London’s Hidden River Pubs, Part 1 - 600 Years Off Course

Beneath London’s bustling streets flows a river you’ve never seen—and until now, we’ve all been walking it wrong. In this world exclusive, Publicity uncovers the true path of the lost Walbrook River, hidden for over 600 years. 

Join Expat Andy as he follows this buried waterway from Roman Londinium through plague pits, pubs, and surprising side streets. From Islington’s ghostly springs to Shakespeare’s stomping grounds, this is history with a pint in hand and a story around every corner. 

Transcript

PUBLICITY - LONDON BY PUB

EPISODE 4 - Pubs of London’s Lost Walbrook River - Part 1

[VOICE - COLD OPEN]

Beneath the Bank of England, Mansion House - some of the priciest real estate on Earth… a river still flows.

The Romans built a temple to Mithras on its banks. Medieval tanners dumped waste into it. By 1600, it was buried - London’s first lost river, hidden long before The Great Stink or Bazelgette’s Victorian sewers.

Until 2016, we’d been walking the wrong route for 600 years.

We have a world exclusive on Publicity - London By Pub. We’re walking both branches of the lost Walbrook River stopping at some cool historic pubs and an M&S for a picnic in Finsbury Circus along the way. You won’t find this in any guidebook.

What makes a waterway so disgusting you’d want to bury it? Let’s find out.

I’m Expat Andy, your host - broadcasting from Miami, in the Sunshine State.

[MUSIC – INTRO]

Experts suggest twelve,twenty one, or twenty five lost rivers in London. We’ll walk the corrected route of the first river to vanish - the Walbrook. I picked the Walbrook since it was vital to the founding of Roman Londinium – the first recognized settlement that formed modern London.

Buried between 1440 and 1600, the Walbrook’s been underground for more than four centuries. Unlike most river walks, you won’t see a drop of water.

Beneath the city, the Walbrook bears witness—silenced, but never still. On high ground in Islington, a lone researcher stirs a long-dormant source. The western branch wakes, sniffing the strange new air, remembering the path it once carved south—toward a secret reunion beneath Finsbury Circus.

Across the city, the eastern branch slinks through Hoxton—low, watchful, drawn by the same magnetic pull.

Then—disruption. New tributaries surface, unexpected. Shockwaves scatter walking tour routes, maps, city engineers, and pub chatter. The story shifts.

[MUSIC – BUMPER 1]

ACT 1: THE WALBROOK - RIVER THAT BUILT ROMAN LONDON

The Walbrook gets its name from Old English "Weala Broc" - Brook of the Strangers.

Oddly, Anglo-Saxon invaders used Weala - the eventual name for the Welsh, for any indigenous people they encountered. It’s ironic - newcomers from Germany and Denmark calling the original inhabitants “Foreigners” in their own land. The name suggests that in the 5th and 6th centuries, native Britons were still living in London, even after the Romans had withdrawn.

The Walbrook’s deeper story begins centuries earlier - in 47 CE, when the Romans founded Londinium at its confluence with the Thames. The river cut straight through the city. To the west, higher status Ludgate Hill became home to the forum and later St Paul’s. To the east, Cornhill was quieter, more residential, with temples along its marshy banks.

The Walbrook was vital to Roman London - providing a freshwater source, power for mills, sewer system, sacred site, and transport route. Small boats could navigate up from the Thames, at least as far as where Mansion House sits today. This wasn't just a stream - this was infrastructure.

Centuries later, this same river would divide Anglo-Saxon settlers from the remaining Britons - named not just for the people it touched, but the ones it separated.

Our website episode page details the full route of the Walbrook street by street with accompanying maps.

[MUSIC – BUMPER 2]

ACT 2: HOW TO MAKE A RIVER DISAPPEAR

Fun fact about using a river as both your water source and your sewer - eventually, it stops being one and becomes entirely the other.

By 1383 complaints rolling into the council when the Court of Common Council ordered Aldermen to inspect latrines near the Walbrook because of what they described as an,

“Immense amount of filth present in the river."

Medieval Londoners dumped everything into their waterways - human waste, industrial runoff from tanneries and dye works, slaughterhouse offal, dead animals. The Walbrook became what one historian called "filthy, full of rubbish and sewage." Londoners had had enough of the smell.

In 1440 the Lord Mayor Robert Large ordered the lower section of the Walbrook covered over. Over the next century and a half,more sections were vaulted over with brick and paved level with the streets.

