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56-575: The street was built along the course of a part of the River Walbrook known as the Deepditch . Although the Walbrook is now culverted and runs beneath the street, the land on each side observably dips towards the course of the river. The street extends in a SSW-NNE direction from its junction with the road London Wall in the south to Broad Street Place in the north. The street forms the boundary between

112-452: A bias towards 'skulls'; the crania recovered recently at Liverpool Street had a wide date range and therefore could not have amassed as the result of a single event (the 2nd-century bias noted above probably simply reflects the size of Roman London's population). The vast numbers of crania found across the Walbrook valley suggest that, in essence, there were probably several different factors at play. Some individuals may indeed have experienced

168-568: A crash landing at the base in Namur. The P class LZ 47 (LZ 77) was hit by anti-aircraft fire over Revigny , catching fire and killing the crew of 11, and LZ 58 (LZ 88) was forced to return to its base by squalls and snow showers. On the night of 2 - 3 April 1916, LZ 46 (L 14) attacked the city of Edinburgh and its port town of Leith in the first ever air raid over Scotland , dropping 25 high explosive and 19 incendiary bombs. Thirteen people were killed and 24 injured in

224-411: A design based on LZ 26 . This had been started as a passenger carrying craft for DELAG and was the first Zeppelin with a duralumin framework, and also had the strengthening keel inside the hull structure. The proposed design was larger, with the volume increased from 24,900 to 31,900 m (880,000 to 1,126,000 cu ft) and a fourth engine was added. As well as being larger, allowing

280-520: A greater range and bomb load, the P class introduced enclosed crew accommodation: the gondolas of the first M class Zeppelins were open. The P class had a more streamlined hull shape than previous Zeppelins, with only 60 m (197 ft) of the 163.5 m (536 ft) overall length being parallel sided. Power was initially provided by four 160 kW (210 hp) Maybach CX six cylinder engines. Later examples were fitted with four 180 kW (240 hp) Maybach HSLu engines. The framework

336-680: A lengthened version, the Q ;Class . They were used for many of the airship bombing raids on the United Kingdom in 1915-16, for naval patrol work over the North Sea and Baltic and were also deployed on the eastern and south-eastern fronts. The P class was an enlarged version of the preceding M class . On 5 August 1914 the Zeppelin company put forward a proposal to the German Navy Ministry for

392-588: A massacre occurring during a Roman civil war, the Carausian Revolt of AD 286–296. In Geoffrey's account, a Roman legion under Livius Gallus , besieged in London, agrees to surrender to the forces of Julius Asclepiodotus on condition they are given safe passage out of Britain. Asclepiodotus is happy to grant this, but his allies the Venedoti moved on the captives, beheading them all in a single day. Geoffrey wrote that

448-654: A third raid was damaged by fire from HMS Agamemnon on 5 May 1916 and came down in the Vardar marshes. The crew of 12 were captured. The framework was salvaged and, partially reconstructed, put on display near the White Tower in Salonika. LZ 51 (LZ 81) was deployed on the Balkan front, and was used to transport diplomats across hostile Serbia to Sofia on 9 November 1915. Subsequently, it made two attacks on Bucharest : it

504-523: A violent end. The majority of the crania, however, were likely to have been displaced from their nearby graves by a combination of gravel extraction (to enable a 2nd-century expansion to Londinium which required large amounts of gravel for new roads, yards and thresholds) and occasional flooding by the Walbrook itself. Roman gravel-extraction workers, in a similar way to 19th-century construction workers, may have created an unintentional bias in, respectively, reverential crania reburial and crania collection and it

560-425: Is that which has emerged to help to create such an intriguing phenomenon. The Walbrook had many small tributaries and the course of the various branches are ill-mapped and ill-understood, particularly in the upper reaches above London's Wall. Each new excavation in the area brings a refined understanding. The routes of the various branches may have changed over time, further complicating the limited understanding of

616-594: The Bishopsgate Without (to the east) and Coleman Street Ward (to the west) areas of the City of London. The side streets are Liverpool Street and New Broad Street on the eastern side, and Finsbury Circus to the west. The western side of the street is in the Finsbury Circus Conservation area and includes a number of listed buildings. The street covers a section of the River Walbrook once known as

