Henley Probus Club

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, August 5.

Our guest speaker was Alan Fitzgerald, who gave us a fascinating talk entitled “The hidden rivers of London”.

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.

Alan’s talk focused on about 10 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 Sloane Square station. The River Tyburn flows over the Regent’s Canal and the Tyburn Tales tell of 1,100 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 the Second World War.

He went on to give us various interesting facts about the Moselle, New, Effra and Nickinger rivers as well as the Wandle and Ravensbourne. He concluded his talk with very interesting facts about the “London Super Sewer”, which is actually a huge, elongated reservoir. The project took eight years to complete and cost £5 billion.

During the question-and-answer 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.

Henley Probus meets at Badgemore Park on the second Tuesday of each month from 10.45am. It starts with an informal gathering of its members (plus visitors) for a discussion and coffee, with the formal meeting commencing at 11.30am followed by a lunch.

For more information and to join the club, visit henleymens
probus.org.uk/contact-us/ or make themselves known to Roger Griffiths, our membership secretary, on (01491) 575137, email regriffiths
44@gmail.com or to any club member that you may know.

Roger Roberts