London Clay: Journeys in the Deep City

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So many of us are unconsciously connected to the lost rivers. They determined the lie of the land. You can walk down Marylebone Lane: the exact bend of the Lane is the bend of the River Fleet. The curve of the architecture around St Pancras station follows the Fleet. There are lots of examples where we are unconsciously following these lost rivers. It’s a kind of startling revelation when you find out about London’s lost rivers. This book is an interesting animal, as it is not a memoir, it is not a text book or a book of poetry – it is very much all of these things and has elements of social and personal history within it. Each ruminative walk covers quite a small area at a time but Chivers evokes atmosphere brilliantly. There is always a sense of 'being there' but in the context of deep time stretching down to the geological formations under the walker. Chivers’s writing feels refreshing and necessary, a genuine, lyrical appraisal of contemporary life.’ Seeing how popular liminal spaces have become online, was the idea of liminality somehow important to the book?

Tom Chivers brings a poet's sensibility to this book about the hidden parts of the capital, mixing the past with the present, the known with the unknown and his personal story with social history and geology.' Bernardine Evaristo, author of Girl, Woman, Other

Macfarlane's book (though good) sometimes lost its way in the standard issue preachiness of the liberal intellectual. Macfarlane's poetic element can become almost a parody of itself at times, the tone portentous. Chivers has less ambition but achieves it more authentically. Tom won an Eric Gregory Award in 2011 and was shortlisted for the Edwin Morgan Prize in 2014. He has performed at numerous events and venues including Dasein Poetry Festival, Athens; The Eden Project, Cornwall; Ledbury Poetry Festival; London Literature Festival; Moray Walking Festival; Poetry International; The Sage Gateshead; Soho Theatre and The Thames Festival.

There are maps and illustrations throughout and these complement the text. It was good being able to visualise the areas that Chivers was discussing – and I learnt some interesting geological and geographical terms that have bypassed me up to this point in my life. ‘Alluvial’ seemed to feature a lot so I might start flinging that into casual conversation now! He has released two pamphlets of poetry, The Terrors (Nine Arches Press, 2009; shortlisted for the Michael Marks Award) and Flood Drain (Annexe Press, 2012), and two full collections, How To Build A City (Salt Publishing, 2009) and Dark Islands (Test Centre, 2015). His poems have been anthologised in Dear World & Everything In It (Bloodaxe Books, 2013) and London: A History in Verse (Harvard University Press, 2012).

London at the beginning of the 2020s is as different from, say, London in the 1990s (my last residence decade) as the latter was from the London of the 1970s (when I first arrived). Its multiculturalism is now embedded, its 'different ideology' established and its detritus piling up. That is the charm of the book. It shows a poet's sensibility in a way that I found more convincing than the more overt attempt at poetry by Macfarlane. Somewhere between all the facts and ruminations, intangible things are being presented with inexpressible feelings attached. The book is organised into sections, each dealing with Chivers’ separate ‘quests’ within the city. This might be the tracing of a river source or an investigation into one of London’s natural features – for example, where there is a natural rupture in the clay the city is built upon. I’ll be honest – some of this didn’t sound thrilling to me initially, but the reader is in safe hands and Chivers makes his personal interests interesting to read. You frequently describe your time spent tracing lost rivers around London as a pilgrimage of sorts. What could this pilgrimage tell people who weren’t previously interested in the lost rivers of London?

No city can survive without water, and lots of it. Today we take the stuff for granted: turn a tap and it gushes out. But it wasn't always so. For centuries London, one of the largest and richest cities in the world, struggled to supply its citizens with reliable, clean water. The Mercenary River tells the story of that struggle from the middle ages to the present day. However, I soon cheered up. I was in the company of an unpretentious and easy-going personality. Yes, he is a typical liberal Londoner - that type who can often drive us 'country' folk up the wall - but he is likeable and decent. Yes, dear reader, I liked him and he writes well.The genesis of this book is hard to pin down. Born in South London in 1983, Chivers has been fascinated since childhood with exploring the city. Throughout his twenties, he continued to chronicle London through barely-read poems, pamphlets, and books. Just as this creative impulse was petering out, arts charity Cape Farewell approached him to be their first poet-in-residence, in turn leading Chivers to produce a series of audio walking adventures along London's lost rivers. This, if anything, provided the impetus for the writing of London Clay. Based on new research, it tells a tale of remarkable technological, scientific and organisational breakthroughs; but also a story of greed and complacency, high finance and low politics. Among the breakthroughs was the picturesque New River, neither new nor a river but a state of the art aqueduct completed in 1613 and still part of London's water supply: the company that built it was one of the very first modern business corporations, and also one of the most profitable. London water companies were early adopters of steam power for their pumps. And Chelsea Waterworks was the first in the world to filter the water it supplied its customers: the same technique is still used to purify two-thirds of London's drinking water. But for much of London's history water had to be rationed, and the book also chronicles our changing relationship with water and the way we use it.

The Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St Saviour and St Mary Overie (meaning over the river) which has witnessed over 1000 years of London history,stands at the oldest crossing-point of the River Thames, at what was for many centuries the only entrance to the City of London. The only complaint is that the maps are pretty and schematic but it is not always easy to follow the travels unless you have a street finder at hand. There are also times when the precise course of the journey appears a little unclear and does not seem to match the cast of the map.The idea of secret rivers, enclosed in the sewer system across London, exerting their influence on the city unbeknownst to the residents above has a sense of the mystical about it – helped, no doubt, by my reading Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series! It's entertaining, enlightening and deeply moving. You will learn something about London and a good deal about life." The prose is an interesting balance between experience and lyrical description. The combination results in a visual journey as you walk along beside him, feel his energy - as if you are the silent observer. The voyeur of time, travel, space and presence. Exactly what is more or less permanent or transitory is unclear. The course of ancient rivers become shifted into sewers while more recent waste threatens to degrade imperfectly and become lodged in the geology. I wonder if decades or centuries from now others will experience the same hunger for pyscho-geology and the energies that have gone before them and perhaps still linger in an attempt to connect.