I received this brilliant email from Barry Parker with information about the Stonebridge Brook around Culvert Road and Seven Sisters Road.
“As a child I lived in Greenfield Road,N 15.
I received this brilliant email from Barry Parker with information about the Stonebridge Brook around Culvert Road and Seven Sisters Road.
“As a child I lived in Greenfield Road,N 15.
I was passing the Marx Memorial Library on Clerkenwell Green at lunchtime and realised that I’d never actually been inside. Not even as an eager Politics student in my youth. The papery smell in the reading room instantly transported me back through the years. It was intoxicating for a brief moment.
The Library was established on the 50th anniversary of Marx’s death in 1933, ‘with the aim of advancing education, knowledge and learning in the science of Marxism, the history of socialism and the working class movement’, at a time of book burnings in Nazi Germany. It had previously been the print house for Twentieth Century Press which was linked to William Morris and Eleanor Marx (Karl’s daughter). Morris’ contribution is recounted on information plaques around the walls. The fine 18th century building was constructed in 1737 as the Welsh Charity School.
The Lenin Room commemorates V.I Lenin’s presence working in the building between 1902-03 where he published several issues of the newspaper Iskra, which can still be found on the desk. Although this isn’t the exact room in which he worked. During this period Lenin lived nearby in Percy Circus – a plaque marks the building.
The walls are plastered with various socialist and Soviet posters. The Bakers’ Union were having a meeting, so we unfortunately couldn’t see the hall nor the memorial garden to the British International Brigades who fought in the Spanish Civil War.
The Library holds over 55,000 books, pamphlets and periodicals, including some unique collections.
Back in early May I had the pleasure of giving a talk about my new book, Welcome to New London – journeys and encounters in the post-Olympic city for London National Park City as part of Walking Week. The venue was a disused chain coffee shop on Fleet Street, just yards away from where the River Fleet flows beneath Farringdon Road. It was a great evening.
The wonderful artist Liam O’Farrell attended and created the fantastic painting you see above (ok, I’m biased) and wrote a blog post about the event and the book. I’m enormously grateful to Liam for both. You can read Liam’s post here and visit his online gallery of London artworks here.
The Counters Creek has haunted me for a few years, just as the lost rivers of London collectively haunt London. It was there as a presence when I’d documented the protests to save the communities and buildings in Earls Court in 2015 & 2016. It reverberated beneath the tombstones of Brompton Cemetery when I filmed Andrew Kötting dressed as Straw Bear drifting through the portico. And one possible source of the Counters Creek was a marker on my psychogeographic sound trail around Kensal Rise for Brent 2020 London Borough of Culture. So I was well overdue a walk along its course.
The recognised source of the Counters Creek is not up on the Brondesbury Ridge at the junction of All Souls Avenue and Chamberlayne Road, although it seems highly likely that springs from this high ground feed into the river. Both Nicholas Barton in his classic Lost Rivers of London, and Tom Bolton in London’s Lost Rivers – a Walkers Guide, place the source in Kensal Green Cemetery hidden beneath a large stone slab. From here it crosses the Grand Union Canal and flows across Little Wormwood Scrubs, beneath the Westway and down through Notting Dale, the edge of Holland Park to Olympia (where I stopped for a pint and accidentally realised the pub was close to the Countess’ Bridge that gave the river its contemporary name), Earls Court, Brompton Cemetery, Fulham Road, Kings Road, Lots Road, before making a glorious confluence with the Thames in its above ground guise as Chelsea Creek.
It truly is one of the great lost river walks – not as celebrated as the Fleet, Tyburn, Westbourne, or Effra – but certainly worthy of a song as Paul Whitehouse had improvised from the deck of a Thames Clipper as we filmed a chat about the Thames and passed the confluence. It’s a shame that song never made the final cut of Episode 2 of Our Troubled Rivers. But the song of the Counters Creek can still be felt rising through its culvert beneath the streets of west London.
“All I know is that place dictates the story. The petty interventions of humans are of no account. We raid the past to make the present bearable. But there is no present. Just images, scratches, blood colours. Chalk, oil, aerosol: legacy. And outliers to record it.”
P.61
More info
Lea Hall, Leyton – from Leyton & Leytonstone Historical Society
Dreamhouse Records, Leyton
Lea Bridge Library – new pavilion
Vinyl Vanguard, Walthamstow
St Mary’s Church, Leyton
“Fever dreams empty the streets and let the old ghosts out.”
Iain Sinclair, Pariah Genius