Kilburn derived its name from the ancient stream which passed through the village until the 1860s. The stream was part of the Westbourne, which started in Hampstead and flowed down the hill through the village of West End (now West Hampstead) to Kilburn.
In ancient documents, Kilburn is spelt in various ways such as, Kyllbourne, Kelebourne, Kilebourne, Kilbourne, Kulleburne. The meaning of the name has been the cause of much debate but is probably derived from the Anglo-Saxon Kyle (cold) and Bourne (water).
The stream was never a large river, and the locals called it a brook or a bourne. It went through what is now the Grange Park and ran parallel to the High Road along what is today’s Kingsgate Road, before passing under the High Road (the Edgware Road) at Kilburn Bridge.
In November 1860 a deputation from Kilburn presented a letter to the Metropolitan Board of Works which complained that the lives of the inhabitants were jeopardised and the value of the property was most seriously depreciated on account of the offensive odours from the open sewer.
Eventually, the stream was culverted in the 1860’s, to form part of the Ranelagh sewer, at the beginning of Joseph Bazalgette’s massive scheme to improve London’s drainage system.
Course of the Stream, from Myers and Barton 2016
The late water engineer Stephen Myers shows the path of the stream plotted on a modern map in his book with Nicholas Barton, ‘The Lost Rivers of London’, Historical Publications 2016.
A closer view of the Kilburn section is provided by the map which John Green Waller the artist and surveyor, made for his 1883 talk at the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society (LAMAS). Waller used earlier maps to plot the course of the stream and these largely match Myers' modern findings.
The stream meandered southwards through the Kilburn meadows, where Keats first recited his ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ to his friend, Benjamin Haydon in 1819. After passing under the Kilburn Bridge, the Kilbourne ran alongside Kilburn Park Road and then near the Paddington Recreation Ground met another stream which began close to Willesden Lane. Now part of the Westbourne, it continued to the Serpentine in Hyde Park before flowing into the Thames near Chelsea Bridge.
Until recently there was a plaque on the wall of the Bird in Hand pub in West End Lane, recording the height of a flood (about a metre, or over three feet), which occurred when the stream in the culvert overflowed during the great storm in August 1975. On a rainy day it is still possible to hear the sound of rushing water by listening at one of the large grates in the road near the pub.
In 1826 there were two bridges over the Kilbourne. A committee of magistrates reported there was a small bridge in West End Lane and the larger one in the High Road. Which they described:
‘Also Kilbourne Bridge of brick and stone with one arch; it is 37 feet wide. The waterway under the bridge is 7 feet wide and 6 feet high. Supposed to have been built in the 13C by the Prior of Kilbourne. It has been widened with brick at two different places. The middle part being the original stone bridge with a gothic arch’.
There is a record of Kilburn Bridge in 1398.
The small Kilburn Priory originated in the 12th Century and was in the Y shape of the two arms of the stream. Like many religious communities, they constructed fishponds from the stream. The last remaining building is shown in a 1790 sketch map from the British Museum. This would be near the junction of today’s Y shape of Priory Road, Priory Terrace and Belsize Road.
The two arms of water are labelled, ‘stream from Childs Hill’ on the left, and ‘stream from Shepherds Fields Hampstead’ on the right.
Sketch map 1790, British Museum
In spite of its financial difficulties, Kilburn Priory continued its daily support for the pilgrims travelling to the shrine of St Albans for 400 years from the early 12C until 1536 when it was dissolved as a lesser monastery (under £200 value) by Henry VIII.
Sketch of the remains of Kilburn Priory in 1750, from Walford ‘Old and New London’, 1878
John Pocock, born in December 1814, was the young son of a local developer who was building houses near what later became Greville Road. He kept a diary about his time in Kilburn, which has been published as ‘Travels of a London Schoolboy, 1826 - 1830’, by Historical Publications, 1996.
Here are some of his entries about the Kilbourne brook.
6 Nov 1826
Sarah Yates and self went up the village to see the fire-works. Guy Fawkes day having been kept today as yesterday was Sunday. A sham battle was very well kept up by the boys who divided into two companies on either side of the Kil-bourne and assailed each other with squibs, crackers etc.
11 Feb 1827
(Cold weather)
Went on the brook sliding with Fred in the morning.
15 June 1828. Sunday
At sunset – we saw two fellows, Battey and another, fighting in the field by the bourne, wicked rascals instead of being at Church. A very delightful Summer day.
17 July 1828
Bathed with Robinson and Vere in the afternoon. (This may have been in the pond formed by the stream).
8 September 1828
Tried the Bourne or Brook in the morning for eels but caught none.
Today unfortunately, none of the stream is visible above ground. But in the 1860s it was necessary to improve the health of the villagers to cover it in Bazalgette’s sewer system.
I do enjoy this stuff! So when I walked to school along Kingsgate Road back in the fifties, I was following the banks of the old Kilbourne. I notice a road named Alexandra Road in that 1883 plan. This road has disappeared, but for a small portion at the east end. The plan shows what appears to be a swampy area around what I think became the Mortimer Estate. Did that area get very wet in the Great Flood of 1975?
ReplyDeleteWhen In was a kid and learned about the lost stream parallel to the High Road (we lived behind Woolworths, later Iceland), I fantasised about putting a little boat into the stream and seeing it turn up in the Serpentine.