Before we move on to our next Wednesday series, here’s a recap…
The Thames
10 places to encounter London’s animal life…6. The River Thames…
The River Thames is home to a range of wildlife as it winds through London including several thousand seals which have been spotted at locations across the city’s span.
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LondonLife – Going up…
LondonLife – Millennium Bridge bubbles…
This Week in London – Totally Thames kicks off; Black On The Square; and, ‘Rivers and Roads’…
• It’s September and that means Totally Thames – London’s annual month-long festival centred on the famous waterway – is underway. This year’s festival includes a packed programme of events which this weekend include the St Katharine Docks Classic Boat Festival, the Kingston River Cultures Festival, a mud-larking exhibition held in the ancient Roman amphitheatre under Guildhall Yard and a Victorian family day out at Crossness Pumping Station. Other highlights include a foreshore archaeology walk at Deptford (14th September), guided tours of the HMS Wellington (20th September), the month-long exhibition of winners and runners-up from the annual Thames Lens photography competition on the Riverside Walkway on the north bank near Millennium Bridge, and, of course, the annual Great River Race (on Saturday, 20th September). For more, head to https://thamesfestivaltrust.org/whats-on/.
• The contribution of Black Londoners is again being celebrated this weekend as Black On The Square returns to Trafalgar Square. The free, family-friendly festival, now in its third year features live music, dance, food and workshops and this year includes a focus on London’s nightlife under the theme ‘Intergenerate’ recognising Black Londoners’ contribution to electronic culture and night life and featuring Garage music producer and DJ Wookie. There will also be a series of stalls offering foods ranging from Caribbean classics to West African vegan bites and artisanal goods including jewellery, art, books, homeware and fashion with the ‘Accra to London’ stall offering a range of items influenced by Ghana’s capital city, Accra, a highlight. Runs from 12pm to 6pm on Saturday. For more, see https://www.london.gov.uk/events/black-square-2025.
• The Great West Road and the Thames have served as key routes into London since Roman times and they’re now the subject of a new exhibition at the Barbican Library. Rivers and Roads features the work of Brentford-based painter Helena Butler, who paints in a semi abstract style to capture the landscape and the feelings and images the local scenery inspires, and ceramic artist Anna Butler, who has produced a series in response to Alfred Noyes’ beloved poem The Shining Streets of London. Admission is free. Runs until 29th September. For more, see www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/events/rivers-and-roads-art-exhibition
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10 World War II memorials commemorating Londoners – 10. Blitz Memorial (Memorial to the Civilians of East London)…
This evocative memorial, which stands on the north bank of the River Thames at Wapping, is designed to show the figure (or rather the absence of the figure) of a dove.
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(In)famous Londoners – Alice Tankerville…
The only woman prisoner recorded as having escaped from the Tower of London, Alice Tankerville was accused, along with her common-law husband John Wolfe, of committing piracy in 1533.
It was alleged that Tankerville had lured two wealthy Italian merchants into a wherry out in the Thames where her accomplices – including Wolfe and two men disguised as watermen – had robbed and murdered them. They were also accused of burgling a home near St Benet Gracechurch where the two men had been staying.
Despite apparently having attempted to seek sanctuary in a special precinct near Westminster Abbey, the couple were arrested, charged with piracy and murder among other things, and, following a trial neither apparently attended, found guilty.
Taken to the Tower of London in 1534 (Wolfe had done a previous stint there for the theft of 366 gold crowns from a ship berthed at the Hanseatic League’s Steelyard but had eventually been released due to a lack of evidence), Alice is said to have been imprisoned in Coldharbour Gate.
Alice wasn’t done yet, however. On 23rd March that year, she managed to escape, apparently with the aid of gaoler John Bawde who provided her with ropes and a key.
It was a short-lived liberation – believed to have been wearing man’s clothes, she and Bawde were arrested trying to reach waiting horses on a road just outside the Tower (it’s worth noting that not only was Alice the only women prisoner to ever escape the Tower of London, she was also the only escapee during the reign of King Henry VIII).
Both she and Wolfe were subsequently executed and due to the nature of their crime, their execution took place on the Thames.
They were hanged in chains in the Thames near the site of their crime and, before a small flotilla of boats filled with sight-seers come to witness the event, were slowly drowned as the tide rose. Their bodies were then left hanging on the spot as a warning to others.
LondonLife – Eel Pie Island (from above)…
Where’s London’s oldest…football stadium?
Craven Cottage, home of Fulham FC on the bank of the River Thames in west London, is the city’s oldest football stadium.
The site has been home to the club since 1896, having previously been based at a range of grounds. It took two years to prepare the ground for play including constructing a changing room building.
The first match was played at the ground on 10th October, 1896 (Fulham beat Minerva 4-0 in the Middlesex Senior Cup).
Initially the ground was surrounded with terracing only – this changed in 1903 when the first stand was built on the north side of the ground. Providing seating for 1,200 spectators, it was affectionately known as the ‘Rabbit Hutch’.
The stand didn’t last long. Just 18 months later, it was condemned as dangerous by municipal officials and had to be pulled down.
In January, 1905, it was reported that the club had gained a 99-year lease on the ground. Work on a new stand, 5,000-seat, started just four months later to be designed by Archibald Leitch with steelwork provided by Clyde Structural Iron Company. Known as the Stevenage Road Stand (with a brick facade on the road), it opened on 2nd September that year.
Leitch also designed the Cottage Pavillion, located at the south-east corner of the ground, which was used for change rooms and by the club’s administration.
