Hackney Brook

Rising in Holloway, it crossed the northern parts of the current London boroughs of Islington and Hackney, before emptying into the River Lea at Old Ford.

It then wandered through Abney Park Cemetery to cross at the bottom of the road Stamford Hill to run along the north side of Stoke Newington Common.

In response to this, the Metropolitan Board of Works constructed its northern high-level sewer in 1860 to a design by Sir Joseph Bazalgette to contain the brook and its many tributaries and help flush sewage towards processing plants in the east of London.

Focusing on the reaches below Hackney Central, he called for the creation of a theme route, "encouraging citizens to stroll down from Hackney-on-High to Hackney-on-Sea on a Sunday morning."

Hackney Green Party mayoral candidate Samir Jeraj supported the idea, but Tom Bolton, author of a guide to London's lost rivers, said the scheme was a complete non-starter.

The eastern lake at Clissold Park , Stoke Newington , one of two that mark the original course of the Hackney Brook. It is, however, fed by mains water from the fountain seen here. (January 2006)
Workmen culverting Hackney Brook in Mare Street (c.1900)