By 1598, the historian John Stow wrote that houses had been built over the hidden stream. By 1600 - a full 258 years before The Great Stink, and 259 years before Bazalgetteeven started planning his sewers - the Walbrook had completely disappeared. London's first lost river.

[MUSIC – BUMPER 3]

ACT 3: THE WESTERN BRANCH – THE ONE THAT TIME FORGOT

How can a branch of a river disappear?

Monks of Charterhouse Monastery - You Know Anything About That?

Charterhouse Monastery, a Carthusian order, was founded in 1371 by Sir Walter de Manny and Bishop Michael Northburgh on land next to a mass burial site from the Black Death. The site, now Charterhouse Square, was originally leased in 1348 for an emergency cemetery and chapel. The plague claimed 60% of London’s population.

During Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries (1535–1537), the London Charterhouse was seized by the Crown. Prior John Houghton refused to accept the King as head of the Church and was hanged, drawn, and quartered with two fellow monks. Their heads were displayed on London Bridge, and Houghton’s hand was nailed to the monastery gate. Most remaining monks were later executed or starved in Newgate Prison.

In 1545, the estate passed to Sir Edward North, Court of Augmentations handling confiscated monastic properties. He converted the former monastery into a grand Tudor mansion - repurposing its existing structures.

The mansion later passed to several noblemen, including Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk. Elizabeth I stayed there before her 1558 coronation and met her first Privy Council in the Great Chamber. James I also stayed before his coronation, knighting 130 men in the same room.

In 1611, Thomas Sutton purchased the Charterhouse and founded a charity that still exists today - an almshouse for up to 80 “poor Brothers” and a school for 40 boys. Notable alumni include William Makepeace Thackeray and John Wesley.

The Charterhouse was badly damaged during the Blitz in May 1941. A charred half-door from the bombing is displayed at the chapel entrance.

Architects John Seely and Paul Paget restored the Charterhouse between 1945 and 1959. During the work, Sir Walter Manny’s grave was discovered and is now visible in the Chapel Courtyard.

In 2013, Crossrail excavations uncovered 25 skeletons in Charterhouse Square - one with evidence of Black Death bacteria is displayed in the museum.

The Charterhouse is free to visit, but the paid tour is recommended. The museum holds a 1450 parchment map of its water system- our link to the lost western branch of the Walbrook.

By 1430, the monastery, recognizing the problem of plague grave contaminated water, diverted Walbrook-fed springs into pipes to supply clean water.

The diversion worked so well that, within a generation, the western branch of the Walbrook was forgotten. For 600 years, maps and guides placed the river’s origin solely to the east in Shoreditch.

Then in 2016, researcher Stephen Myers made a breakthrough: the Walbrook wasn’t a single stream, but two parallel branches about a mile apart, divided by a low ridge near Vestry Street.

The western branch began in Barnsbury (40m elevation); the eastern in Hoxton (25m). They ran south for over a mile before meeting at Finsbury Circus.

Myers’ work doubled the Walbrook’s known catchment - revealing we’d been walking only half the river for six centuries.

[MUSIC - BUMPER 4]

ACT 4: THE WESTERN BRANCH - FROM ISLINGTON TO FINSBURY CIRCUS

[MAP 1]

Closest public transport - Angel London Underground.

Walking distance - 2.9 miles.

Walk from closest public transport to the start of our walk - 0.4 miles.

Total walking distance - 3.3 miles.

Islington's name derives from “Ishel" - signifying "lower," and "dun," or "don" - town or fortress.

Exit Angel Station and head to a pub - The Crown at 116 Cloudesley Road, N1 0EB. It’s close to the source of the Western Branch under Cloudesley Square to our east. This Grade II Listed pub was built and owned by the Cloudesley Estate Trust in 1821with an endowment from Islington resident Richard Cloudesley’s will. It converted first to a Beer House, then a licensed pub in 1841. In 2023, trustees sold the freehold to Fuller’s - the sale part of a strategy to support the Cloudesley Charity’s community work, ensuring the pub stays anchored in the neighborhood.

We’ll head into Cloudesley Square, and south through the Culpepper Community Gardens. Look to your south across Tolpuddle Street.  There, just south of Sainsbury’s is White Conduit Street.

