Rising from several sources in
Hampstead, and
Brondesbury Park, the river or drain flows south through
Kilburn (also the name of the river at that point) running west along Kilburn Park Road and then south along Shirland Road. After crossing Bishops Bridge Road, the river continued more or less due south, between what is now Craven Terrace and what is now
Gloucester Terrace. At this point, the river was known until the early 19th century as the
Bayswater rivulet and from that it gave its name to the area now known as Bayswater. Originally Bayswater was the stretch of the stream where it crosses Bayswater Road, "Bayards Watering" in 1652 and "Bayards Watering Place" in 1654. It is said that there is a reference to Bayards Watering Place as early as 1380. There were a few houses at this spot in the eighteenth century and, it seems, a man called Bayard used or offered it as a watering place for horses on this road (formerly Uxbridge Road). The river entered
Hyde Park at what is now the
Serpentine and is within the park joined by a tributary,
Tyburn Brook. The Serpentine was formed in 1730 by building a dam across the Westbourne at the instigation of
Queen Caroline, wife of
George II, to beautify the royal park. The Westbourne ceased to provide the water for the Serpentine in 1834, as the culverted Westbourne had become the most convenient main
sewer and the Serpentine is now supplied from three boreholes from the upper chalk underneath Hyde Park. The Serpentine was widely imitated in parks and gardens nationwide. The waters of the Westbourne or Bayswater were originally pure and in 1437 and 1439 conduits were laid to carry water from the Westbourne into the City of London, for drinking. In the 19th century, however, the water became foul by its use as a sewer, and the rise of the
water closet as the prevailing form of
sanitation. Made, in the 19th century, of riveted sections it is below the ceiling towards the end of the platforms closest to the exits. The station was badly bombed during the
Bombing of London in November 1940 but the pipe was not damaged. After flowing beneath the eastern lands of the
Royal Military Hospital Gardens and beneath a corner of
Chelsea Barracks, the drain was in all but exceptional storms entirely designed to be received by the
Joseph Bazalgette-designed Northern Low Level Sewer. As some of its foul content overwhelms the system with further inflows from the west, an improvement, the
Thames Tideway Scheme tunnel will enable that sewer to continue to cope. A clearance in sand against the
tideway is about west of
Chelsea Bridge. An emergency combined sewer overflow also called the Ranelagh Sewer, is obvious except at high tide. The
combined sewer aims to be caught only by two intercept sewers capable of its flow, the
Middle Level Sewer and the
Northern Low Level Sewer in the
London sewerage system. ==Maps==