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London was founded by the Romans in the river-valley of the #Walbrook, between Ludgate Hill & Cornhill. The river flowed through the centre of Londinium, & - fortunately for archaeologists - was used by the city's inhabitants as a dumping ground for all kinds of rubbish.
The earliest mention of the #Walbrook was in 1086, in a charter issued by William I, where it is referred to as “wylrithe”, Old English for “spring rivulet”. Etymologists debate whether 'Walbrook' derives from this, or from 'Wealhbroc': 'the brook of the Foreigners/Britons/Welsh'
The #Walbrook, less than 2 miles long & never more than 14 ft wide, became an open sewer very rapidly. Already, in 1288, it had to be "made free from dung & other nuisances'. By 1383, it was "stopped up by divers filth & dung thrown therein by persons who have houses along it."
By the time John Stow came to write his Survey of London in 1598, the #Walbrook had vanished, & was "thereby hardly known". Today - in the words of @teabolton - it is "the most mysterious, elusive and comprehensively buried of London's lost rivers."
Occasionally the #Walkbrook's presence can be felt. In 1574, a young man was swept along its buried course & out into the Thames. In 1999, Reclaim The Streets let off fire hydrants along its line, symbolising the release of the river from the forces of capitalist oppression.
The source of the #Walbrook is lost. Stephen Myers has argued - controversially - that it originated in what is now Cloudesley Square in Islington, but was diverted by the monks of Charterhouse to supply them with water. Others think it rose near St Leonard's Church in Shoreditch
The most popular suggestion for the source of the #Walbrook, however, is a spring with healing powers that stood in the grounds of the medieval Priory of St John the Baptist, predictably got filled up with rubbish, & was lost in the 18th C. So we will head to its likeliest site!
This, just off Shoreditch High Street, was where, in 1904, the remains of the well that was the likeliest source of the #Walbrook were last spotted - in what was then a mason’s yard. 
Following the curve of the #Walbrook, we arrive at the site of the theatre built in 1576 by James Burbage for Shakespeare’s company, before it was transported to Southwark to become the Globe. The remains were discovered in 2008.
The plaque on Curtain Street commemorating “The Theatre” contains the first reference on our trip to the Holywell!
And another! #Walbrook
More traces of Shakespeare on the banks of the #Walbrook...
A most unexpected drinking fountain, just off the line of the #Walbrook. Perhaps it is just as well that it no longer seems to be working...
And so we come to what was once the Moorfields, the boggy expanse of open land beyond the Roman walls that gradually, in the Middle Ages, became one immense toilet along the line of the #Walbrook. Today, it abuts Liverpool St Station...
The place in the Roman wall where the #Walbrook flowed into the city via an aqueduct - Little Moorgate as it was known in the Middle Ages - is appropriately marked by a Cafe Nero
The beautiful garden of the Master & Wardens & Brethren & Sisters of the Guild of the Blessed Mary the Virgin of the Mystery of the Drapers. The land opposite it was long waterlogged, thanks to the #Walbrook. In 2007, Roman silver & a bear’s skull were found during excavations.
Our ambition to follow the line of the #Walbrook is blocked by the Bank of England. I learn from @teabolton that “when the first purpose-built bank was constructed here in the early 19th C, the Walbrook was spotted flowing through the excavations.”
We arrive on Poultry, & enter the Ward of #Walbrook
When James Stirling’s No 1 Poultry was built in the 90s, traces were found by archaeologists of charred buildings left by Boudicca, a temple on the banks of the #Walbrook, & 48 skulls, all of young men
We arrive at St Stephen Walbrook, the other side of #Walbrook from where the Mithras temple once stood. Rebuilt after the Great Fire, it was hailed by Sir John Sommerson as “one of the few City churches in which the genius of Wren shines in full splendour.”
Inside St Stephens #Walbrook, we find a beautiful performance of César Franck’s Sonata in A major for Cello & Piano being given, courtesy of @walbrookmus. Sweet Walbrook, run softly, till I end my song...
The Bloomberg development has enabled the line of Watling Street, obliterated in the 1950s, to be restored as a pedestrian arcade. At its far end is a trio of sculptural fountains dedicated to the #Walbrook
2 of the sculptures stand where the Mithraeum - complete with 60s-style crazy paving - previously stood. The Mithraeum itself has now been moved back closer to the course of the #Walbrook, deep in the bowels of the Bloomberg Building
It is thanks to the #Walbrook that so much organic material from Roman London has survived, redeemed from its damp soil & now presented in the Bloomberg Space, directly above where the river flows: doors, sandals, writing tablets, nit combs...
This IOU, which can be dated to 8 January AD 57 - 3 years before London was incinerated by Boudicca - shows that the city was already set on the course it remains on to this day: ££££. Preserved by the #Walbrook & exhibited in the Bloomberg Space.
I came to the Mithraeum when it first opened here, & thought it really well done - but it has much more of an impact when you’ve walked in pilgrimage along the #Walbrook to pay your respects to the god...
The ripples of this building on #Walbrook was apparently designed by Norman Foster to evoke the ripples of the vanished river...
“Sacred to the memory of the DEAD interred in the ancient church and churchyard of St John the Baptist Upon #Walbrook during four centuries, the formation of the District Line having necessitated the destruction of the greater part of the churchyard.”
Dick Whittington lived, died & was buried by the #Walbrook
And so, in the distance, we get our first sight of the Thames. The Roman governor’s palace was perhaps at the confluence of the Thames & #Walbrook, where Cannon Street Station now stands.
We reach journey’s end: the Thames & Walbrook Wharf
“I’m not being hashtag lazy. I’m just hashtag bored of rivers.”
Sigh.
Sigh.
