Set off with no aim other than to head in the general direction of Baker's Arms - by the most indirect route practical. Avebury Road always has a certain appeal, the romance of it and only this evening did I spot the compatibility of its conjunction with Southwest Road.
Further up off Bulwer I again clock Hawbridge Road and I play amateur etymology conjoining the prefix 'Haw' = the fruit of the sacred Hawthorne with 'Bridge' to suppose that this was a bridge over the Fillebrooke (PhillyBrook/ Phepes Broke). A rummage in W.H. Weston's History of Leyton and Leytonstone shows a hand-drawn C18th map with the stream running southwest (road?) from Whipps Cross to Ruckholt - a course that would cut through Bulwer. This could have been the Haw Bridge. Another piece of pagan symmetry arising from the Fillebrook is where it once ran through or beside Coronation Gardens in Leyton is today a maze - a pagan symbol of springs and places of worship.
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google map showing the possible course of the Phillybrook - a windmill was recorded as sitting on the banks of the stream where the corner of Francis and Newport Roads is today
I pick up a track off Bulwer Road that runs between backs of houses. There are lock up garages for rent and fly-tipping so elaborate that it borders on installation art - Jeremy Deller recreating a liminal space as a site-specific piece.
The sunset breaks orange over the Lea. A large crow squawks. There's a tyre in a shopping trolley waiting patiently outside a phonebox in front of an electricity substation.
Around the corner in Forest Road there is an absolutely majestic example of the architecture of the electricity substation. These things are like temples to the industrial age. Somebody please do a photographic project on them.
slideshow of photos from the walk
In West End Avenue (where the Fillybrooke was last seen above ground) you can see the back of a large abandoned wing of Whipps Cross Hospital with a noughts and crosses pattern of smashed windows.
It is bitingly cold and I'm a bit peckish but I push on over Lea Bridge Road and along the beguiling Shernhall Road with its amazing views across the Roding Valley and the Lord Raglan pub that encouragingly allows no caps nor hoods. I turn back at the end and head down Addison Road which delivers me to the warmth of The Village pub in time to catch the football results come rolling in.
8 comments:
Ruckholt: is that anything to do with rooks? There is a similarly named feature in the area of West Twyford. You sound like a river man, Sir. I see you traipsing along alleyways behind houses, developing an eye for low points in road surfaces, growing obsessed with sequences of gaps through serried ranks of suburban houses, hanging folornly around that curious conduit just east of where the Great North Road crosses the North Circ after the latter has sliced through the Finchley boulder clays - you undoubtedly know the place well.
Well spotted but everything I know in this regard I learnt from Deep Topographer Nick Papadimitriou. I did some filming with him in Finchley following a water course which came above ground in Arnos Grove (this documentary will be screened in 09). On a visit to Leytonstone Nick pointed out the course of the Fillebrook where it becomes Fillebrook Road (the road sign was not in view). His River-run site is a must read http://middlesexcountycouncil.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=category§ionid=4&id=13&Itemid=27
Thanks for the link. Howver, I read Nick's Riverrun site before contacting you and I must admit I find it disappointing: not only does he show considerable confusion regarding the exact sequence of tributaries joining the Silkstream from off the Edgwarebury uplands (a place I am sure you have visited in the past) but he also conflates two streams that join the Deansbrook in the area of Mill Hill Golf Course - an unforgivable error I feel, especially at such a crucial juncture.
Years ago when I lived off Essex Road South, I knew someone who lived on Hainault Rd whose basement always filled with water (the Fillebrook) when there'd been heavy rain. Same phenomenon seen at the bottom of Newport Rd onto Francis Rd.
thanks for that info - I did wonder about that. I heard similar stories in Islington coming from the various tributaries and springs around the Fleet - some people made features of them in their gardens.
Your blog piece reminds me that I should write up a history walk I led along the course of the Fillebrook. The stream valley is easy to see in many places. Ruckholt does mean Rook Wood and has as many historical associations as you'll find anywhere in Leyton, and the only witchcraft one known to me. And thanks, John, for the praise for the Leyton Lopps leaflets !
Thanks for the comment David - yes I think writing up the walk would be an excellent idea. I was going to suggest writing something with Nick on the Fillebrook if such a thing didn't exist. How about reprising that walk for this year's festival?
I wasn't aware that a maze had a pagan symbolic meaning - thanks for setting me off on another interesting quest.
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