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672-549: The Celtic cult of the head . Archaeological excavations across this area in the late 20th and early 21st centuries (two examples are Finsbury Circus and Liverpool Street ) revealed a Roman burial ground which included graves scoured by the River Walbrook, and it was suggested that skulls might come from this. Other factors should also be considered here: the 'heads' or 'skulls' which have been recovered were actually crania (ie only

728-713: The City Ditch was cut, around 1212. This initial work, and a recut around 1415, appears to have had a twofold purpose, to improve the city's defences and also to help drain Moorfields. This section of the Walbrook was the main focus of the Walbrook Skulls phenomena where very large numbers of skulls were found in the bed of the river over many centuries. In 1568, William Stow described the Deepditch as being partially filled with all kinds of refuse; "unsavoury things" which restricted

784-646: The German Army and the Navy . Although the bombing raids are their best known activity, the majority of the flights made by the naval craft were patrols over the North Sea and the Baltic. The class was obsolete by 1917 and most of the craft that had not been lost to accidents or enemy action had been dismantled by the end of September 1917. The last survivors were LZ 50 (L 16), which had been relegated to training duties and

840-656: The Walbrook City ward and to a nearby street. It played an important role in the Roman settlement of Londinium . The usual interpretation is that the brook's name comes from weala broc meaning "brook of the foreigners" (usually taken to mean the native Britons, who were also referred to as the Welsh). This suggests that there was a British speaking quarter in the city in the Anglo-Saxon period , and this possibility has been linked to

896-459: The City Wall. The river flowed south down what is now Blomfield Street, to the east of Finsbury Circus . Just to the north of wall , the main branch (Deepditch) formed the boundary of the city wards of Coleman Street to the west, and Bishopsgate Without to the east. It then entered the walled area of the City just west of All Hallows-on-the-Wall Church. The brook flowed southward through

952-502: The Deepditch. The river passed under the City's defensive wall (demolished in the 1760s) at a point immediately north of Blomfield Street's junction with the street London Wall , which runs parallel and just inside the course of the former wall which gave it its name. Until the early 19th century the river - and subsequent street - was on the edge of the London built-up area; with the developed East End neighbourhood of Bishopsgate Without on

1008-511: The Lord Mayor Robert Large paid for the lower Walbrook to be covered over. By the time of the first maps of the area, the "copperplate" map of the 1550s and the derivative "Woodcut" map of c. 1561, the whole Walbrook within the city walls was culverted . John Stow , the historian of London, wrote about the Walbrook in 1598, saying that the watercourse, having several bridges, was afterwards vaulted over with brick and paved level with

1064-573: The Northern Low Level Sewer at a point near the Bank of England . Many small leaks stream into the rounded sewer for much of the year when the water table is high enough. On 18 June 1999, during the " Carnival Against Capitalism ", timed to coincide with the 25th G8 summit , fire hydrants were opened along the route of the Walbrook by Reclaim the Streets , symbolically releasing the river to "reclaim

1120-591: The Walbrook. Later scholars have been doubtful. Ralph Merrifield reported a stream flowing SW through the area that would later be the Roman Forum, which would have flown into this putative stream in Lombard Street. The main mentioned at the top of this section reports another stream called the 'Lorteburn' flowing directly into the Thames; perhaps there has been confusion between these various streams. It emerged just to

1176-573: The attack. A number of buildings were damaged, the most severe being inflicted on a bonded warehouse in Leith which burned down. Two bombs came close to Edinburgh Castle and as a result the Regalia of Scotland was subsequently moved to the castle vaults for safe keeping. The Army airships LZ 85 and LZ 86 were deployed to the Eastern front. LZ 85 made two successful attacks on Salonika but during

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1232-465: The bed of the river, generally in the vicinity of the initial discovery. It is believed that the number of heads destroyed by development, or awaiting discovery, may be in the order of many thousands. Writing around 1136, Geoffrey of Monmouth seemed to be aware of the presence of the remarkable number of skulls on the riverbed. His History of the Kings of Britain explained their origin as resulting from