In 1907, the club hosted the first full international match when, in March, 1907, England and Wales drew 1-1.
While the club regularly saw crowds of up to 40,000 in the lead-up to World War II, a record was set in 1938 at a game between Fulham and Millwall when the crowd numbered just shy of 50,000.
These days there are four stands: the Grade II-listed Johnny Haynes Stand on the east side of the ground (it was renamed in 2005 in honour of the club legend who also has a statue at the ground); the Riverside Stand on the west side (redeveloped in recent years); the Hammersmith End stand (located to the north of the ground, traditionally its home end); and, the Putney End stand (located at the south end).
The Cottage Pavilion, the balcony of which is from where player’s families have traditionally watched games, remains in the south-east corner.
LondonLife – Passing under Southwark Bridge…
Lost London – Hotel Cecil…
Once the biggest hotel in Europe, the opulent Hotel Cecil opened in 1896 on a prominent site overlooking the Thames. But it only survived for little more than three decades.
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Treasures of London – The Medieval Palace at the Tower of London…
Located in one of the oldest parts of the city’s iconic fortress, the medieval palace has undergone a revamp with a restoration of the sumptuous and extravagant decorative scheme that was in place in the 13th century.
The medieval palace is found within the St Thomas’s Tower, the Wakefield Tower and the Lanthorn Tower on the southern side of the Tower and was built on the orders of successive monarchs, King Henry III and his son King Edward I. They were used as a domestic and diplomatic space periodically by the kings and their queens, Eleanor of Provence and Eleanor of Castile.
The medieval palace today includes a recreation of Edward I’s vibrant bedchamber in the St Thomas’s Tower (which once directly fronted the River Thames and sits above the water gate later known as Traitor’s Gate) and an exploration of the influence Eleanor of Castile had on the decoration.
The Wakefield Tower, meanwhile, was built by King Henry III as royal lodgings between 1220 and 1240. It originally sat at the river’s edge and could be accessed from the river by private stairs.
Believed to have been used as an audience chamber, it contains a recreation of a throne and canopy based on 13th century examples which are decorated with a Plantagenet lion – the symbol of the royal family. The vaulted ceiling is 19th century.
The third of the towers – the Lanthorn Tower – was built as lodgings for King Henry III’s Queen but is now a 19th century reconstruction after the original tower was gutted by fire.
It contains a display and among the new objects is a stone, on loan from the Jewish Museum London, which came from a Jewish mikveh or ritual bath, dating to about 1200 and discovered in London in 2001 within the home of the medieval Crespin family. It’s part of a new effort to explore the story of London’s medieval Jewish community, the taxation of which helped to pay for the construction of St Thomas’s Tower in the 1270s.
Other new objects on show in the Lanthorn Tower include a 13th century seal matrix from a 13th century Italian knight and a gold and enamel 13th century pyx – a small round container used to hold communion wafers made in the French city of Limoges (both on loan from the British Museum) as well as a child’s toy knight made of lead that dates from c1300, lent by London Museum and a perfectly preserved wicker fish trap which was excavated from the Tower moat, containing bones likely dating from the 15th or 16th century and illustrating the moat’s role as a fishery.
The medieval palace also includes a small private chapel which is where it’s believed King Henry VI died in 1471.
Among other stories now told in the display is that of less well-known Tower residents such as King Edward I’s laundress Matilda de Wautham, and John de Navesby the keeper of the white bear which was held in the menagerie at the Tower.
WHERE: The Medieval Palace, The Tower of London (nearest Tube Station is Tower Hill); WHEN: 9am to 5:30pm daily (last entry 3:30pm); COST: £35.80 adults; £28.50 concession; £17.90 children (free for Historic Royal Palaces members and £1 tickets are available for those in receipt of certain means-tested financial benefits); WEBSITE: www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/
LondonLife – Bridge reflection…
LondonLife – Tunnel vision…
10 historic London docks…8. St Saviour’s Dock…
Located in an inlet where the River Neckinger enters the Thames just to the east of Tower Bridge, this dock has been used since the early middle ages.
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10 historic London docks…6. St Mary Overie’s Dock…
This small but historic London dock is located at Bankside on the south bank of the Thames.
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LondonLife – Cambridge completes a clean sweep at The Boat Race…
CCambridge took the honours over Oxford in both the men’s and women’s races as well as both reserve races and the lightweight men’s and women’s races in the annual rowing event on the River Thames in west London on Sunday.
The Light-Blues won the men’s race by five-and-a-half lengths – their sixth victory in seven years, while the women won by two-and-a-half lengths in their eighth consecutive win.
There was controversy when the women’s race had to be restarted – the first time its happened on the Championship Course (the women’s race moved there in 2015 having earlier been held at Henley-on-Thames and before 1977 on the River Isis in Oxford and the Cam in Cambridge – and history was also made in the men’s race with Sarah Winckless the first female umpire.
The first men’s race was held in 1829 and the first women’s in 1927. It takes place over what is known as the Championship Course which covers 4.25 miles between Putney and Mortlake.
For more on the race, see www.theboatrace.org.
10 historic London docks…5. The London Docks…
Once the largest enclosed docks in the world, the London Docks were constructed in Wapping in the early 19th century.
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10 historic London docks…4. West India Docks…
A complex of three docks located on the Isle of Dogs, the West India Docks were founded more than 200 years ago and in recent decades have been redeveloped as the financial centre of Canary Wharf.
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LondonLife – View of Westminster Bridge…
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