The name comes from the gravity-fed pipe monks used to carry water from Barnsbury to Charterhouse Monastery, marking the start of the lost western branch of the Walbrook. A small white stone house once stood at its source.

By the 17th century, a small stone structure called White Conduit House was built near the original conduit - functioning as alehouse and hotel. By 1745, there was a larger stone building with a Long Room, pleasure gardens, a circular fishpond and graveled walks with arbors.In 1754, proprietor Robert Bartholomew introduced cricket in the adjoining meadow. Another new, larger structure opened in 1829 as a teahouse and alehouse with live music.

It was demolished in 1849 - the current neighborhood unrecognizable from its past.

The last site of White Conduit House is marked by the former White Conduit House Tavern at 14 Barnsbury Road, N1 0H, on the corner with Dewey Road, southwest of Culpepper Community Gardens. Now a Georgian restaurant,the Victorian pub building still bears “The White Conduit” carved into its pediment.

Culpepper Community Gardens sits on part of the original pleasure grounds.

From 1782 to 1788, the cricket meadow hosted the White Conduit Cricket Club. Frustrated by a public footpath crossing the field, members asked club attendant and cricketer Thomas Lord to find new grounds. He secured a site at Dorset Square in Marylebone, founding The Marylebone Cricket Clubin 1787 at what became Lord’s Old Ground.

Redevelopment forced two relocations - to Lord’s Middle Ground in 1811(lost to Regent’s Canal), and finally to its current site in St John’s Wood in 1814 - on a slope with a duck pond. 

We’ll cut northeast out of Culpepper Community Gardens onto Ritchie Street up to our next stop. The Angelic at 57 Liverpool Road South, N1 0RJ.

Opened as The George IV in 1824. Later renamed after film The Angelic Conversation – honoring the director Derek Jarman who lived across the street. It’s a CAMRA One Star Pub due to its,

“Interior of special national historic interest”.

The pub’s impressive late Victorian/Edwardian corner design reflects a common trend - pubs built first in new developments to house navvies and laborers. Corner locations allowed for multiple entrances - public bar, saloon, lodging.

Other historic corner pubs nearby include:

•             The Pig & Butcher at 80 Liverpool Road, N1 0QD. Opened in 1827 as The White Horse Hotelon fields once used to rest livestock headed to Smithfield Market.

•             The Islington Town House at 13 Liverpool Road, N1 0RW. Opened in 1865 as The Agricultural Hotel. Named for its proximity to the former Royal Agricultural Hall,built in 1861 for livestock exhibitions by the Smithfield Club.

Leaving The Angelic, we follow the buried Walbrook southeast along Liverpool Road, lined with listed Georgian terraces and Victorian villas. Once called the Back Road, it was one of three historic routes meeting at the Angel Inn. From the 16th century, it crossed open countryside as a key drovers’ road, with cattle rested in pens called “layers”, before reaching Smithfield Market.

Turnpike tollgates were added in the 1760s, with development starting soon after around Paradise Row. After the Napoleonic Wars, Liverpool Road became a focus for speculative housing, with plots leased across Barnsbury in the 1820s.

Renamed Liverpool Road in 1826 after Prime Minister Robert Jenkinson, Earl of Liverpool, the area initially attracted middle-class families. With the rise of the railways, many left for the suburbs. By the 1860s, houses were divided into flats and tenements.

Liverpool Road was hit multiple times during WWII, including a devastating V-2 rocket strike in December 1944 that destroyed the Prince of Wales pub and killing 68 people.

Post-war, much of the housing became council owned. By the 1960s, middle-class residents began returning, drawn by affordable, character-filled homes - sparking gentrification that continues today.

Notable residents include Pickwick Papers illustrator Robert Seymour; actors Derek Jarman, Jenny Logan, Anton Rodgers, and Jane Stephens; bird artist Peter Paillou; and F1 journalist Laurence Edmondson.

Continuing southeast on Liverpool Road, over the Islington Canal Tunnel, dropping in elevation to The William IV at 7 Shepherdess Walk, N1 7QE - just off City Road north up Shepherdess Walk.

Built in 1838, named after the, "Sailor King”,this beautifully restored pub was saved from demolition in the 1960s and still sports original Charrington lanterns from its Wenlock Brewery days. Surrounded by Georgian terraces and tech startups, it has witnessed Islington’s transformation.

Back southeast on City Road to rejoin the Walbrook route. At Baldwin Street, check out two classic pubs. 

