Who2 wrote:
Ps: 'Well why would you ? unless you were 'nipping around rooftops as a nipper !
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Never mind the Rooftops, under those drains in the streets of Clerkenwell, you will hear the sound of rushing water. That is the River Fleet.
It was in effect buried due to Clerkenwell being the old industrial area of London and had barges supplying it, but due to the industry and slaughterhouses and tanneries, the river got so polluted it was the worst in London, so it was in effect covered over and now runs through large sewer like tunnels.
Many Rivers and Brooks in London got the same treatment, and this of course was in part to make way for new streets so that goods could travel by road, which in itself cause congestion and so the Underground was born to alleviate the congestion on the streets. The first tunnel under the Thames was infact a pedestrian tunnel before it was seconded by the Train Underground system.
Incidently, Harry Beck was the man responsible for simplifying the confusing geographically correct map of the London underground system, he got the inspiration from an electric circuit diagram, and it made commutes life a lot easier to plan journeys on said underground..
Beck was the name for a small river in the Dales where I used to live, our house was close to Arkle Beck. in Cumbria a Beck was known as a Ghyll, though most bodies of water, be it river, lake waterfall, etc had the word Lyn in them form the old days. Lings Lyn The Welsh word for a Lake is Llyn.. Kings Lynn in Norfolk for example gets its name due to the presence of Water..
When I left art college, I combined my love of technical stuff with art and worked for a company who made automated ticket machines for the Dublin underground. Part of my job was to convert the engineers designs into drawings that would be sent off to create circuit boards. That job eventually took me off to the Isle of Man to live and enjoy some of the best summers of my life..