page_title: River Fleet
section_title: Today
hierarchical_section_title: River Fleet / Course and tributaries / Today
caption_attribution_description: English: The mouth of the River Fleet, entering the River Thames beneath the Blackfriars Bridge, London.
context_page_description: The River Fleet is the largest of London's subterranean rivers, all of which today contain foul water for treatment. Its headwaters are two streams on Hampstead Heath, each of which was dammed into a series of ponds—the Hampstead Ponds and the Highgate Ponds—in the 18th century. At the southern edge of Hampstead Heath these descend underground as sewers and join in Camden Town. The waters flow 4 mi from the ponds, having as combined sewers taken on foul water, in the Victorian economic but grandiose scheme designed by Joseph Bazelgette to be conveyed by very large sewers to be treated at Beckton Sewage Treatment Works.
  The river gives its name to Fleet Street, the eastern end of which is at what was the crossing over the river known as Fleet Bridge, and is now the site of Ludgate Circus.
context_section_description: The Fleet, or rather the sewer that now follows its route, can be heard through a grating in Ray Street, Clerkenwell in front of The Coach pub (formerly the Coach and Horses), just off Farringdon Road. The position of the river can still be seen in the surrounding streetscape with Ray Street and its continuation, Warner Street, lying in a valley where the river once flowed. It can also be heard through a grid in the centre of Charterhouse Street, where it joins Farringdon Road (on the Smithfield side of the junction). In wet weather (when the sewer system is overloaded), and on a very low tide, the murky Fleet can be seen gushing into the Thames from the Thameswalk exit of Blackfriars station, immediately under Blackfriars bridge. (The tunnel exit shown in the picture can be seen much more clearly from directly above.)
  The former mayor of London, Boris Johnson, proposed opening short sections of the Fleet and other rivers for ornamental purposes, although the Environment Agency – which manages the project – is pessimistic that the Fleet can be among those uncovered.
caption: The mouth of the River Fleet in 2002, appearing as a drainage outlet (obscured in shadow) in the embankment wall beneath Blackfriars Bridge
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