Folklore: London Historians wanted.

Subject: Folklore: London Historians wanted.
From: Bert
Date: 16 Apr 14 - 01:21 PM

It seems that the internet has reduced what was once general knowledge, to the realm of folklore.

So the question is "Whatever happened top Barking Creek?".

When I was growing up, it was general knowledge among people from The East End of London that Barking Creek was an open sewer.

Try looking that up on the internet and it is nowhere to be found.

The Barrier where The River Roding meets the Thames is mentioned.
Also that Barking Creek flowed into The River Roding there. But Barking creek does not named on Google Maps.

Beckton Sewage treatment works was supposedly built in 1868 but raw sewage was being discharged into The Thames well into the 1870s.

So where and when did the knowledge disappear?

Subject: RE: Folklore: London Historians wanted.
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 16 Apr 14 - 02:25 PM

Nothing has happened to Barking Creek. Try looking at a real map.

It seems that raw sewage still gets into the Thames in very heavy rain.
That is one reason that is being given for building a huge super sewer underneath the Thames.


Hoot

Subject: RE: Folklore: London Historians wanted.
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 16 Apr 14 - 02:57 PM

Not sure this thread should be above the line, though I know Barking Creek has featured in song....?

Kitty

Subject: RE: Folklore: London Historians wanted.
From: Jack Campin
Date: 16 Apr 14 - 02:59 PM

I had never heard of the "super sewer" before.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Tideway_Scheme

God almighty. Throwing even more dosh at a city doomed to go under the sea in 100 years or so?

Subject: RE: Folklore: London Historians wanted.
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 16 Apr 14 - 03:31 PM

Barking Creek is the tidal part of the River Roding. The Beckton sewage works is still on the west side of it. Until quite late Barking was a sea port and in the middle ages the largest fishing port in England with around 70% of the catch being landed there.

Subject: RE: Folklore: London Historians wanted.
From: Bert
Date: 16 Apr 14 - 05:56 PM

Thanks Hoot; it is difficult to get a map of Essex here in Colorado.

Yes Herga, 'The Belle of Barking Creek' by Paddy Roberts Here

You can be happy now that we are above the line:-)

Barking Creek is so entrenched in our folklore that I put it under that heading.

Another related song is 'The British Workman's Grave' which protested the disinterment of a Londoner's Old Man during the building of that bloody great sewer. You can hear me singing it on my website

Subject: RE: Folklore: London Historians wanted.
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Apr 14 - 09:58 PM

He should have been so lucky. When they built St Pancras, they just charged through the graveyard of the Old Church willy-nilly. Now they are definitely below the line...

Subject: RE: Folklore: London Historians wanted.
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Apr 14 - 09:14 AM

The first version of Black Velvet Band was set in Barking not Belfast.

The river Fleet that gave Fleet street its name still flows but only in underground pipes.

Subject: RE: Folklore: London Historians wanted.
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 17 Apr 14 - 10:09 AM

Bert, with all due respects I prefer the unbowlderised version of Moving Grandad's Grave to Build a Sewer, and the Gor Bimey inserts makes you sound like a stage version of a would be cockney.

Re St Pancras and the old church graveyard. I am not sure about it being "willy nilly" I believe the inhabitants were moved out first and I believe it was at that time that the Dorset writer Thomas Hardy was employed there moving the tombstones which are still piled up around a tree. At least they were a few years ago.

As slight thread drift: The person responsible for cleaning up the Thames and installing the sewers along the river bank was named Bazalgette. One of his descendents also named Bazalgette was/is? I believe responsible for the television show Big Brother. I find it amusing that two members of the same family about 150 years apart were involved with piles of shit, one removing it and the other making more of it.


Hoot

Subject: RE: Folklore: London Historians wanted.
From: Bert
Date: 17 Apr 14 - 02:49 PM

Tough shit Hoot!

Subject: RE: Folklore: London Historians wanted.
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 17 Apr 14 - 04:16 PM

Damn right Bert, well I guess some of it is and Barking Creek still deals with it all, tough or otherwise.

You might have trouble finding it on a map in Colorado but if you go to vpike.com and search for Creekmouth, Barking UK you will be able to see the sewage works and the river Roding from a satellite shot.

Ordnance Survey maps still seem to show Barking Creek.

I didn't mean any offence in the above posting just that I prefer other versions and I am sure you will agree that you don't sound a bit like Billy Bragg the Bard of Barking.