1288-557: The centre of the walled city, bringing a supply of fresh water whilst carrying waste away to the River Thames , at Dowgate ; it effectively divided the settlement in two. Stow in the 16th century suggested there was a branch, called the Langbourne (see Langbourne Ward) to the east, rising at St Katherine Coleman and running SW along Fenchurch Street (making this area 'fenny'), along Lombard Street, into Sherborne Lane and presumably into

1344-425: The control car. In late 1915, faced by increasingly effective defensive measures, Zeppelin introduced the Q class . The hull was lengthened by 15 metres (49 ft), increasing volume to 35,800 cubic metres (1,264,100 cu ft) and the operating ceiling by about 460 metres (1,500 ft). Many of the existing P class airships were similarly lengthened. P and Q class Zeppelins were operated by both

1400-556: The ditch to a narrow channel, and which was in danger of "impoysoning the whole Cittie". Maps in the late 17th century (Faithorne and Newcourt 1658, William Morgan 1682) show Broker Row in place instead of the river. The street was called Broker Row until 1860, but was renamed in honour of the Bishop of London , Charles Blomfield , who had been rector of St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate (the parish church of Bishopsgate Without ), earlier in his career. The original Bethlem (or Bedlam) Hospital

1456-627: The division of the city by the Walbrook, with claims that the Britons lived on Cornhill to the east, while the Saxons lived on Ludgate Hill to the west. Another theory is that it was so named because it ran through or under the London Wall . Geoffrey of Monmouth linked it to the phenomena of the Walbrook Skulls (below); recounting, or inventing an explanation where the name Gallobroc derived from

1512-578: The east side, and the open Moorfields area on the west side of the river and subsequent street. The open Moorfields area was historically part of the Manor of Finsbury , before becoming part of the City of London's Coleman Street Ward, and subsequently being developed around 1817, as Finsbury Circus . The Deepditch was a canalised section of the Walbrook. When freshly dug, the ditch was steeply cut with flat base and measured approximately 10m wide by 1.7m deep, at its greatest extent. The London Wall partially dammed

1568-474: The eastern suburb of London, killing seven people. A consequence of this raid was that reporting restrictions were introduced in England. Formerly press coverage contained detailed accounts of the location of bombing raids: after this, only generalised locations were published. It carried out five raids on England, before it was destroyed when its shed at Evere was bombed on 7 June 1915. LZ 40 (L 10)

1624-401: The forward gondola, a machine-gun mounting was fitted either side. Further defensive armament consisted of a single machine gun in a small cockpit at the stern behind the rudders and a gun position mounting two or three machine guns on top of the hull, which was reached by a ladder from the forward gondola. The bomb load was slung from the keel girders, the bombs being electrically released from

1680-507: The land west of the river, and one for the east. Even beyond the walls, the river separated landholdings, with the Soke of Cripplegate to the west and the Soke of Bishopsgate to the east. By the 11th century, the two halves of the City had a distinct economy, character, customs and regulations. The western side was more populous and prosperous, it had the cathedral, the royal palace (which later moved to Westminster) and its large market, Westcheap ,

1736-419: The main/top part of the skulls - the accompanying jaw bones, which would have provided vital evidence for beheadings, execution or indeed massacre, were missing); human skulls are profoundly identifiable as being human and are more likely to have been spotted and collected during construction work - every single controlled archaeological excavation in this area has also uncovered other human bones, creating less of

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1792-514: The name of a vanquished Roman leader called Livius Gallus . The main branch flowing from the parish of Shoreditch was known (above the Wall) as the Deepditch , Flood Ditch or just The Ditch . The Walbrook divided the city into two hills: Ludgate Hill to the west and Cornhill to the east. It is thought that in the Anglo-Saxon period there may have been two Stallerships in the City, one for

1848-420: The native Britons), meant that there was a part of the city inhabited by native Britons (also known as Welsh), and this is assumed to be the eastern side on Cornhill , with the Saxons based on the higher status western Ludgate Hill . London's defensive wall seems to have had an unintended impact on the river, acting like a dam to impede the flow of the river and create the marshy conditions which characterised

