The River Fleet, LON

Ojay/MJS/Leaf...

(pict0r c/o MJS)

At the end of our action packed evening in the big smoke, we dropped into London's most famous of Lost Rivers - The River Fleet..

The River has two sources, one in Hampstead and one in Highgate, which meet close to King's Cross.

Snaking under the streets of Camden, Holborn and King’s Cross, the River Fleet once openly flowed for four miles from Hampstead Ponds to the Thames at Blackfriars Bridge.

Best summed up by the Otter - "The River Fleet, the grail of London. The first stop for any drainer passing through our sleepy shores. Its astonishing mix of large tunnels, gigantic chambers, intriguing features and historical value is enough to make even the strongest of men weak at the knees".

He's not wrong there, he also did tell me to see it ALL you would need to spend 10 solid days in there minimum!

We only had about 3-4 hours to spare, and we had to fit around the low/high tides as well, so by the time we had exited literally only seing a small fraction of what's on offer here, besides all three of us were f00ked after hitting quite a few systems through the night, still it delivered.

We got as far as 'The Split', which MJS had mithered about seeing, and infact probably only around 500m from the tidal chamber, however time was against us and the high tide was approaching so we made our way back up to street level as soon as we had taken a few pics.

So many side-pipes, and so much left to see of the Fleet I will certainly be back here sometime very soon...

Downstream of Mid-Level Interceptor 

Heading Downstream

Here a set of stairs as the River curves under Farringdon

Further Downstream

'The Split'

(Around 500m further downstream the Tidal Outfall Chamber)

Beyond 'The Split' - Time to leave as the tide was heading back in..

We popped out of a lid right next to a load of workers suited & booted on their way to work, after we exchanged funny looks and a cry of "Survey" from MJS we headed to a nearby pub to de-wad0r and crack open some beers, a quick look at the time 7:30am cool an hour and a half to get back to the coach station - Goodtimes!