Tyburn Brook

Tyburn Brook was a small tributary that once flowed into the Westbourne beneath Hyde Park. It ran south-west for a few hundred metres before its natural drainage was lost to gravelly soil. The brook’s catchment area disappeared as Victorian sewers combined foul and surface water. Its source remains underground, feeding into a mix of these systems. The Serpentine now draws water from three boreholes instead. The brook was often confused with the longer Tyburn or River Tybourne until the early 19th century. William Blake’s poem *Jerusalem* mentions the brook in a passage describing London’s suffering. The lines evoke groans heard on London Stone and Tyburn’s Brook as Albion’s fate shakes the Atlantic mountains. The brook’s name appears alongside the city’s ancient landmarks. Blake’s work links the brook to the broader history of London’s rivers. The poem reflects the brook’s place in the city’s cultural memory. Visitors to Hyde Park today will not see the brook above ground. Its hidden course lies beneath the park’s paths and the Serpentine’s waters. The area’s drainage systems still carry traces of its former flow. The brook’s legacy survives in literature and local history. Its name endures in maps and references from the period. The park’s landscape bears little trace of the stream that once shaped it.