1904-404: The north of St Paul's Cathedral and causing over half a million pounds worth of damage, around one sixth of all material damage caused by the bombing of Britain during the war. LZ 47 (LZ 77) and LZ 49 (LZ 79) were deployed to Namur in order to carry out bombing raid on Paris . LZ 49 (LZ 79) bombed Paris on the 29/30 of January, but was damaged by ground fire and

1960-504: The open space at Moorfields . The wall's surrounding ditch may have diverted some of the water that would otherwise have gone through the City. In 1838 construction workers building a new sewer under Blomfield Street , on the course of the Walbrook, discovered very large numbers of human skulls, though very few other bones were present. " An immense number of human skulls were found throughout this street" (ie Blomfield Street) Since that time, around 300 further heads have been found in

2016-468: The parish of Shoreditch , and one or more others flowing from Finsbury to the west. The picture is unclear, but both of these branches may have had ultimate sources as far north as Islington. The main branch of the stream, entering the city along the line of Blomfield Street, was known as Deepditch . This main stream, and one or more of the western tributaries appear to have met in Moorfields , north of

2072-514: The river was afterwards named after Livius Gallus , the leader of the beheaded Romans, as Nantgallum in Welsh (the language of the native Britons), or in the Saxon English as Galobroc , from which Walbrook was derived. However, Geoffrey's History is unreliable, and other theories have been proposed. Some historians consider these skulls to be a result of the rebellion of Boudica . More recently,

2128-580: The river, leading to marshy conditions on Moorfields. As only part of the flow could pass through the duct under the Wall, the excess water help flood the Moor Ditch , the section of the City Ditch (the defensive ditch on the outer side of the London Wall) between the originally Roman Bishopsgate and the area where the much newer Moorgate would be built, around 1415.. The Deepditch may have been first canalised when

2184-497: The river’s history. These changes in course may have been due to natural changes and human intervention. Modern maps of London in the Roman period show the Walbrook as having many tributaries. Roman London - a New Map and Guide shows six branches. Most of these branches are to the West of the main eastern stream. The river appears to have had a main eastern branch which ran from Hoxton , in

2240-461: The skulls have been dated mostly to the early 2nd century AD, and it has again been suggested that the skulls are the consequence of an anti-Roman rebellion in the 120s when London suffered a second major fire often called the Hadrianic fire. The three martial explanations may link to the proposition, made by archaeologists, that some of the skulls may have represented ritual deposits of heads related to

2296-476: The street" from the "capitalist forces" of city growth which had subsumed it. 51°30′33.89″N 0°5′33.25″W  /  51.5094139°N 0.0925694°W  / 51.5094139; -0.0925694 Zeppelin P Class The Zeppelin P Class was the first Zeppelin airship type to be produced in quantity after the outbreak of the First World War . Twenty-two of the type were built as well as twelve of

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2352-476: The streets and lanes where it passed and that houses had been built so that the stream was hidden as it is now. The construction of the massive infrastructure of the London sewerage system , with five main sewers, incorporated many existing culverts, storm sewers, and sluices. This included the culverted Walbrook, which by 1860 had been linked into a network of 82 miles (132 km) of new sewerage lines, channelled to

2408-452: The war. An eyewitness described catching sight of the airship: "I looked up, and at the last moment the searchlight caught the Zepp, full and clear It was a beautiful but terrifying sight." 51°31′02″N 0°05′06″W  /  51.51721°N 0.08511°W  / 51.51721; -0.08511 River Walbrook The Walbrook is a subterranean river in London . It gives its name to

2464-458: The war. Twenty-two people were killed, including three at Blomfield Street. A number 35A bus at the junction of Blomfield and Liverpool Streets suffered a direct hit, kiling the conductor and two passengers. The driver was seen wandering the street in shock, staring at his hand which had several fingers missing. The airship, which was 163 metres long and flying at 2500 metres of altitude, was largely invulnerable to defensive measures at this stage of

2520-523: The west of the present-day Cannon Street Railway Bridge . During Roman times it was also used for transport, with the limit of navigation some 200 m from the Thames, where the Bucklersbury building now stands. It was there the Romans built a port and temple to Mithras on the east bank of the stream. The temple was found and later excavated during rebuilding work after World War II . The Roman Governor's palace

