Talk:Bollo Brook

Bollo Brook is part of the Stamford Brook system of streams. Although the Wikipedia page is a bit dubious in places, it seems it did flow East from Chiswick to join Stamford Brook.

There's lots of material stating that a) it was also the western boundary of Chiswick House at one point, b) that it was excavated in Chiswick House to make the lake there (called the Canal) c) that it caused pollution (because of carrying the results of laundry in Acton upstream and no longer fed the lake. In fact you can see a pipe in the lake which it is claimed carries the Bollo Brook, but the lake is fed from the Thames by a sluice gate at high tide.

Plenty of research to do, but how the Bollo Brook got from the junction of Bollo Lane and Acton Lane to Chiswick House seems to me to be in question. In any case it seems that it did also join Stamford Brook, maybe at the eastern end of Chiswick Back Common / Acton Green.

That's interesting research. Does the VCH have anything? It would be worth getting right. Thanks. RB (talk) 07:33, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

The VCH shows a stream which is not Bollo Brook feeding the lake at Chiswick house and says

"Bollo brook in 1826 passed under the high road at the west end of Turnham Green common, where a small culvert sometimes overflowed. The stream from the grounds of Chiswick House in 1746 apparently passed under Burlington Lane and in 1826 was confined to a width of 10 ft. beneath a brick bridge recently built by the duke of Devonshire."

However, like I say, I can't find any evidence that it did run under the High Road.

That is an interesting map. The pool from which the stream runs is shown just south-east of 'London Style House', which I have tracked down: its successor was demolished to build Stile Hall Gardens. The whole course shown, apart from the lake in Chiswick House is churned up with streets, gardens and railway lines.

I found a piece in London's Lost Rivers saying that "Bollo Brook rises near Ealing Common tube station closely following the course of the District Line (or vice versa) to Acton Town Station and from there along Bollo Lane". The VCH article on Acton has a shorter, similar observation. RB (talk) 19:35, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

The OS map of 1873, Middlesex XXI shows the stream starting from a lake at Sydney House, close to London Style House, and then through Sutton Court to Chiswick House.

The Wikipedia page on Stamford Book asserts: A ditch of the western channel was funnelled to the southern depression of parkland in Chiswick to augment the waters in the grounds of Chiswick House. Its main supply the Hazeldene ran from a lake near Sydney House to the west. I haven't found any sign of such a ditch on any map. There is a nearby road called Hazeldene Road, but I haven't found any other reference to this name.

I looked at the map just to the north. Between Acton and Gunnersbury it shows a brook flowing south-eastwards. It passes a farm marked 'Fordhook' that was mentioned in one of the articles. It is crossed by the road at 'Bollo Bridge'; that is a bit of a clue! Bollobridge Lane runs south-eastwards from there with the brook beside it, until it hits the railway line at 0° 16' 0" (west of Turnham Green Station). I can see no trace of the stream south of there on the map to the south - if it followed the same course, the brook would cross under the High Road and head for Turnham Green Common.

there's no doubt that the Bollo Brook ran along Bollo Lane and so on. And the question is precisely where did it go after Bollo Lane joins Acton Lane and the stream crosses the railway. There is a stream marked at "Mills Row" 0° 15' 45" which crosses back over the railway to the north. That could be the Bollo Brook, but to my original point: there is some evidence from these maps that it could have flowed east across Acton Green but nothing indicating that it flowed south over Turnham Green.

So there is a question of whether the stream coming from London Style House has a name. That I cannot tell - but, the pond shown on the VCH map now appears to be an ornamental pond in the grounds of Sydney House. RB (talk) 19:55, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

It has been over a year since I was last in Chiswick, and I was not looking at hydrography at the time. I was born there actually, but at such a tender age I missed such detail! It is lowlying, so the maps do not have contour lines to show which was a stream would be flowing. I will see if I can find anything out.

The one flowing east, meanwhile, can be traced to some extent on a modern map, and something is feeding the lake by Chiswick House. The site of ornamental lake near London Style House (51.488899, -0.28126) is in the gardens behind Stile Hall Gardens and Brooks Road. The stream flowed east across the Chiswick Curve, which is no longer there, and over or by what has been developed as Chiswick Village Green. The stream out of the Chiswick House lake visibly emerges into the Thames (51.479444, -0.251102), but the old map suggests an original mouth (51.478087, -0.251075) which may still be active. RB (talk) 18:05, 29 November 2024 (UTC)