#neckinger

Jacob's Island , 1887 -- James Lawson Stewart, Watercolour https://www.museumoflondonprints.com/image/65599/jacobs-island-rotherhithe-1887 :A notorious slum on the Nettinger river, site of Bill Sykes downfall in Oliver Twist

24 May - 27 Oct 2019  For: All ages Rec age: 5+ Entry: FREE

Museum of London Docklands    Secret Rivers     (exhibition)

For centuries Londoners have existed beside a series of waterways, which have shaped the city and people within it. The history of this relationship and the art that is has inspired are the focus of our next major exhibition, Secret Rivers.

Secret Rivers uses archaeological artefacts, art, photography and film to reveal stories of life by London’s rivers, streams, and brooks, exploring why many of them were lost over time.

Historic and contemporary artworks from artists, poets and authors will also show how London’s rivers have played an important role in the city’s imaginations. Previously unseen artefacts from excavations of the River Fleet and elsewhere hint at the diverse industrial, economic and religious roles these rivers have played over the centuries.

The intriguing histories of the River Effra, Fleet, Neckinger, Lea, Wandle, Tyburn, Walbrook and Westbourne will all feature in the exhibition. Each river will highlight a broader theme such as poverty, industry, development, effluence, manipulation, activism, sacred association and restoration.

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Walking the lost waterways: the Peck  

https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/museum-london-docklands/event-detail?id=200009

 20th June

Walking the lost waterways: the Tyburn  

https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/museum-london-docklands/event-detail?id=200808

Walking the lost waterways: the Wandle  

https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/museum-london-docklands/event-detail?id=201408

Walking the lost waterways: Hackney Brook  

https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/museum-london-docklands/event-detail?id=201808

Walking the lost waterways: the Effra  

https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/museum-london-docklands/event-detail?id=201609

Walking the lost waterways: the Westbourne

https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/museum-london-docklands/event-detail?id=201610

& other events, talks etc.  

https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/museum-london-docklands/whats-on/secret-rivers-events?series=Secret%20Rivers

http://www.londonisarivercity.com/   – Amy Sharrocks (London, UK):  

Tracing these rivers has been a process of layering: new stories over old, our footsteps over others, roads and railways over rivers. Uncovering a past of London I knew nothing about. Connecting to things submerged beneath our streets has uncovered a currency of the city, and enabled a kind of palm reading of London.  These rivers lost their claim to space in this city, long ago paved over, with their inconvenient tides and smells, to make way for faster roads and railways. These river walks have championed a human speed, that stumbles, stops to look at things, slows down when it is tired. There is a connection to the speed of water, a meandering dérive to battle the rising pace of modern life. We took the measure of London by our own strides, pacing out the city at our own speed

 ---its not a dérive imo

London’s Lost Rivers

– Paul Talling (London, UK):  

This website has been created to promote the book of

London’s Lost Rivers

(2011) (the follow up  to Paul's Derelict London book). Over the years this website is expanding to cover many other London water related topics.  From the sources of the Fleet in Hampstead’s ponds to the mouth of the Effra in Vauxhall, via the meander of the Westbourne through ‘Knight’s Bridge’ and the Tyburn’s curve along Marylebone Lane,

London’s Lost Rivers unearths the hidden waterways that flow beneath the streets of the capital.  Paul Talling investigates how these rivers shaped the city – forming borough boundaries and transport networks, fashionable spas and stagnant slums – and how they all eventually gave way to railways, roads and sewers. Armed with his camera, he traces their routes and reveals their often overlooked remains: riverside pubs on the Old Kent Road, healing wells in King’s Cross, ‘stink pipes’ in Hammersmith and gurgling gutters on streets across the city.  Packed with maps and over 100 colour photographs, London’s Lost Rivers

uncovers the watery history of the city’s most famous sights, bringing to life the very different London that lies beneath our feet

The Lost Rivers of London

– Nicholas Barton & Stephen Myers  (London, UK):  T

Ooh, and having that many cousins about probably meant to much bother to remember everyone's names AND ages. And the ages changed all the time. Actually that's probably the reason he's so bad with kid's ages. That cousin who he could swear was 11 last Christmas just got her driver's license and the 5yo has got his first girlfriend. Far too much hassle to keep track ;

(plus this, I think from a different Anon based on timing)

''he’s been thinking of Nicky as nine for well over two years at this point. You’d think with all those cousins and so on he’d be better than that! '', maybe he just has gotten used to people not ageing ? Like Nightingale,Varvara,Molly ?

Thank you for that clarification Brent-and-Nicky anon, the sarcasm did not translate and I was sitting there going WHICH SCENES DID I MISS, I’M PRETTY SURE I WOULD REMEMBER THIS and searching using different keywords for...uh...definitely a length of time. 

BA is actually pretty good with continuity in the general scheme of things - the only point in the series where it ever goes really off the rails is the question of which book people are trying to steal and why in The Hanging Tree, I can’t think of any other major continuity gaffes. That’s why this one surprises me a bit. And while ‘Peter is bad with ages’ is a good Watsonian explanation, and he does spend a lot of time around people who don’t age...the question of how and why Rivers age is explicitly important in the text (he has that whole conversation with Ty about it!). There has been some discussion in the fandom of whether Beverley is really ~22 (or the appropriate age per book) or just decided to be a teenager for a long time despite Ty saying she was the first of her sisters to realise she could control her aging and what that meant for her relationship with Peter. If Nicky is staying physically 9 for much longer than normal, that’s 1) kinda creepy? and 2) important worldbuilding info. And in any case her physical appearance doesn’t alter her actual age; Nightingale is still 115 even if he looks like he’s 40 or thereabouts, Varvara is still really in her 90s, etc. 

But, yeah, going with the Watsonian explanation is probably the most parsimonious option. At some point kids’ aging does start to happen weirdly (because you’re not paying attention to it) whether those kids are river goddesses or not. :P 

There is one relevant line in Lies Sleeping about all this:

Hey, anon, do you have references for these? I mean, I think you’re correct, but the best references I can find for their ages are Peter surmising that Brent is ‘nursery age’ and that Nicky is ‘no more than nine’ and “what - nine years old?”. I can’t find any scenes in RoL or BH where he has conversations with them about their ages. 

But yes...

Losing its Rivers: following careless London #londonwalks #lostrivers

When we moved into our house we found the end of the garden flooded at the slightest sign of a downpour. In the first summer huge cracks appeared in the path at the back when the heat rose above 22C. Eventually our neighbours told us that a river ran under the back of the gardens, either a tributary to or part of the River Effra. We absorbed that ‘fact’, gave up with some of the planting that…