Tag: New River Head

269: a trip back in time to 1693

I love secret bits of London and this week the work gang got to see the fabulous Oak Room at New River Head. Not the bit of New River Head that we’re turning into a brand new gallery and gardens, but the bit that’s currently a very grand set of flats on Rosebery Avenue. The header image this week is ‘London from Islington Hill, by Thomas Bowles, c. 1740. New River Head, centre-left, Upper Pond in foreground’. This is from British History Online.

The New River (its compulsory to say at this point that it’s not new and it’s not a river) was finished in 1613 and brought clean water from springs in Hertfordshire to Islington, and from there it was distributed to the City and later to further afield in London via elm pipes. The New River Company was one of the earliest – if not the earliest – joint stock companies, headed by a Welsh goldsmith/engineer/all-round clever chap called Hugh Myddelton. His brother became Lord Mayor of London (the Dick Whittington sort rather than the Sadiq Khan sort) on the very day that the New River was officially opened with lots of pomp and ceremony. There are several excellent books about it, including The Mercenary River by Nick Higham which is well worth a read. Even the King was a shareholder, putting up half the money to build the river in return for half the profits – which also worked to convince the local landowners to let HM dig a river across their lands. The river followed the 100ft contour, so gravity brought it down to London, with a five inch drop over every mile. You can find some pictures of the route here.

The river originally finished at the Round Pond, where the flats are now, and the Water House was where the offices were. The Oak Room was commissioned by the company engineer in 1693, and it was a mark of how important it was that the portrait of King William III that decorates the ceiling was done by the official court painter. The ceiling is covered in plasterwork showing some very fierce dolphins looking like Chinese dragons, swans and other waterbirds, scenes from along the New River, and is incredibly detailed. The dolphins reminded me of this figure we had in the ‘A Pirate’s Life for Me’ exhibition at Museum of Childhood.

It’s called the Oak Room, though, because of the oak carvings – probably done by Grinling Gibbons or at least his workshop. There’s an unusual unicorn in the coat of arms with a most excellently pointy horn, for example, and the carvings around the fireplace include a very cute crab, crayfish, fishing nets and other watery equipment, plants and various fish. Oak is apparently very hard to carve, and the intricate work here is quite stunning. We were lucky enough to be shown around by an expert on the history of the river, who also came to our offices to give us a talk a couple of weeks ago. In its original position in the Water House the room gave a view of St Paul’s Cathedral and the City, but has been turned around in its new home where it was installed in 1920. The head of the Metropolitan Water Board used it as a dining room, apparently, and had a special chair made from the boarding of the Round Pond when it was decommissioned. Now you can see our Engine House from it, complete with scaffolding where our construction team are busy bringing it back to life.

The block of flats itself is very grand, and the entrance includes the seals of all the water companies which were folded into the MWB in 1904. The seal of the New River Company has the hand of Providence over London and the motto ‘and I caused it to rain upon one city’, which made a change from everyone else’s gods and greenery. The ground floor has a huge open space where people used to come and pay their water bills – it looks more like a ballroom – and the carved MWB seal is still over the front door. Parts of the pond revetment can still be seen too.

Our next visit is to the London Museum of Water and Steam in a couple of weeks – can you detect a theme? I’m also going to visit Myddelton House and Gardens on the route of the New River. Lots of history incoming, London fans….

Other things making me happy this week

  • Dropping the first batch of sea creatures off at the British Library, including my very psychedelic crab. Needle felting all the faces was very therapeutic.
  • A long walk last Sunday rambling along the river Roding, seeing hares again and a whole lot of ducklings
  • All the Threads about President Barbie of the new country of Mattel. Apparently Crayola are drawing up the trade agreements. See also: Puppet Regime

Today is long walk day with only a week to go till the Goring Gap half marathon….must remember to hydrate and fuel properly to face my nemesis!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Harbour Street/The Moth Catcher/The Seagull – Ann Cleeves

Interesting Times – Terry Pratchett (Audible)

The Good, The Bad and The Furry – Tom Cox (Audible)

Demon’s Bluff – Kim Harrison

183: oh no, mum’s doing history again

Yesterday I got to spend the day doing one of my very favourite things: talking to random people about history, and London’s history in particular. Even more particularly, New River Head which will be transformed into Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration over the next couple of years.

The occasion was Open House Festival 2023 – a two week celebration organised by Open City when buildings, homes and spaces usually kept behind closed doors are open to the public.

New River Head has been out of use for 70 years, after the New River’s terminus became the reservoirs at Stoke Newington instead of the Islington site and the engines were removed. There’s a lot of interest in our half acre of patchy concrete, cobbles and industrial buildings tucked away behind bits of Thames Water infrastructure, from local residents, illustrators, architects and engineers, historians both amateur and professional, and ex-Thames Water employees. It’s a derelict site in the middle of a conservation area, mostly built by the New River Company itself, and several attempts to redevelop the space have been resisted.

My job today was mostly floating about the place, delivering the odd tour and ad-hoc potted histories of the site which changed depending where I was standing. Having fallen down the Google rabbit hole when reading about the site, and from reading Nick Higham’s excellent The Mercenary River, there’s a lot of trivia bouncing about in this head of mine. There’s an IPA called Five-Inch Drop, made by the New River Brewery and named after the gentle gradient bringing the New River from Hertfordshire to London along the 100-foot contour. The river still provides 10% of London’s drinking water via the Ring Main. Water from the New River was used to fill the tank at Sadlers Wells for the re-enactment of sea battles (and the punters would jump in at the end). A cheeky fox likes to lie in the sun under the buddleia.

The area around the site has its moments too: Myddelton Passage, named after founder of the New River Company Hugh Myddelton, is known for a whole range of anti-social behaviour across time. These days it’s a quiet corner for local youths to conduct some illicit activities, to the horror of the residents, but even way-back-when muggers would lurk in this quiet alley. This meant Victorian policemen on the beat also had to lurk in the area, and a number of them indulged in some ASB of their own in the form of graffiti. A section of the wall is carved with the initials of policemen of Finsbury’s G Division: you can read more about this here. Talk about setting a bad example!

Other things making me happy this week:

  • Thing 1 starting her new college course
  • Rewatching the brilliant Sex Education in preparation for the new series
  • Hiding out from the pouring rain under a gazebo with lots of interesting people
  • Still crocheting mandalas
  • Cinnamon buns made by Thing 2
  • Discovering that our daft pigeons have built a Nerf bullet into their nest
  • Looking down instead of up when walking in London

This week will be focused on National Illustration Day – watch this space!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

The Story Collector – Evie Gaughan

The Keeper of Stories – Sally Page

The Lost Notebook – Louise Douglas

French Braid/Celestial Navigation – Anne Tyler

The Wanted – Robert Crais

An Utterly Impartial History of Britain– John O’Farrell

Monstrous Regiment – Terry Pratchett (Audible)