Homes are built on their banks, bridges span their bodies and they carry people and goods on their backs. Cities have been built around them and even shaped by them. Yet many of the world’s rivers have fallen victim to the success of those very cities, becoming polluted and forced underground. They flow beneath streets, parks and pavements, with some completely buried and others with small sections that can be seen above ground – if people know where to look. Here are some of the world’s most fascinating hidden waterways.
Most people who’ve spent time strolling London’s streets will have crossed at least one of its lost rivers – probably without knowing about it. It’s believed there are around 20 “buried” rivers that once flowed above ground as tributaries to the Thames but most were covered and converted into sewers in the 19th century. One is the River Westbourne, shown here in around 1825 when it was spanned by Knights’ Bridge in Westminster. The only remnant of the bridge is the area’s name, Knightsbridge.
The Westbourne provided water for the burgeoning city until the early 19th century, when it was too filthy to walk by let alone drink. The water that once flowed from Hampstead and through Hyde Park to Sloane Square before emptying into the Thames was channelled into underground pipes to clear the air and make room for development in Belgravia, Chelsea and Paddington. Today, part of the original iron pipe can still be seen running above Sloane Square tube station.
Take a look at these charming vintage images of underground travel
This late 19th-century photo captures the moment that Garrison Creek began its descent underground, with a crew digging culverts to convert the waterway into an underground sewer. Named because it emptied into Lake Ontario close to Fort York, the area’s military garrison, the creek flowed for nearly five miles (8km) through what’s now the location of several inner-city neighbourhoods. By the 1920s, the rapidly expanding population and pollution issues meant the entire creek was converted to sewers.
Its presence still makes itself felt, however. In the late 20th century the areas built above the creek began to suffer as the storm and sanitary sewers proved inadequate for modern developments, with issues of basement flooding and untreated sewage flowing into the lake and polluting beaches. It piqued locals’ interest and there are ongoing campaigns to restore parts of the creek, including buried bridges. Its route is now one of several signposted Discovery Walks focusing on the city’s heritage.
Tibbetts Brook was named Mosholu – meaning “smooth or small stones” – by the Lenape people, for whom the waterway was a source of water and food. It once meandered from Yonkers, north of the Bronx, to Van Cortlandt Park, where the only above-ground portion remains. It’s now a wetland (pictured) providing habitat for a diverse range of flora and fauna, from herons to muskrats, while the rest of the stream runs underground through an arched brick sewer.
Sydney may well not look as it does today if it weren’t for a creek that has long been lost to the depths. European settlers chose the area the city now occupies in the late 18th century because of a little creek that signalled fresh water, filtered by mosses and sandstone. The stream flowed from swampy high ground located within the area now bordered by Market, Park, Elizabeth and Pitt Streets, trickling through a small valley before emptying into Sydney Cove via a tidal estuary, which can just be seen on the left of this 1788 painting.
The settlement grew outwards from the river’s sandstone banks but, when drought struck, its water was diverted into storage or holding tanks carved from the stone – hence the name “Tank Stream”. What remained of the waterway became increasingly polluted as the population grew and its source was drained in 1850, with what remained of Tank Stream entombed by stone a decade later. Tank Stream Fountain, pictured, was unveiled near Circular Quay in 1981 as a tribute to the stream’s role in shaping modern Sydney.
Bradford, in northern England, was named for the crossing or “ford” over this river, which was once the heart of the city and used to power mills along its course. But, with the Industrial Revolution and Bradford’s role in wool production, the river suffered and became so infamous as a source of pollution and disease that locals nicknamed it “Mucky Beck”. As the city grew, the river was gradually forced underground and melted into the sewage system where it flows through a series of arched foundations (pictured).
Now it’s almost as if it never existed at all. It runs for around four miles (6.5km) beneath the city, through brick-lined tunnels and culverts, before emerging at the River Aire in Shipley – the only section that hits the open air (pictured). A local group, Friends of Bradford’s Becks, wants to see the city’s river system restored to its former glory.
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Brescia is home to a number of subterranean rivers and – unlike many on our list – visitors can usually have a good look at them. Even walk through them, in fact, thanks to a group of experts that leads tours of the city’s hidden waterways as an official historical society. Brescia Underground’s tours focus mainly on the Bova-Celato River, pictured, while the society also replaced a manhole cover with a glass one that allows people to view the spot where the Bova and Celato converge below ground.
