The easiest pub quiz question in the world: name a river that flows through London. Answer: the Thames. A somewhat more difficult question: name another river that flows through London. A few might know of the river Lee (or Lea) that springs near Leagrave in Bedfordshire and joins the Thames at Leamouth in the London borough of Tower Hamlets. But how about: name a third river that flows through London? And a fourth, a fifth, a sixth?

We’d lose all but the more phenomenal pub quiz contestants here, even though there are in actual fact over a dozen natural water courses flowing through Britain’s capital. Many of them played important role in the development of the city, as the location of mills, the source of drinking water and as open sewers. Most of them have been pushed totally underground, forced into culverts, out of sight and out of mind – even if some of them have left their mark on the city’s topology. This map shows and names some of those lost rivers of London, all tributaries to the Thames.

Starting on the rive gauche of the Thames (which in this case means the north bank of the river), those are, west to east:

· Stamford Brook: the confluence of three smaller streams arising in West London, Stamford Brook flows into Hammersmith Creek before discharging into the Thames. Its name comes from ‘stoney ford’, and is remembered in Stamford Brook tube station. The stream was covered by 1900 and is now a sewer.

· Parr’s Ditch: also called Black Bull Ditch, this stream arose north of present-day King Street in Hammersmith, flowing under a bridge at Hammersmith Road and crossing what is now the St Paul’s Court estate to flow into the Thames where now Riverside Studios are.

· Counter’s Creek: arising in Kensal Green and flowing south through Little Wormwood Scrubs, Olympia and Earls Court to Sands End, where it flows into the Thames, Counter’s Creek can still sometimes be spotted by commuters on the westbound platform of West Brompton tube station, but only after heavy rainfall. Its tidal mouth is known as Chelsea Creek. Chelsea FC’s football grounds is known erroneously as Stamford Bridge because of confusion between Counter’s Creek and Stamford Brook.

· Westbourne: flowing from Hampstead through Hyde Park onto Sloane Square and thence into the Thames, the River Westbourne has left its mark on London toponymy, mainly by the other names it has been called through the centuries: Kilburn, Bayswater, Serpentine, Bourne, Westburn Brook, Ranelagh and Ranelagh Sewer. Kilburn and Bayswater nowadays are well-known areas in London. The Serpentine, formed in 1730 to beautify Hyde Park, was fed with the Westbourne’s waters until 1834, by which time it had become too polluted. Another area owing its name to this stream is Knightsbridge – named after a bridge over the Westbourne. It has been driven underground since the 1850s, when the area it flows through was gobbled up by an expanding London. An original part of the pipes it still runs through can be seen above the platform of Sloane Square tube station. At low tide, its mouth can still be seen some 300 yards west of Chelsea Bridge.