There's even a well-known song about the Charles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62XRy-jFCm8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62XRy-jFCm8 London has many "van

There's even a well-known song about the Charles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62XRy-jFCm8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62XRy-jFCm8 London has many "vanished" rivers, the most famous of which is the Fleet. In earlier times it was nice enough that a royal palace was built on its banks, but by the Restoration it had become what Neal Stephenson's _Baroque Cycle_ described as a "river of shit" (the palace had been converted into a prison by then, too). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Fleet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Fleet