River Fleet

Mouth of the River Fleet ( Samuel Scott, circa 1750)

Template: Infobox River / Obsolete

The Fleet River is a tributary of the River Thames in London, which now flows underground for almost its entire length. Its sources are in the Hampstead Heath and feeds two ponds that were created in the 18th century for drinking water storage. In Camden Town, the two source streams unite. The river flows past the railway stations of King's Cross and Farringdon and flows near Blackfriars Bridge into the Thames.

The upper portion of the River Fleet after the union of the source streams was formerly known as Holburne and gave the district its name Holborn. The river's name comes from the Old English holburna (Bach in a deep valley ) and flēot ( mouth ).

History

In Anglo -Saxon times the then nearly 100 -meter-wide mouth area served as a port for merchant ships and fishing boats. Along the shore, numerous wells have been built and some, such as Bagnigge well and Clerkenwell were awarded healing powers. With the continued growth of the City of London located immediately east of the river became more and more a cesspool. Already in the 13th century was the water as dirty. In the area, the poorer segments of the population settled and developed the Fleet prison, Newgate Prison and Ludgate Prison. Many businesses took advantage of the water power of the Fleet.

After the Great Fire of London in 1666, Christopher Wren proposed to widen the river, but this was rejected. Instead arose to 1680 the New Canal, which has already been filled in again in 1737. The section between Holborn and Fleet Street was channeled underground, the section to the mouth followed 1765th was the construction of the Regent's Canal in 1812, the coverage of the River Fleet in King 's Cross and Camden result. The area near the Farringdon Road was covered in the early 1860s during the construction of the Metropolitan Railway. With the expansion of Hampstead in the 1870s and the uppermost region disappeared into the ground.

As a new line of the London Underground was planned in the 1970s, the term Fleetline was provided for this. But in honor of the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II changed the name in 1977 to the Jubilee Line.

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