The Old Fountain at 3 Baldwin Street, EC1V 9NU - a family-run spot since the 1960s known for Jim Durrant’s sandwiches. The pub is at least 200 years old, and likely got its name from a local well or fountain – evidence of the buried Walbrook, still flowing beneath in Victorian brick culverts.

The Three Crowns at 8 East Road, N1 6AD - a striking, green-tiled corner pub dating to 1803.

We’re now near Old Street Roundabout AKA “Silicon Roundabout” where tech giants like Google and Amazon sit alongside co-working hubs. The Old Fountain likely takes its name from a nearby well—possibly fed by the buried Walbrook, still flowing beneath in Victorian brick culverts.

Southeast down East Road to rejoin City Road and the Western Branch as it flows south under City Road to meet the Eastern Branch just south of Finsbury Circus East roughly at 12 Blomfield Street.

This ends the Western Branch part of our walk.

[MUSIC – BUMPER 5]

ACT 5: THE EASTERN BRANCH - SHAKESPEARE LAND

[MUSIC – BUMPER 6]

Now let's jump east a mile to Hoxton, where the Walbrook's eastern branch begins its journey south. Hoxton appears in the 1086 Domesday Book as Hochestone - likely after a landowner - Hocg, combined tun, meaning fortified settlement.

There are two sources for the eastern branch.

[MUSIC – BUMPER 7]

Eastern Branch Source 1 – Hoxton to Shoreditch

[MAP 2]

Closest public transport – Old Street London Overground.

Walking distance - 0.6 miles.

Walk from closest public transport to the start of our walk - 0.5 miles.

Total walking distance - 1.1 miles.

Start our walk by exiting Old Street Station. Note the impressive terracotta and red granite building at 104 – 122 City Road.That’s Imperial Hall – built in 1903, and former home of The Leysian Mission. 

The mission was inaugurated in 1904 by Prince and Princess of Wales (future King George V and Queen Mary). 

The mission provided healthcare and education to underprivileged families in the East End predating the NHS and Welfare State. 

The building’s Great Queen Victoria Hall seated nearly 2,000 people, housed a magnificent organ and stunning stained-glass windows by W. J. Pearce of Manchester, heavily influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement.  All destroyed during the Blitz of WWII.

In 1955, a reconstructed, smaller version of the Great Victoria Hall within Imperial Hall was opened by Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, who acknowledged the achievements of the Leysian Mission.

Thankfully the building was granted Grade II Listing in 1987.

This beautiful building, complete with, be still my beating Welsh heart – its Welsh slate roof, was converted for residential development in the 1998 – the grand concert hall becoming flats. Stunning stone and window details were sealed up in plaster boxes; the glorious foyers of the concert hall left as meaningless hallways. Preserved, if hidden.

In 2011 building residents took over the management of their building under the RTM or “Right To Manage”. RTM is a statutory right under UK law that allows leaseholders of flats to take over the management of their building from the freeholder or current managing agent. In 2013 the residents purchased the building freehold. An unusual model for the UK residential market, Imperial Hall today functions much more like a US condominium or HOA, with residents collectively owning and managing the building.

By 2014, conservation policy had shifted. Architects Atelier Chang were retained by the building’s management association to conduct a sensitive restoration of the building, returning its initial design. 

Let’s get up to the start of our river walk around Cherbury Street. We’re in an area heavily bombed during WWII. Post war housing estates abound. The source of this branch of the Walbrook is under Cherbury Court on the St. John’s Estate next to the Cranston Estate. 

Before WWII, the area around New N Road and Cherbury Road, on the Islington side of Pitfield Street, formed part of a densely developed Victorian neighborhood, characterized by terraced housing, and mixed residential and commercial uses.

Some Victorian terraces remain further up New N Road at 237-263 New N Road, but as you walk but as you walk southeast down New N Road, by the time you reach Shoreditch Park, and notice the numbers of brick post war estate housing, the scale of the bomb damage is unbelievable. What this area must have endured during the Blitz is heartbreaking.

It’s easy to be critical of this style of housing in modern times but imagine the housing crisis in post-war London, but let’s consider the context. 

Across London during the Second World War, roughly 200,000 houses were destroyed, 250,000 made uninhabitable, and three million damaged. 

