Sudbrook and its tributary, the Latchmere stream, are north-flowing

stream A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream ...

s in London, England, that drain northern

Kingston upon Thames Kingston upon Thames (hyphenated until 1965, colloquially known as Kingston) is a town in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, southwest London, England. It is situated on the River Thames and southwest of Charing Cross. It is notable as ...

and the eastern extreme of

Ham Ham is pork from a leg cut of pork, cut that has been food preservation, preserved by wet or dry Curing (food preservation), curing, with or without smoking (cooking), smoking."Bacon: Bacon and Ham Curing" in ''Chambers's Encyclopædia''. Lo ...

following a

meander scar A meander scar, occasionally meander scarp,Christopher G. Morris, Academic Press dictionary of science and technology, Gulf Professional Publishing, 1992, , page 1333 is a geological feature formed by the remnants of a meandering water channel. The ...

in a

terrace Terrace may refer to: Landforms and construction * Fluvial terrace, a natural, flat surface that borders and lies above the floodplain of a stream or river * Terrace, a street suffix * Terrace, the portion of a lot between the public sidewalk a ...

; the upper part of the Sudbrook drains a narrow vale in

Richmond Park Richmond Park, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, is the largest of Royal Parks of London, London's Royal Parks, and is of national and international importance for wildlife conservation. It was created by Charles I of England, C ...

's southern corner into the tidal Thames.

Sudbrook

Sudbrook (from 'South brook') rises at the small pond south of ''Dann's Pond'', at about elevation, in the far south of

, flowing NNW to Ham Gate. It forms a small valley, Ham Dip, and has been dammed and enlarged in two places to form 'Ham Dip Pond' and 'Ham Gate Pond', first mapped in 1861 and 1754 respectively. These were created for the watering of deer. Both saw restoration including de-silting, completed in 2013. It drains the western

escarpment An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations. The terms ''scarp'' and ''scarp face'' are often used interchangeably with ''escar ...

of the hill that, to the east, forms part of the catchment of

Beverley Brook Beverley Brook is a minor English river long in south-west London. It rises in Worcester Park and joins the River Thames to the north of Putney Embankment at Barn Elms. Course Beverley Brook rises at the top of a hill in a shady area at Cuddi ...

and, to the south, the

Hogsmill River The Hogsmill River in Surrey and Greater London, England is a small chalk stream tributary of the River Thames. It rises in Ewell and flows into the Thames at Kingston upon Thames on the lowest non-tidal reach, that above Teddington Lock. Th ...

Sudbrook is joined by the Latchmere stream just beyond Ham Gate Pond. It then flows into

Sudbrook Park, Petersham Sudbrook Park in Petersham (now in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames) was developed by John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll in the early 18th century. Sudbrook House, designed for Argyll by James Gibbs and now Grade I listed by Historic E ...

, and is

culvert A culvert is a structure that channels water past an obstacle or to a subterranean waterway. Typically embedded so as to be surrounded by soil, a culvert may be made from a pipe, reinforced concrete or other material. In the United Kingdom ...

ed for the remainder of its course, discharging into the tidal River Thames to the east of 'River Lane' where the culvert outfall is protected from tidal

backflow Backflow is a term in plumbing for an unwanted flow of water in the reverse direction. It can be a serious health risk for the contamination of potable water supplies with foul water. In the most obvious case, a toilet flush cistern and its wat ...

by a flap valve. Before culverting, the stream used to flow alongside the

A307 road The A307 road runs through SW London and NW Surrey. It is primary at the north-east end; the remainder is non-primary, generally superseded in the mid-twentieth century in two stages by newer alignments of the Portsmouth Road, the Kingston byp ...

in Petersham and was crossed by a

ford Ford commonly refers to: * Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford * Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river Ford may also refer to: Ford Motor Company * Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company * Ford F ...

at Sudbrook Lane. The collapse of this culvert in the late 1970s, referred to as the Petersham Hole, caused widespread traffic disruption for over a year.

Latchmere stream

Latchmere probably combines

Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intelligib ...

lache The Lache ( ; sometimes simply Lache) is a housing estate in the city of Chester, in Cheshire, United Kingdom, with a population of around 10,000. It is located approximately southwest of the ancient city, with good local transport links en ...