This once wild, rushing river (shown flowing towards the Danube Canal in this 17th-century map) played a central role in Vienna’s development. There’s even a theory that it gave the city its name. Its energy was harnessed to power mills and factories before its course was tamed and regulated by a series of concrete channels that now take it past grand apartment buildings and into the sewers before reaching the Danube Canal. The Wein is also famous, sort of – one mosaic-filled tunnel featured in Orson Welles’ 1949 film The Third Man.
One section of the Wein, on the western edge of the city, offers a glimpse of how it might have looked in the past. A group of engineers and biologists worked to restore its banks to their natural form, with flowers and shrubs providing habitat for a wide range of flora and fauna. The Weinfluss promenade runs alongside this revived part of a lost river, which eventually ducks underground at a point marked by an Art Nouveau archway known as Wienflussportal (pictured).
This river’s journey into the darkness was gradual. Predating New York itself, it’s named after a sawmill built on it by Dutch landowner Adriaen van der Donck. The land that grew around it was known as “van der Donck’s land” and – later – Yonkers. The Saw Mill River is the longest tributary to the Hudson at 23 miles (37km) long but, as Yonkers boomed, portions of the waterway were claimed by land. Bridges and aqueducts – like the Old Croton Aqueduct, shown in this 1843 illustration – covered much of it before, in the early 20th century, the part that flowed through Yonkers was capped.
This is a rare example of a lost river that’s been brought back, blinking, into the light. In fact, Yonkers’ heritage waterway was restored from the early 21st century in a process known as “daylighting”. Today the river (pictured) is considered a focal point in the city’s regeneration, is used to help educate kids on environmental issues and provides habitat for flora and fauna including the American eel.
The Fleet is the largest of London’s subterranean rivers and winds its mysterious way from Hampstead Heath to Blackfriars, where it meets the Thames. Shown here near Bagnigge Wells – a popular spa area – in an image from around the early 19th century, it was once a prominent feature of the city. People bathed by its banks near St Pancras – until it became polluted partly due to butchers throwing animal corpses into it.
Like most of the city’s lost rivers, it was converted into a sewer to make room for the growing population and today flows almost entirely through underground tunnels (one of which is pictured here, in 1950). There is one place where its water can be spotted above ground, though: at its source, in the Vale of Health Pond in Hampstead Heath. Tours usually take visitors into the tunnels, while there are proposals for a network of signs and maps to guide walkers along the routes where this and London’s other lost waterways lurk.
Once known as “Little River”, Park River was a tributary to the Connecticut (“Great River”) and its banks were once lined with mills, factories and workers’ houses. This 1874 illustration shows it crossed by Main Street or Stone Bridge, built in 1833. The bridge remains today, though now it’s traffic rather than water that flows beneath its arch. The river became one of the focal points of Bushnell Park when it opened in 1854, though things look very different today.
The river became something of a dumping ground and such a stew of sewage and industrial waste that it earned a new nickname: “Hog River”. Finally, in the 1940s, it was sent underground by the US Army Corps of Engineers, who buried it up to 50 feet (15m) below the surface. Now there’s little sign of its existence, with the park’s Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch (pictured) standing where a bridge once spanned the waterway – though adventurous types have been known to canoe or kayak down the subterranean river.
The Senne was one of the main waterways in Brussels, cutting a course right through the city and spanned by several bridges, as shown in this 17th-century map by Joan Blaeu. That is, until the 19th century – when it began to be seen as a problem. The river was unpredictable, often bursting its banks, and as in many other cities became increasingly polluted by household and industrial waste. Canals were built, usurping the river’s role as a water source, and the downtown portion of the Senne was covered over by 1871.
Buildings were constructed on top of the now-subterranean river, sealing its fate to flow in the dark, and the rest of the Senne was covered in the 1930s. Even then it wasn’t allowed to rest in peace, with the underground waterway diverted in the 1970s so its tunnels could be used by the subway system. Parts of it can be viewed in the Sewer Museum (pictured). There are plans to uncover or “daylight” around 2,132 feet (650m) of the buried river as part of the “Max-sur-Senne project” to create new green public space.
