River Tyburn

The Tyburn is a small underground river in Middlesex, whose fame arises from its association with hangings in past days; the "Tyburn Tree" stood by its banks.

Another subterranean stream, the Tyburn Brook, is quite separate though nearby, and is a tributary of the River Westbourne; another underground river. The River Tyburn is now unseen but still flows from South Hampstead to the City of Westminster. It runs underground through St James's Park to meet the River Thames at Pimlico near Vauxhall Bridge.

Before it was covered over, the Tyburn arose from the meeting of two tributary streams from the hills of Hampstead. At the land which now forms St James's Park, the Tyburn split into three branches, two of which, flowing in two courses to the Thames, formed between them Thorney Island, on which island Westminster Abbey was built. The Tyburn is now completely enclosed and flows through underground conduits for its entire length, including one beneath Buckingham Palace. Marylebone Lane (in the West End of London) follows the course of the Tyburn on what was its left bank through Marylebone village.

The antique shop which displays the Tyburn stream

From its source at the Shepherd's Well near Fitzjohns Avenue in Hampstead, the river flowed south through Swiss Cottage down to Regent's Park. In the park, in contrast to the River Fleet, another underground river, the Tyburn is carried in an aqueduct over the Regent's Canal.

The Tyburn gave its name to the village of Tyburn, originally a manor of Marylebone, which was recorded in Domesday Book and which stood approximately at the west end of what is now Oxford Street. It also gave its name to the predecessors of Oxford Street and Park Lane, which were formerly called Tyburn Road and Tyburn Lane respectively.

An antique shop near the junction of Bond Street and Oxford Street claims that a body of water which can be seen in an open conduit in the basement of its premises is part of the Tyburn. That the stream is clean or flows through the basement of the shop; the claims of the shop are doubted since the stream Tyburn is now connected into the London sewerage system, flushing it through and bearing storm waters, though none has disproved it.

The Tyburn Tree

The Tyburn gallows

The Idle 'Prentice executed at Tyburn (Hogarth)

The Tyburn Tree was the popular name for the gallows set up where the Edgware Road meets the end of Oxford Street and the corner of Hyde Park, in the parish of Tyburn and close by the banks of the River Tyburn.

The gallows served the administration of justice in Middlesex and, given the harshness of justice in those days and the nature of the vast, crowded town that was London even then, it became somewhat oversubscribed. The gallows were therefore built in 1571 with three cross-beams to hang several felons at a time (an arrangement known as a "three-legged mare" or "three-legged stool"). The gallows were used for mass executions; on 23 June 1649, there were hanged 24 prisoners simultaneously, conveyed there in eight carts.

Public executions were popular folk entertainment, and "Tyburn" became a byword for hanging, along with such grim metaphors as "dancing the Tyburn jig".

The Tyburn gallows were last used on 3 November 1783. The site is now marked with a plaque, installed in a traffic island at the end of the Edgware Road.

Miscellany

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, smart new estates were springing up in what was becoming the West End, and brought great wealth to their developers. In the 1820s, the Church Commissioners built a new development along the Bayswater Road and named it "Tyburnia", imitating Belgravia and Fitzrovia.

The original stretch of the Jubilee Line of London Underground closely follows the valley of the River Tyburn. When planned it was to be called "The Fleet Line", after another underground river: the name "Tyburn Line" was not considered as far as we are aware.

Outside links

• "Silent UK - Urban Exploration: River Tyburn". SilentUK.com. 2009. http://www.silentuk.com/writeups/tyburn.html. Retrieved 18 June 2010. 
• "Walking the Tyburn". YouTube.com. 11 March 2007. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=qspO6UtpCOg. Retrieved 18 June 2010.  (a psychogeographical film about the Tyburn)