THE THAMES

Beach

Tower Beach

Children died playing on the Thames foreshore. The Rev Tubby Clayton (1885-1972) decided to create an environment where they could do so safely. Working with Lord Wakefield and the Tower Hill Improvement Trust a sandy beach was created next to the Tower of London. 1500 barge loads of sand were deposited. Access to this was only permitted when tidal conditions were relatively safe; access was only available for a few hours a day. In 1934 King George V granted the children of London and Stepney free access forever to the Tower's foreshore. The beach was a great success. On one bank holiday in 1937 it was used by 22,000 people.

Location: Tower Beach, The Queen's Staircase, The Tower of London, EC3N 4AB (orange, grey)

Website: https://thamesfestivaltrust.org/whats-on/tower-beach-open-day-939

Boats

The Thames Traditional Boat Festival

The Thames Traditional Boat Festival was first staged in 1978. The event was organised by the River Thames Society.

Website: www.tradboatfestival.com

The Thames Traditional Boat Society

The Thames Traditional Boat Society champions non-engine powered boats. The organisation was set up in 1980. Its founders included John Cox (1933-2015), who was Eton College's boatbuilder.

The City of London and The Thames

In 1197 King Richard I the Lionheart granted the Conservancy of the Thames to the City of London in return for the settlement making a large contribution to his crusading funds. During the late Middles Ages, the City used its economic strength to build up control over the Thames from Staines¹ in Middlesex to the mouth of the River Medway, which lies far out in the river's estuary.

The exact nature of the Corporation s authority over the watercourse was unclear. Other parties frequently litigated against the City about the matter. The issue was only finally resolved when the Corporation found itself to be in direct confrontation with the Crown. This came about after it was proposed to embank the river, therefore, who had the right to do what to which part of the river meant who had the right to profit from the recovered land, therefore, who owned the river became a hotly contested issue between the two parties. Ultimately, in 1857, the City caved in to the Crown's claim that the Corporation had only ever exercised stewardship and that the Crown had always been the owner.

¹. Staines in the now on the western edge of the conurbation.

The Embankment and Sir Joseph Bazalgette

Until the late 19^thC the Thames was a broader, shallower watercourse. The street name Strand has its origin in the Anglo-Saxon word for a beach or shore. The street the Strand at its south-western end is not only several yards above the river's current high-water mark it is also a couple of hundred metres to the north-west of the river's original low-water mark.

The Metropolitan Board of Works charged Joseph Bazalgette with building the Thames Embankment. This confined the river's flow within particular bounds. The intention was to manage the watercourse by making it narrower and faster. (One of the effects of speeding its flow was to discourage any tendencies towards freezing that it had retained after the early 1830s rebuilding of London Bridge.)

The Embankment has a number of different sections. On the northern bank, the Victoria Embankment (1864-70) was built between Westminster Bridge and Blackfriars Bridge. The Chelsea Embankment (1871-4) is its westward continuation, there being a gap between them that is filled by the Palace of Westminster, which nestles behind its own flood defences. On the southern side of the river the Albert Embankment (1866-70) was constructed between Vauxhall Station and Lambeth Bridge.

Secondary features of Bazalgette s commission were the building of the District Line underground line along the Victoria Embankment and the construction of sewage drains and service tunnels.

The engineer is commemorated by a bust that supervises Victoria Embankment.

Location: Albert Embankment, SE1 7EH (red, blue)

Chelsea Embankment, SW3 4LA (orange, pink)

Strand-on-the-Green

The process of embanking the Thames in central London swept away scores of riverside quays, houses, and workshops. A resonance of the riverside's old character is preserved at Strand-on-the-Green. It is best appreciated from the southern bank of the Thames, to the east of the southern end of Kew Bridge.

Location: Strand-on-the-Green, W4 3PQ

See Also: PERIOD PROPERTIES

Houseboats

When addressing a postal letter to a house the letters HB should put at the start and then the address of the property on the landside of the road.

Penelope Fitzgerald Offshore (1979) novel is about people who live houseboats at Battersea. The book won the 1979 Booker Prize. It is probably set in the early 1960s. It is composed of a series of vignettes until the final fifth or so.

See Also: STREET FURNITURE Addresses

Islands

There was a succession of islands along the riverside in inner south-east London. These lay between the Surrey Commercial Docks and the marshes behind them, e.g. St Helena Island (Bermondsey) and Providence Island (Deptford). Named after taverns with pleasure gardens.

The Pool of London

The Pool of London was the heart of London s maritime life until the early 19^thC when the walled docks began to be developed. The Upper Pool extends from London Bridge to Cherry Garden Pier and the Lower one from Cherry Garden Pier to Limekiln Creek.

Roughly once a year, depending on naval vessel movements, in a ceremony, Royal Navy sailors deliver a barrel of rum to the Constable of the Tower. This is to pay for the Navy to have access to the Pool of London.

Location: The Pool of London (orange, yellow)

The Port of London Authority

The Port of London Authority is a public body that manages the Thames from Teddington Lock to an abstract line that stretches over the river's estuary between the Crow Stone, Southend, and the London Stone at Yantlet Creek on the Isle of Grain, Kent. In 1909 the body took into public ownership the enclosed docks that lay between the Tower of London and Tilbury. The City of London transferred the Thames Conservancy to it.