The charmingly named Poddle spends most of its time in the dark, running beneath the city before finally emptying into the far more famous (and visible) Liffey – this picture shows where it joins the city’s main river, trickling from a drain. It once had a far more salubrious role in Dublin’s daily life, though, providing drinking water, powering mills and creating a protective moat around Dublin Castle.
It was joined in the 15th century by another river, the Dodder, which was diverted by monks at St. Thomas Court Abbey to strengthen the Poddle’s flow. But the river often flooded and caused dampness in buildings including St. Patrick's Cathedral, and was sent overground by a series of culverts added over time. Now most of it runs underground aside from a stretch – or rather a squiggle – of the Poddle that flows into the lake at Tymon Park (this part is sometimes known as the Tymon River).
Paris’ river is pretty famous, with the banks of the Seine popular for romantic strolls, market stalls and riverside picnics. But another river once ran through the city of lights – and still does, though now it makes its way unseen in its tomb below the streets. The River Bièvre (shown in this 1915 illustration of Gentilly) started its course near Versailles, travelling through the 5th and 13th arrondissements, even forming an island, the ile aux Singes or “Monkey island”, in the latter where the Gobelins factory (a deluxe furnishings workshop) was based.
Over time, as its water was diverted for drinking supplies and other projects, the Bièvre was reduced to the size of a stream, became horribly polluted and was eventually covered and diverted into sewer tunnels (as pictured). Now only parts outside the city, running through forests and into ponds, are above-ground – though a long-running campaign hopes to change that. Sections of the Bièvre have been uncovered in Paris’ suburbs, walking trails now follow the historic route and the mayor is looking into the feasibility of bringing it bubbling back to the surface in the centre.
While many subterranean rivers will never see the light of day, the ChangPu River (formally known as the Outer Part of Golden River) has been brought back to life, at least partially. It originally flowed through the Forbidden City, the centre of the ancient walled city of Beijing, until it was covered in the 1960s when the area was transformed into a warehouse district. Its restoration began in 2002 and the water was eventually brought back to the surface as the crowning glory of beautiful ChangPu River Park, pictured.
The rebirth of Seoul’s long-lost river is another striking example of the impact waterways can have on a city. The Cheonggyecheon River, located near the city centre, had become a health hazard due to pollution by the early 20th century and was completely covered by 1961. A new expressway came a decade later, further encasing and also causing damage to the river system. From 2002, a government project set about reversing those mistakes, removing the freeway, unearthing the river and creating well-planted riverside paths (pictured).
Montreal was once criss-crossed by more than 30 rivers and streams, providing water and supporting fishing and farming for indigenous communities, supporting a range of wildlife and, later, attracting fur-trappers and European settlers. The St. Pierre River was one of the most important and, from the late 17th century, was rerouted and diverted into canals to power flour mills. By the time this map was drawn, in 1759, the river – on the left, labelled as St Peter’s River – was already diminished from its original state.
In the early 19th century St. Pierre was diverted into tunnels under canals and soon after was incorporated into the city’s first stone sewer. Most remaining above-ground sections were covered to make room for housing developments in the 1950s. There are still places where people can glimpse something of how the river used to look, with a section of it still flowing above ground on the Meadowbank Golf Course – before it plunges into its subterranean network of tunnels. It also takes a breath in Angrignon Park, pictured.
Today, the Neglinnaya or Neglinka River follows its path – unseen and rarely heard – beneath Moscow’s streets, with only a street bearing its name giving a clue as to the route it once cut right across the city. This late 18th-century picture depicts a view of the river and Kitay-gorod (the city’s first neighbourhood beyond the Kremlin walls) from Petrovsky Square. The Kremlin was once protected by a moat filled by the river until it was re-routed in 1792 due to persistent flooding.
The river was paved over by what’s now Neglinnaya Street in the early 19th century and buried in nearly five miles (8km) of tunnels, emptying into the Moskva River. Enthusiasts can now trace part of its route from Bolshoi Theatre to the Trubnaya Square. Another street that hints at its existence is Kuznetsky Most or Blacksmith's Bridge, pictured around 1912. The popular shopping stretch is named after the 18th-century bridge that crossed the river here.