2576-544: The west of the street), was London's foremost medical district . Blomfield Street (then Broker Row) had the second Bethlem Hospital (until 1815), while the second site of the Moorfields Eye Hospital occupied a part of the Finsbury Circus development from 1822 to 1899. On the night of 8/9 September 1915, during World War One, German Navy airship L13 (LZ45) carried out what would be the most destructive raids of

2632-441: The windows of which had a machine-gun mounting either side. The engine compartment contained a single engine driving a propeller at the rear through a reduction gear. The aft engine gondola carried three engines arranged in line, the aft engine driving a propeller at the back of the gondola and the other two driving a pair of propellers mounted either side of the hull. These were reversible to aid manoeuvering during mooring. As in

2688-411: Was controlled from the forward gondola, which was divided into two structurally separate sections in order to avoid transmission of engine vibration to the crew accommodation: the small gap between the two sections was faired over with fabric. The forward section was divided into three compartments, with the control area at the front; aft of this was the radio compartment, and then the officer's rest area,

2744-562: Was destroyed in a forced landing at Ath in Belgium. The Army Zeppelins were then used to support the German army in the early phases of the battle of Verdun . On 21 February, the first day of the German offensive, four of the six available Zeppelins set out to bomb the French supply lines. LZ 65 (LZ 95), the first Q class Zeppelin, was badly damaged by anti-aircraft fire and was destroyed in

2800-450: Was divided into sixteen 10 m (33 ft) bays, with an intermediate frame between each of the principal wire-braced ring frames to reduce lateral loads on the triangular section longitudinal girders, of which there were 17, the uppermost of which was doubled to form a W-section girder. The 16 gasbags were usually made from three layers of goldbeater's skin on a cotton backing, but shortages meant that sometimes heavier rubberised cotton

2856-418: Was focussed on land-based trade. The east was poorer and more sparsely settled; its smaller market, Eastcheap , was sited near the river to allow it to specialise in seaborne trade. The division of the City into two parts persisted, in a less fundamental way, even to the time of John Stow , writing in 1603. It has been suggested that the probable derivation of the name Walbrook, river of foreigners (i.e.

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2912-460: Was found further down the east bank of the stream, near its entry into the Thames. In the 15th century, the monasteries of Charterhouse and St Bartholomews diverted the headwaters of the Walbrook to their sites in the River Fleet catchment. It has been suggested that this caused a significant reduction in the flow of the Walbrook. When the church of St Margaret Lothbury was rebuilt in 1440,

2968-532: Was sited on the east side of the river from 1243 to 1676, when it moved to a larger site in Moorfields. the new building extended for 150 metres along the north side of the London Wall . The hospital subsequently moved to Southwark around 1815, when the site, together with the rest of the Lower Moorfields was developed and replaced with the new Finsbury Circus development. In the early and mid 19th century, before Harley Street rose to prominence, Finsbury (to

3024-507: Was the first P class flown by the Navy, and bombed London on 4 June 1915. It took part in five raids and made eight reconnaissance flights: on 3 September 1915 it was struck by lightning and crashed in flames in the North Sea near Neuwerk , Germany, with the loss of the entire 20-man crew. On 8 September 1915 LZ 45 (L 13), commanded by Heinrich Mathy , was the first Zeppelin to bomb central London, setting fire to textile warehouses to

3080-417: Was used instead. Automatic pressure relief valves were placed at the bottom of the gasbags: there was no trunking to carry vented hydrogen to the top of the craft and waste gas simply diffused upwards in the space between gasbags and the covering, whose top surface was left undoped to allow the hydrogen to escape. Some gasbags were also fitted with a manually operated manoeuvering valve at the top. The ship

3136-641: Was wrecked at the Nordholz base on 19 October 1917. and LZ 46 (L 14), which carried out 42 reconnaissance missions and 17 attacks on Britain. It survived the war and was destroyed by its crew on 23 June 1919. The first P class Zeppelin constructed was LZ 38, assigned to the Army and first flown on 3 May 1915. After a series of raids on the East coast of England, it became the first airship to bomb London on 31 May 1915, dropping 1,400 kilograms (3,000 lb) of bombs on

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