The River Effra is a former stream or small river in south London, England, now culverted for most of its course. Once a tributary of the River Thames, flows from the Effra were incorporated in the Victorian era into a combined sewer draining much of the historic area of Peckham and Brixton.
The etymology of the name “Effra” has been much disputed. There is no evidence that it was applied to the stream before the late 18th century, and early 19th century gazetteers gave it no name.[1] A map of 1744 refers to it as the “Shore”,[2] and it was also referred to as “Brixton Creek”[3] and “the Wash”. Unlikely suggestions for the name’s origin include Ruskin’s, that it was “shortened from [the Latin word] Effrena”,[4] that it was from a Celtic root “yfrid”, or that it derived from Anglo-Saxon “efer”, “bank”,[5] perhaps via “heah efre” (“high bank”) recorded in a charter of 693 for a spot on the bank of the Thames.[4]
A more recent suggestion is that the name is a corruption of the place-name “Heathrow”, the name of a manor which once covered some 70 acres south of present day Coldharbour Lane and east of present day Effra Road.[6] By the 1790s the land making up the Manor of Heathrow was known as Effra Farm.[6] There is evidence that the name was first applied to the stream at Brixton, perhaps taken from the name of the farm, and was only later extended to the rest of its course.[1] A 2016 book by the Lambeth borough archivist supports this view, suggesting that other etymologies are a product of 19th century antiquarianism.
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