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River Fleet

victorian England

ai pixlr gimp

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London’s largest hidden river, the Fleet was vital to Roman and medieval life and industry. But it also became one of the city’s stinkiest open-air sewers.

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often dressed as a male, she continued her dead husbands trade of waterman. But like him lost the battle against the diseases from the ditch...

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The area’s reputation for danger and disease lasted into the 19th century. In his novel Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens set Fagin’s lair in the nearby Saffron Hill area. He described it as the dirtiest and most wretched place “where drunken men and women were positively wallowing in the filth”.

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( A waterman is a river worker who transfers passengers across and along city centre rivers and estuaries in the United Kingdom and its colonies.)

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Uploaded on December 13, 2024