', lazy or slow-moving and

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

mere Mere may refer to: Places * Mere, Belgium, a village in East Flanders * Mere, Cheshire, England * Mere, Wiltshire, England People * Mere Broughton (1938–2016), New Zealand Māori language activist and unionist * Mere Smith, American televisi ...

', a lake or pond; it may however relate to

lammas land Common land is land owned by a person or collectively by a number of persons, over which other persons have certain common rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect wood, or to cut turf for fuel. A person who has a r ...

, a type of common land with church associations. The ''Latchmere stream'' or ''Latchmere brook'' started as drainage

ditch A ditch is a small to moderate divot created to channel water. A ditch can be used for drainage, to drain water from low-lying areas, alongside roadways or fields, or to channel water from a more distant source for plant irrigation. Ditches ar ...

es in the

Canbury Canbury is a district of the northern part of Kingston upon Thames that takes its name from the historic manor that covered the area. Modern Canbury comprises two electoral wards in the constituency of Richmond Park; Canbury Ward to the south ...

manor to the north-east of Kingston railway station that, historically in low gradient seasonally flooded. Flooding is abated by some drains in its catchment now draining to the Thames or Hogsmill River and by many soakaways for the roof of homes. Some surface water still drains north-east then north, added to by percolation of water in Richmond Park into the very small, hillside Gallows Pond. Exactly 305 metres of the south of the Kings Road forms its abrupt dip in Richmond Park's south-west side. Owing to flood deposition centuries ago of the untamed river Thames, the Thames/Latchmere watershed (divide), from the town northward shifts eastward e.g. is 220m from Richmond Road, as to Latchmere Road. The stream's lower course lines the south of the east side of Ham Common, about 50 metres west of Ham Gate of the Richmond Park, via which it joins the Sudbrook just below Ham Gate Pond which together skirt the west side of the Park against the Common. From

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

Saxon England Anglo-Saxon England or Early Medieval England, existing from the 5th to the 11th centuries from the end of Roman Britain until the Norman conquest in 1066, consisted of various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms until 927, when it was united as the Kingdom of ...

or later, the north of Kingston town centre formed a series of island fields formed by a branch of the Hogsmill River and a drainage channel linked to this stream. With the increase of urbanisation of Kingston in the early 19th century, residents of Canbury used many of their ditches as open sewers, causing a public nuisance and a health hazard: ''The stench from this ditch, which is an open one, is always bad, but in summer it is beyond words to describe'' reported the Kingston

Board of Guardians Boards of guardians were ''ad hoc'' authorities that administered Poor Law in the United Kingdom from 1835 to 1930. England and Wales Boards of guardians were created by the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, replacing the parish overseers of the poor ...

on 19 June 1866. This and other open sewers were the cause of serious public health problems, and by in the early 1890s a sewerage works served Kingston, on the Thames. However the slow brook, used as or percolating to the main source of water for a few, still caused some fatal infant diarrhoea and

diphtheria Diphtheria is an infection caused by the bacterium '' Corynebacterium diphtheriae''. Most infections are asymptomatic or have a mild clinical course, but in some outbreaks more than 10% of those diagnosed with the disease may die. Signs and s ...

. Public information not to drink from streams, ditches or shallow wells in urban zones was widespread by the early 20th century. Expansion of residential housing across former agricultural land has resulted in the Latchmere stream being culverted, but its course is revealed during periods of heavy rainfall. Its streets are the subject of

pluvial In geology and climatology, a pluvial is either a modern climate characterized by relatively high precipitation or an interval of time of variable length, decades to thousands of years, during which a climate is characterized by relatively high ...

flood risk management Flood risk management (FRM) aims to reduce the human and socio-economic losses caused by flooding and is part of the larger field of risk management. Flood risk management analyzes the relationships between physical systems and socio-economic envir ...

References

{{authority control Geography of the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames Geography of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames Ham, London Petersham, London Richmond Park Rivers of London Subterranean rivers of London 1Sudbrook