Hidden rivers are being used as sewers

Ben Nathan is helping to raise awareness of pollution in a local stream through a newly-founded action group

Bounds Green Brook (credit BenNathanLondon)

Did you know there’s a river running beneath your feet?

Bounds Green Brook — the main tributary of Pymmes Brook — flows through North London, under roads, through cemeteries and allotments, largely invisible to the communities it passes through. That invisibility, it turns out, has come at a serious cost.

Over the last year I have sought out the upper and subterranean sections of Bounds Green Brook that do not appear on any Ordnance Survey maps: walking cemeteries and allotments, climbing into underground culverts, searching archives and speaking with locals.

What I have discovered is both beauty and pollution. Streams rise on the northern slopes of Muswell Hill and the eastern slopes of Finchley, flowing through hidden culverts beside the North Circular Road and beneath it. That spring water is polluted by road run-off and sewage misconnections, where untreated waste is flushed into rainwater drains.

Nobody was testing the brook, so I opted to do it myself. Monthly water quality testing across the catchment has revealed concerningly high levels of ammonia and phosphates. At 9.99 parts per million (ppm) — the highest ammonia reading our equipment can record — the result of untreated sewage entering the brook.

I have waded the Northern Outfall Sewer at Hackney Wick. Bounds Green Brook is worse.

I founded Bounds Green Rangers, a volunteer-run river action group. The group tests local streams monthly, providing evidence of pollution by sewage and detergents. We are calling for the streams running through East Finchley and Fuel Lands Allotments — neglected by Thames Water for decades — to be included in their Surface Water Outfall Programme, which aims to resolve sewage misconnections.

We also work with another great local action group, Pymmes Brookers. Bounds Green Brook is a statutory main river. It flows into Pymmes Brook, the River Lea, then the Thames. Yet illegal sewage flows directly into it. Out of sight should not mean out of mind.

Engineers buried this river. Artists can make it visible again. Visibility is the first step towards cleaning it up. We deserve clean rivers.

Ben Nathan is hosting The Brook, an ongoing exhibition at Bruce Castle Museum (N17 8NU) of photographs and maps tracing natural spring water and sewage in Bounds Green Brook which runs until 22nd March and is open Wednesday to Sunday, 1pm-5pm. For the International Day of Action for Rivers, on Saturday 14th March, Ben is hosting a talk at 3pm. Click here for more information.

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