Falconbrook

The Falconbrook was a stream that rose in Balham and Tooting, draining much of those parishes then the south and west of the larger district of Battersea including Clapham Junction to enter the London reaches of the Thames.

[1] In 2007, heavy rain caused this to flood, to low but still property-damaging depth, at Falcon Road near Clapham Junction station.

The earliest recorded name for the brook was the Hyde Burn or Hydebourne, appearing as Hydaburn or Hidaburn in Cartularium Saxonicum defining grants of land in Battersea made in 693 and 695.

[4] Falconbrook's catchment basin, unlike longer tributaries such as the Lea and Wandle, is entirely based on impermeable to semi-impermeable London Clay.

[8] An entirely London Clay catchment basin and flatter lower course through Battersea was, before urbanization, a major factor contributing to the stream's overflow.

[9] Thames Water carried out work at the end of 2006 to resolve the flooding of the Falconbrook sewer in the north of Balham, involving a series of road closures.