Location: The Port of London Authority Building, 10 Trinity Square, EC3N 4AJ. In 1976 an insurance company took over the edifice that had served as the Authority's home during its pomp. (orange, white)

Teddington Lock, TW11 9NR

Website: www.pla.co.uk

Punting

Dittons Skiff & Punting Club

Gravel was lain on the bed of Thames to aid punting.

Location: 1 Albany Reach, Queens Road, Thames Ditton, KT7 0GH

Website: www.dittons.org.uk

Thames Punting Club

Thames Punting Club is the sport's governing body. It holds a regatta.

Punts are raced both singly and doubly.

Website: https://punting.org.uk

Riverboat Disasters

The Princess Alice

In 1878 the pleasure cruiser The Princess Alice collided with another vessel on the River Thames off North Woolwich Pier and sank. Over 600 people drowned, of which the large majority were women. This was because women tended not to learn to swim and were drawn under by their heavy clothing become water saturated. Many of the deaths derived from a vast body of sewage having been discharged into the river shortly beforehand.

Website: www.rmg.co.uk/stories/blog/library-archive/drowning-sewage-sinking-princess-alice

The Marchioness

In 1989 51 people died in The Marchioness riverboat disaster. As a result, the R.N.L.I. instituted four lifeboats on the upper section of the tidal Thames.

The River Thames Society

Website: www.riverthamessociety.org.uk

Settlement Location and Depth

The settlements along the Thames, e.g. Chelsea, Hammersmith, and Greenwich, were located on the outside of bends. This was because the water was deeper than on the inside bends.

The Thames Barrier

Location: Eastmoor Street, SE7 8LX

Website: www.gov.uk/guidance/the-thames-barrier

The Thames Festival Trust

Website: https://thamesfestivaltrust.org

The Tidal Thames

In London the tidal nature of the Thames makes it appear to be a larger river than it is in fact. The River Tay in Scotland has more water pass down it than the Thames does.

The Thames is tidal until it reaches Teddington in the far west of the city. Below there the river's mud-banks and beaches are exposed at low tide. (There is a small sandy beach close to St Gabriel's Wharf.)

Salt water is 2.5% heavier than fresh.

(Mean sea level is measured at Newlyn Beach in Cornwall.

Website: https://thames-explorer.org.uk (The Thames Explorer Trust is an educational charity that is active along the tidal stretch of the Thames)

The Society of Mudlarks & Antiquarians

The Society of Mudlarks & Antiquarians is a group that carries on its activities within guidelines that are set out by the Port of London Authority. Between the Houses of Parliament and Thames Pier, the organisation's members search the Thames's foreshore looking for artefacts that have been dropped there through the centuries. Any items that are discovered have to be offered to The Museum of London for a period of display before they can be sold.

Website: www.pla.co.uk/Environment/Thames-foreshore-permits https://thamesfestivaltrust.org/heritage-programme/foragers-of-the-foreshore/meet-the-mudlarks www.thamesmuseum.org//aboutl

Billies & Charleys

In the middle of 19^thC Billy and Charley were two people who eked out a living by scouring the Thames's banks for artefacts that they could sell to dealers. In 1857 it struck the pair that it would be more efficient - and profitable for them - if they manufactured the antiquities rather than searched for them. This they did, claiming that the sudden steady flow of items was being generated by the excavation of a new dock at Shadwell in east London. The following year their fraud was unmasked by the archaeologist Henry Syer Cuming.

Billies & Charleys are still traded but openly so, being valued as curiosity items.

Location: The Cuming Museum, Old Walworth Town Hall, 151 Walworth Road, SE17 1RY. The collection of Cuming and his father Richard Cuming forms the nucleus of the museum.

Shadwell Basin, E1W 3TD

Website: www.southwark.gov.uk/events-culture-and-heritage/explore-culture-in-southwark/heritage-and-local-history/cuming-museum

Tide Ball

Chelsea Harbour's Belvedere Tower is stopped by a tide ball that rises and falls with the tide.

Location: Chelsea Harbour, SW10 0XF (purple, yellow)

Warehouses

Warehouses used to dominate the River Thames. Virtually all of the ones in central London have been converted into homes or offices.

Location: Sun Wharf, Narrow Street, E14 8DG. The home of the late movie director Sir David Lean, who was a pioneer of the trend.

Wharves

In the Early Modern period goods and commodities were loaded and unloaded at wharves that had been constructed upon the banks of the Thames. Landowners built and maintained docks along both sides of the river. These were constructed as facilities for shipbuilding or ship maintenance. By the mid-17^th it was clear that the City of London's wharves were having difficulty coping with the volume of goods that were seeking to pass through them. As a result, the wharves on the bank opposite the City were allowed to have goods landed upon them. These became known as sufferance docks . The area to the south of what is now Hay's Wharf became known as London's Larder .

Wharves came to specialise in dealing with particular regions of the world and therefore tended to handle different varieties of commodity. It is reputed that during heavy fogs, Thames lightermen used to be able tell where they were on the river by the smells that emanated from the wharves that they were passing.

David Backhouse 2024