 A displaced population needed replacement housing, fast. Social housing – known in the UK as, “Council Housing” was the solution. Between 1945 and 1949, the London County Council (LCC) built 44,000 new homes in London alone. 

At the source of the Walbrook’s branch we’re walking today, we have these examples of post war council housing replacing earlier Victorian terraces, and yes pubs: 

·       Wilkinson House, Cranston Estate - two six-story slab blocks with balcony access. 36 dwellings. 

·       Crondall Court and Cherbury Court, St John's Estate – two, eleven-story H-plan blocks. 44 dwellings each. 

Under the Right to Buy program established by the Housing Act 1980 - a flagship policy of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government giving secure council tenants a statutory right to purchase their homes at a significant discount - many former council houses have since passed into private ownership.

As we leave this area, cut west on Cherbury Street, and stop at the pub on the corner with New N Road. 

Not all historic pubs sit in a Tudor, Georgian, Victorian, or Edwardian listed building. Some pubs survive as historic records of a different era. We’re looking at one such important pub right now. The Beehive at 36 New N Road, N1 6TE. The Beehive is a beloved, working-class neighborhood pub – so humble it doesn’t have a website. Look at the online reviews. People really like this pub! Clearly such pubs are equally as important as listed buildings when it comes to the community support they offer.

There has long been a pub on this site. Records show a Beehive pub at the original address of Stevens Place, New North Road in 1856. This was lost during the Blitz. Street layout changed during post-war construction and developers gifted the community with another Beehive pub at the base of a block of council flats known as Nevitt House. With a nod back to early alehouse hotels, the modern Beehive has en-suite accommodations.

Nevitt House was built by the LCC in 1950 as part of a three-tower block public housing development on the Cranston Estate. The blocks consist of a total of 118 dwellings and are respectively known as Marshall House, Trafford House and Nevitt House. Nevitt House was a 40-dwelling extension to an already existing five-story block. 

Continue southeast down New N Road, then south onto Pitfield Street. This street is likely named after nearby burial fields from the Great Plage of 1665-66. As with the rest of this neighborhood, it became lined with Georgian and Victorian terraces as Hoxton urbanized from the end of the Stuart era in the late 1600s.

In 1690, the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers established Aske’s Hospital on Pitfield Street - almshouses and a school funded by merchant Robert Aske. One of the City’s twelve historic livery companies, the Haberdashers, began as a medieval guild for silk and velvet merchants. Chartered in 1448, with records dating to 1371, the company later shifted from trade oversight to charitable and educational work.

Pitfield Street also hosted key community landmarks. The Passmore Edwards Free Library - now the Grade II-listed Courtyard Theatre - served the public for decades. Nearby, the Varieties Music Hall,designed by C.J. Phipps, opened around 1870 at 18–20 Pitfield Street, part of Hoxton’s lively Victorian entertainment scene.

Pause at The George and Vulture at 63 Pitfield Street, N1 6BU. A classic Victorian corner pub that miraculously escaped the Luftwaffe, and dates to 1870.This gabled building almost looks Dutch in style and is self-titled, “The tallest pub in London.”

The original address of the pub was 35 Haberdashers Street reflecting the role of the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers in the area. The neighborhood was heavily bombed during WWII, yet the pub survived.

Cut down to Great Eastern Road taking Rivington Street east to the end of this section of our walk – the confluence of this Eastern Branch Source 1 with Eastern Branch Source 2 at Charlotte Road.

[MUSIC – BUMPER 8]

Eastern Branch Source 2

[MAP 3]

Closest public transport - Hoxton London Overground.

Walking distance - 0.6 miles.

Walk from closest public transport to the start of our walk - 0.3 miles.

Total walking distance - 0.9 miles.

This branch has its source in the Hoxton Springs close to Enfield Cloisters. Exit Hoxton London Overground Station at Cremer Street and head northwest up to Hoxton Hall at 130 Hoxton Street, N1 6SH. Built in 1863 as MacDonald’s Music Hall, this Grade II Listed building is one of the few surviving saloon-style halls, with a two-tier iron railed gallery supported by cast iron columns.

Music halls evolved from 18th-century coffee houses, saloon bars, and taverns where men met for business over food and drink. Some venues began focusing on entertainment, offering dedicated performance spaces. By the 1850s, full-fledged music halls offered popular songs, variety acts, and theatre—providing working-class audiences a chance to relax amid the bustle of the industrial age.

