Join this afternoon’s hunt for Richmond Park’s lost rivers

There are lost rivers, wells and tunnels buried under Richmond Park, and today a three-year hunt to find them begins.

The Royal Parks charity has launched Lost Waterways of the Royal Parks, an archaeology project investigating the forgotten conduits, wells, reservoirs and tunnels hidden beneath Richmond, Bushy and Greenwich Parks. It marks the launch with a free guided walk in Richmond Park this afternoon, 2pm to 4pm, meeting at Pembroke Lodge.

The walk is led by Royal Parks archaeologist Andrew Mayfield, is free but must be booked in advance through Eventbrite, and is for adults aged 18 and over. It covers around two hours over undulating and uneven ground, and dogs are welcome on leads. At the time of writing, a few tickets were left.

What Mayfield and his team are looking for is the buried water network that once supplied fresh water to Richmond Palace, the royal residence that gave the park its name. Conduits, wells, reservoirs and underground tunnels carried that water for centuries. Much of it is now invisible, but not all: Conduit Wood, on the western side of the park, is named after the White Conduit, a covered well still standing there. It was built around 1500 by Henry VII to supply his new Richmond Palace, which makes it arguably the oldest man-made object in the park, standing more than a century before the park itself existed. The tunnels themselves are not open to the public and are unsafe to enter, so what the project finds will be shared through walks, talks and digital content rather than access underground.

The timing is particularly apt: the project launches at the same time as a hosepipe ban in force across Putney and Wandsworth, and the park’s grass has been burnt brown by weeks without meaningful rain.

Mayfield says the structures could turn out to be more than remnants of history. “These important historic structures may even provide solutions to some of the challenges we face in the 21st century,” he says, pointing to the growing demand for water across the parks. The Friends of Richmond Park go further, saying the research will help decide whether some of these centuries-old structures could collect water for use in the park again. That is not a hypothetical exercise: the Royal Parks is already repairing pond outflows and installing leaky dams in Conduit Wood to retain water against drought, so the water-resilience work this project might inform is already under way.

The Friends of Richmond Park put £30,000 towards the project, a contribution the charity says helped secure its main funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The project runs until 2029. It starts in Richmond Park, then moves on to Bushy Park and Greenwich Park, where a similar buried network once fed the Palace of Greenwich.

Today is dry and mild for the walk, with no rain expected, highs around 25°C and a light breeze. If you can’t make the 2pm start, the walk itself needs booking but the project itself does not: findings will be shared as the research continues.

What else is on in the park

The Royal Parks’ Summer Nature Roadshow reaches Richmond Park twice this month: free family drop-in activities at Pen Ponds on 18 August, and at Petersham Gate Playground on 19 August, both 11am to 3pm, no booking needed.

Richmond Park’s Half Marathon takes over the Tamsin Trail on Sunday 9 August. The Isabella Plantation, at its best earlier in the year, is still worth a detour for anyone walking that side of the park. And close to Conduit Wood, watch for ongoing works to the ponds and streams there, part of the same effort to hold on to water through dry summers.