Keep smiling

Hoot

Subject: RE: Folklore: London Historians wanted.
From: Bert
Date: 17 Apr 14 - 05:54 PM

Thanks Hoot. Yerse, I'll keep smiling.

I'm not quite a true Cockney, I was born in Canning Town. So I'm still pretty much East End. I've lost a lot of my accent though.

Creekmouth and The River Roding is all you see on Google Maps. I lost all of my OS maps in a divorce. I used to have a great 2 1/2 inch map of Paddock Wood when I lived there.

No I don't sound like Billy Bragg, I try really hard to sound like myself when I sing. I added the Gor Blimey bit as it seemed to need something to fill in there.


What is the unexpurgated version? Is that the one that uses Shit House instead of Karzy?

Subject: RE: Folklore: London Historians wanted.
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Apr 14 - 04:02 AM

Re St Pancras
There seems to have been some Bowdlerization going on: this older BBC report confirms my memory of the rather abusive clearance. This may have happened in substantiation of HS1's removal of more bodies from the graveyard in 2001.
In 1859, Charles Dickens specifically mentioned it as the scene of grave-robbing in The Tale of Two Cities, and at that time, shortly before the arrival of the railway and after the renovation of the Old Church, it was not far off a wasteland. Other elements of the fabulation appear to be the suggestion the old church itself had been replaced, the original moved to Wanstead.

Subject: RE: Folklore: London Historians wanted.
From: GUEST,mayomick
Date: 18 Apr 14 - 08:22 AM

Was it the original Shit Creek ? 650 passengers died close by in 1878 when the Princess Alice paddle boat serving as a pleasure craft collided with a coal ship that was plying the river. A lot of the fatalities are believed to have occurred as the result of " the twice-daily release of 75 million imperial gallons (340,000 m3) of raw sewage from sewer outfalls at Barking and Crossness had occurred one hour before the collision"

Subject: RE: Folklore: London Historians wanted.
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 18 Apr 14 - 11:06 AM

Bert,
I need to dig out the copy from a file when I can locate it. An old work colleague from Stepney wrote it out for me years back. She and her sister put their heads together to recall their version. When I find it I will post it here. I by the way am from Bow, the one on the east side of the River Lea.

Guest, re St Pancras. St Pancras Old Church is still in situ. I was unaware of the Dickens mention. It was almost certainly the occupants of the excavated graves that were removed to Wanstead to the huge City of London Cemetery at Wanstead (Little Ilford). This happened with St Lukes, Clerkenwell and probably other London Churches.

Hoot

Subject: RE: Folklore: London Historians wanted.
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 18 Apr 14 - 12:08 PM

According to Wikipedia the dead were moved to a new cemetery, St Pancras & Islington, in East Finchley. I would imagine this was easier than moving them to another county as well as closer.

The City of London Cemetery seems to have been carved out of Epping Forest which is administered by the Corporation. There is a cluster of cemeteries there including Manor Park, Woodgrange Park, Plashet and not too far away East London (at Plaistow) and West Ham (at Forest Gate). It makes you wonder what would have happened if cremation hadn't become popular.

Subject: RE: Folklore: London Historians wanted.
From: Bert
Date: 18 Apr 14 - 02:21 PM

Hoot, we used to go square dancing at Bow.

Subject: RE: Folklore: London Historians wanted.
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 18 Apr 14 - 02:57 PM

Manitas, You/Wikipaedia could very easily be correct.
The City of London Cemetery however was not carved out of Epping Forest it was part of a huge privately owned estate, the name of the one time owner of which escapes me at the moment I am sorry to say.
The other cemeteries which you mention are all close by me. I have close relatives over five or more generations in all of those mentioned except the Jewish Cemetery at Plashet.

Bert, Where and when in Bow did you go square dancing?

Hoot

Subject: RE: Folklore: London Historians wanted.
From: Bert
Date: 19 Apr 14 - 01:15 AM

Hoot, It was in The late Fifties and early Sixties at a hall just along from Bow Road Station. Tommy Cavanagh was the caller.

Subject: RE: Folklore: London Historians wanted.
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 19 Apr 14 - 03:11 AM

Hoot, if you're that close I'll be playing accordion at the Golden Fleece on Wanstead Flats this afternoon. It's in Capel Road just around the corner from Manor Park station.

The City of London Cemetery is just south of Wanstead Park so maybe it was part of that estate.

Subject: RE: Folklore: London Historians wanted.
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 19 Apr 14 - 05:14 AM

Manitas, you are correct it was part of that Estate.

Hoot