Lively and bawdy—much like American Vaudeville—MacDonald’s Music Hall likely ruffled feathers in the neighborhood. In 1871, it lost its performance license after police complaints, and efforts to reopen it failed.

In 1879, philanthropist William Isaac Palmer (of the Huntley and Palmer  biscuit family) bought it for the Blue Ribbon Gospel Temperance Mission.A prospect sure to put Dry January and baby in a corner. 

After Palmer’s death, the hall was passed to the Quaker-run Bedford Institute. Today, it thrives as a community and performance venue.

Head south on Hoxton Street and stop at numbers 104–106. Look across to the corner building at 260 Crondall Street. Just below the artwork, high up as usual, is a London plaque that reads:

“London Borough of Hackney.

The Gunpowder Plot.

In a house near this site on 12 October 1605 Lord Monteagle received the letter unmasking the plot by Guy Fawkes to blow up the Houses of Parliament. “

It’s hard to imagine now, but in 1605 this area was beyond London’s edge—open fields, tracks, and scattered houses. One such house stood nearby, home to Lord Monteagle, where he received the letter that revealed the infamous plot.

In October 1605, an anonymous letter was delivered to William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle, at the site where 260 Crondall Street now stands. It warned him to avoid the upcoming State Opening of Parliament.

Monteagle shared the letter with Robert Cecil, the King’s Chief Minister, prompting a search of the House of Lords on 4–5 November. There, Guy Fawkes was discovered guarding barrels of gunpowder—uncovering the Gunpowder Plot to kill King James I and destroy Parliament.

The likely author was Francis Tresham—Monteagle’s brother-in-law, a late recruit to the plot, and cousin to ringleader Robert Catesby—linking the conspirators directly to the letter's recipient.

Continue south on Hoxton Street to The Macbeth at 70 Hoxton Street, London N1 6LP. Built in the mid-1800s as a pub with an attached distillery - likely producing gin using Walbrook spring water. Originally called The White Hart, it was renamed The Macbeth in 1978 after the Shakespearean tile mural inside. It became a key indie music venue, hosting acts like Florence + The Machine, Franz Ferdinand, The xx, Pete Doherty, and Fontaines D.C In 2025 new Owners Jamie Allan and Patrick Nolan revived it with a Portuguese-inspired gastropub twist.

Cross Old Street to Curtain Road. A quick detour east to 83 Rivington Street under the Kingsland Viaduct railway arches to see an original Banksy artwork. Then return west on Rivington.

Pause at The Barley Mow at 127 Curtain Road, EC2A 3BX. A classic East End pub that began as a Beer House in 1856 - typical of many terrace pubs in the area.

This branch walk ends on Rivington Street at Charlotte Road.

[MUSIC – BUMPER 9]

Eastern Branch Sources 1 and 2 Continuing as One to Eastern Branch Epworth Tributary

[MAP 4]

Closest public transport - Shoreditch High Street London Overground.

Walking distance - 0.6 miles.

Walk from closest public transport to the start of our walk - 0.2 miles.

Total walking distance – 0.8 miles.

From here, we’ll follow the unified sources of the Eastern Branch. Exit Shoreditch High Street Overground Station. We’re heading up to the Boundary Estate to pause at Arnold Circus bandstand. 

Built between 1890–1900 on the site of the notorious Old Nichol slum, The Boundary Estate was designed by Owen Fleming to house the “deserving” poor. Its 1,069 red-brick flats, arranged around Arnold Circus, included communal laundries, shops, and schools. Though a vast improvement, it displaced many original residents. Now largely council-owned, the Grade II listed estate remains a vibrant, close-knit community—architecturally distinct from the post-war housing seen earlier in Hoxton.

We’ll exit the Boundary Estate anticlockwise on Arnold Circus, and cut back over to Charlotte Road where Eastern and Western branches continue as one. Back out onto Curtain Road to stop at the corner with New Inn Yard.  Here, Great Eastern Street cuts a  swath across an historic section down to Holywell Lane and Curtain Road.

The name “Holywell” says it all.In the 1150s, monks built Holywell Priory around a spring. When Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in 1539, the priory closed, and the land—just outside City jurisdiction—became available.

By 1572, with theatres banned within the City due to plague fears, this area became the birthplace of modern theatre, as entrepreneurs built permanent playhouses just beyond the city limits.

