disrepair. In 1733 the section between Holborn and Ludgate was arched over and topped off with a long line of market stalls - the Fleet Market - which was eventually cleared away in 1829 after becoming a dilapidated impediment to traffic. Although Farringdon Street is a Victorian creation this valley section feels increasingly modern as large-scale office developments inexorably replace the buildings to either side. Goldman Sachs massive HQ occupies a huge block as far down as Stonecutter Street while a new 13-storey curtain of student accommodation is rising opposite adjacent to Holborn Viaduct. Its hoardings are emblazoned with Fleet-related ephemera and artefacts, quite impressively so, including pewter tankards, Turnmills flyers and fascinating double page spreads from old books. One consequence of construction is that Turnaround Lane has been wiped from the map, a medieval alley so called because if you drove a cart down it to the river you'd have to come back up again. Of the handful of parallel alleys that survive, all have been relegated to become dead-end service roads for adjacent office blocks, each brimming with nipped-out smokers. The notorious Fleet Prison was once slotted between Bear Lane and Seacoal Lane, originally located here just outside the City walls after the Norman Conquest. Its 19th century replacement was the Congregational Memorial Hall, birthplace of the modern Labour Party, whose memorial plaques can be seen embedded in the wall of the latest office block to grace the site. Back in 2005 this was a huge hole in the ground and now it's the Fleet Place Estate, a split-level generic mass of workspace offering KERB streetfood and "best-in-class end-of-commute facilities". Close by is Ludgate Circus, originally the site of Fleet Bridge, the key river crossing on the medieval road between Westminster and the City. To one side was Ludgate Hill and on the other side Fleet Bridge Street, its name subsequently shortened to Fleet Street. The bridge was essentially buried at the same time as the river in the 1760s, and the current concave crossroads appeared 100 years later. Blackfriars Bridge and not its Victorian replacement. This was the second section of the Fleet to be arched over, covering Wren's former wharfage, a hollow subsequently used to funnel both the Fleet Sewer and the Fleet Relief Sewer towards the Thames. It's a fairly lacklustre road today, its bland nature exemplified by the presence of Fleet Street Quarter's Green Skills And Innovation Hub halfway down. It would have looked considerably more magnificent 500 years ago when Henry VIII built a royal palace here, and far less appealing a century later after that had evolved into the Bridewell house of correction, lowest of the Fleet's three notorious lockups. The Bridewell Theatre round the back is a much more recent addition inside a converted Victorian swimming pool. On the opposite bank was Blackfriars Priory, which despite being dissolved 500 years ago still manages to lend its name to much of the modern locality. As well as the bridge there's also the railway station, which now spans the Thames, and the tall thin Black Friar pub whose exterior mosaic features two friars dangling a fish by the mouth of the Fleet. The expansive road junction here was originally called Chatham Place and is now a major feeder of bicycles as well as passing cars. Until 2017 it was possible to descend to the walkway beneath Blackfriars Bridge, peer down and see the outfall where the brick-chambered Fleet Sewer overspilled into the Thames. The best view was from a staircase that no longer exists, this because the Tideway super sewer took control and has been refashioning the waterfront for several years longer than originally intended. 110m of fresh foreshore is scheduled for completion next month, and already looks nearly ready, while the former outfall has been encased behind a slabby protrusion that'll feed any brown sludge into the mega-tunnel 48m below. And that's my fleeting return to the Fleet completed, a five-part skim down the river from fledgling peaty trickle at Kenwood to brand new post-Bazalgette megapipe at Blackfriars. Its path is rarely visible but can often be easily traced if you know where to look, and hides a fascinating fluvial history. What's more it's changed far more than I expected since I last blogged the Fleet 20 years ago, so who's to say I won't come back in 2045 and give it another go? The original August 2005 Fleet posts All five of this year's posts on a single page The original 170 Flickr photos 75 Fleeting photos from 2025 (21 from round here) [click the little icon top right to get a slideshow] history of the River Fleet (2009) map of lost rivers 1300 map, 1682 map, 1746 map, 1746 map, 1790 map

It's the Circle line, but not as we know it...

