May 2008 ~ Brookmill break out
Brook Mill, on the River Ravensbourne, began to supply river water to local houses in 1701. When the river became too polluted in the mid 1800s water was extracted from the chalk aquifer beneath instead. A DLR train passes the pump house - once home to steam engines that replaced the water mill as a source of power. Find out more about this mill and others on QWAG's "Millers' Trail" walk on May 10th.
The Ravensbourne was diverted through Brookmill Park so that the tracks of DLR Lewisham Extension, opened in 1999, could re-use the huge concrete flood defence channel that had constrained the river since the late 1960s.
Photo by Ray Manchester, May 2008