We’ll stop at The Old Blue Last at 38 Great Eastern Street, EC2A 3ES. Built in 1700 on the site of James Burbage’s The Theatre of 1576. Over the years, it’s been a shoemaker’s haunt, a Truman’s rebuild, strip club, and gangster hangout. Today, it’s run by Vice Media – a live music venue that’s hosted Arctic Monkeys, Amy Winehouse, and Florence + The Machine.

Cross back over Great Eastern Street and continue south on Curtain Road, following the buried path of the eastern branch beneath one of London’s most modern districts.

Stop at The Horse and Groom at 28 Curtain Road, EC2A 3NZ. Built in the early 1800s, it marks  the entrance to the lost Curtain Theatre.Once a Charrington pub and now run by Greene King. In 2011, archaeologists uncovered remains of The Curtain Theatre.Soon, the Museum of Shakespeare will open here featuring an a glass platform over the site.

The Curtain Theatre opened in 1577 on nearby Hewett Street, named after Curtain Close - a walled pasture of the old priory. The name refers to a defensive curtain wall, not stage curtains.

From 1597 to 1599, The Curtain was home to Shakespeare’s company- likely premieringRomeo and Juliet here.

We’ll conclude this section of our walk at Worship Road where The Epworth Tributary joins the Eastern Branch.

[MUSIC – BUMPER 10]

The Eastern Branch Epworth Tributary

[MAP 5]

Closest public transport - Old Street London Underground.

Walking distance - 0.3 miles.

Walk from closest public transport to the start of our walk - 0.3 miles.

Total walking distance - 0.6 miles.

Exit Old Street Station south on City Road, east on Epworth Street to Paul Street - source of the Epworth Tributary. Then east on Scrutton Street to The Old King's Head at 28 Holywell Row, London EC2A 4JB. This cozy, green tile-fronted pub retains its Victorian charm. A ghost story involving two girls haunts its cellar,but locals love its grit and soul amidst tech-driven redevelopment. 

Down Holywell Row and Clifton Street, east on Worship Street to the junction with Curtain Road, where the tributary joins the Eastern Branch at The Queen of Hoxton.

At 91–101 Worship Street, you'll see a rare Grade II* listed terrace of artisan craftsman dwellings built by  Arts and Crafts pioneer Philip Webb between 1861 - 1863. Each unit combined living quarters, shopfront, and rear workshop—replacing former slums. Webb even added a drinking fountain here, likely fed by the buried Epworth Tributary below.

Stop at The Queen of Hoxton at 1 Curtain Road, EC2A 3JX. Named in honor of Victorian actress and theatre manager Sarah Lane, the original "Queen of Hoxton." She ran the grand Britannia Theatre (opened in 1841)opened 1841), once seating 4,000 and admired by Dickens. Though destroyed in WWII, current owners - Andy Maddocks and Jon Ross  continue the area's theatrical legacy with eclectic performances and a themed rooftop venue.

Before we leave the area, consider Shoreditch. Once a village along the old Roman road, it remained open, marshy fields in Henry VIII’s time - drained by windmills and popular with archers. The name likely comes from the Soerdich family,Lords of the Manor under Edward III - not from the mythof Jane Shore, Edward IV’s mistress dying here in a "Sewer ditch”.

This concludes our section of the Eastern Branch Epworth Tributary at its confluence with Eastern Branch 1 and 2 at Worship Street and Curtain Road.

[MUSIC – BUMPER 11]

We’ve walked both branches of the Walbrook - the long-lost Western Branch and the remembered Eastern—stretching from Islington’s heights and Hoxton’s springs through Charterhouse, Shakespeare’s theatres, and historic pubs.

Now, we acknowledge both branches flow south toward their meeting point at Finsbury Circus, before making their final journey through the City to the Thames.

In our next episode, Part 2 of this walk, we’ll follow the final stretch of the unified Walbrook to its hidden outflow beneath Cannon Street Station.

If you’ve walked every section from Part 1, you’ve covered 5.9 miles. Part 2 adds 4.8 miles—for a full Walbrook walk of 10.7 miles.

Please support these pubs—they’re London’s memory keepers.

I’m Expat Andy, and this has been Publicity - London By Pub. No need to keep you in suspenders, Part 2 drops today.

Thanks for listening.

Remember, every pub, every neighborhood, has a story to tell, if you know where to look…

[MUSIC – OUTRO]