You might think not much happens in Moor Park, but on 30th August 1525 Henry VIII turned up to sign a peace treaty with the French. The venue was a magnificent moated palace owned by Cardinal Wolsey said to rival Hampton Court, and the outcome involved the surrender of land and a substantial annual pension. None of this feels remotely likely as you step off a Metropolitan line train and enter privileged leafy suburbia. But history was made here, just behind the detached houses on Sandy Lodge Road, when The Treaty of the More was signed exactly 500 years ago today. The history bit Henry VIII of England, Francis I of France and Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor. For four years Francis and Charles fought a series of battles in northern Italy, with Henry nominally supporting Charles in the hope of gaining lands in France. In February 1525 the French were firmly defeated and Francis was taken prisoner, however Charles showed no interest in supporting Henry's claims. Henry thus switched sides, supporting French attempts to get Francis released and deliver a diplomatic peace. French ambassadors travelled to the More, a palace in Hertfordshire, and on 30th August 1525 signed The Treaty of The More. As part of this document Henry agreed to give up territorial claims across the Channel, Calais excepted, and in return the French agreed to pay him an annual pension of £20,000. The palace bit The More was a medieval manor house by the river Colne near Rickmansworth, nothing special until a wealthy London merchant called William Flete blinged it up with fortifications and a moat in the 1420s. The Archbishop of York bought the house in 1462, attracted by its 600 acre estate, before he fell out of favour and the Crown took ownership instead. In 1522 Cardinal Wolsey moved in, one of his many roles being that of Archbishop of St Albans, and set about enlarging it to palatial standards. It was thus the ideal place to show off to Henry VIII and the French in 1525 when The Treaty of the More was signed. A French ambassador said he thought the house more splendid than Hampton Court, but although it may have been as turrety it was definitely rather smaller. The location bit threads through the area, not a single river but a main channel plus various braids. You can still see the streams that fed the moat, or at least their evolved counterparts, if you walk round to the Withey Beds Nature Reserve. It's one of the few remaining wetlands in Hertfordshire and named after an old English term for a place of willow coppicing. I wandered in down its grassy path (alongside reptile mats labelled Do Not Remove) to the gate of a squelchy meadow where cattle graze, a scene that looked almost Tudor apart from the WW2 pillbox in the corner. A local wildlife group helps to maintain the reserve, and is currently trying to persuade the council to repair the boardwalk across the marshiest corridor after a tree fell and damaged it. It's a lovely spot but only fractionally accessible and also only reachable along a rather hairy road with no pavement. Now called Tolpits Lane it was once known as Wolsey's New Road, I guess 500 years ago, and still crosses the mighty Colne at a bridging spot Thomas would have recognised. Another history bit Catherine of Aragon was banished here in the autumn of 1531, just far enough from London to be conveniently forgotten. She spent only 6 months at the More before being moved onto Hatfield House, but this modern suburb never had a posher resident than the Queen of England. Another palace bit the Manor of the More was redecorated, repainted and hung with lavish tapestries. The grounds were also upgraded with facilities for archery, two deer barns and a couple of grandstands for watching the hunting. But later monarchs weren't so interested and by the time the Earl of Bedford took the lease in 1576 the fabric of the building was deemed too far gone to be restored. One of the biggest problems was the foundations, because it turns out building a palace alongside the River Colne was great for filling the moat but also made everything susceptible to flooding. A later Earl solved the problem by building a brand new house half a mile away on higher ground, this the building we now know as Moor Park Mansion, and the ruins of the More were summarily demolished. No trace remains, which makes a visit to the site essentially pointless. The site visit bit school's subsequently been built on top of it. Northwood Prep moved here in 1982, thankfully nudged to one side because the the manor is a scheduled ancient monument, hence they laid their sports pitches across the footprint of the former palace. These cover a conveniently large area and are completely screened from round about, hence the only way you get to visit the site is during games lessons if your parents are willing to fork out £8183 a term for your education. It must add a certain frisson to know that you're doing your rugby practice where Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon once slept, also it means the history department's field trips don't require travelling far. Since a merger in 2015 the school's been known as Merchant Taylors' Prep, the lower half of the prestigious private boys school on the other side of the railway. It's possible to look down into the prep school car park from a passing train, where apparently they have display boards recounting the history of the Manor of the More, but I didn't manage to catch a glimpse myself. Another site visit bit episode of Time Team where Tony Robinson and archaeological pals unearthed the foundations of the gatehouse under the cricket pitch because it's as comprehensive a nod to The Treaty of The More as we're ever likely to get. In Moor Park 500 years ago, who'd have guessed?

A glimpse into the future?