Chairman Tony Cobb opened the meeting with an update on the upcoming Summer Lunch which will be held this year at Sonning Golf Club on Tuesday, 5 August 2025.
Our guest speaker was Alan Fitzgerald who gave us a fascinating talk entitled the “Hidden Rivers of London”. Everyone is very familiar with the river Thames in London, but how many know of the multitude of other rivers that flow through and under London? Alan’s talk examined some those ‘lost’ rivers that still exist but are largely unseen. They all join the Thames somewhere along its banks if you know where (and when) to look. Both North and South London have many of these hidden rivers, that together have fascinating stories to tell
He started by explaining that originally the River Thames, as we know it today, was joined with the Rhine! He explained that there are circa 20 rivers in London many of which can be seen when the Thames is at low tide.
His talk focused on about ten of those rivers the names of which go back to Anglo Saxon and Celtic times. Some were originally channelled through hollowed out tree trunks to provide fresh water to the population of London. Most however tended to be used as sewers which helped eradicate the likes of cholera. The longest and most well known is the River Fleet which is navigable up to Kentish Town and gives its name to Fleet Street. The Westbourne becomes the Serpentine and is piped through Sloan Square station! The River Tyburn flows over the Regents Canal and the Tyburn Tales tell of 1100 men and 100 women being hanged near its source. Alan explained that a considerable amount was discovered regarding London’s rivers during the reconstruction following WWII.
Alan went on to give us various interesting facts about the Moselle, New, Effra and Nickinger rivers as well as the Wandle & Ravensbourne. Born in London, Alan began his career as an Apprentice Draughtsman there in a company on the banks of one of these rivers. He has subsequently worked for both American-based IT organisations and European Engineering companies, and he finished his full-time working career at Kingston University, London and Aston University, Birmingham (where he worked Supervising MSc Professional Engineering programmes). He has been a member of the IMechE for 55-years and a Fellow for 30-years.
He concluded his talk with very interesting facts about the London Super Sewer which is actually a huge, elongated reservoir. The project took 8 years to complete and cost £5 billion!
During the Q&A session following the talk it came to light that two of the senior engineers who were responsible for the super sewer project had been junior engineers working for one of our club members when they started out on their careers.