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.
River Thames
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)…
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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LondonLife – Bridge reflection…
10 historic London docks…10. East India Docks…
These docks located in Blackwall were among the large number of docks built in the first half of the 19th century and were, as the name suggests, established by the East India Company.
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LondonLife – Tunnel vision…
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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LondonLife – View of Westminster Bridge…
London pub signs – The Mudlark…
This pub, located in Southwark, just north of Borough Market (and Southwark Cathedral), owes its name to the proximity of the river and the traditional practice of mudlarking – a word used to describe the idea of scavanging the banks of the Thames for valuables.
Mudlarking rose to prominence in the 18th and 19th centuries and the mudlarks were often children, mostly boys, who would undertake the dangerous activity of scavanging the foreshore of the tidal Thames on a daily basis in an effort to supplement the family income.
The 19th century journalist Henry Mayhew wrote about mudlarks he encountered on the river, including a nine-year-old who, dressed in nothing but trousers that had been worn away to shorts, had apparently already been about the activity for three years.
The mudlarks were after anything that could be sold for a small income – coal, ropes, bones, iron and copper nails.
The practice continues today – and has unearthed some fascinating historic finds – but anyone wanting to do so needs a permit from the Port of London Authority (and must respect rules around their finds that are of an historical nature).
The pub, meanwhile, originally dates from the mid-1700s and used to feature child mudlarks on its sign (it now has a hand holding a mudlark’s find of a coin).
It is (unsurprisingly, given the location) said to be popular with market traders and attendees.
The pub, located on Montague Close, is these days part of the Nicholson’s chain. For more, see https://www.nicholsonspubs.co.uk/restaurants/london/themudlarklondonbridge#/
LondonLife – Low tide…
Lost London – Richmond Lodge…
Located close to the River Thames, Richmond Lodge was a royal hunting lodge before becoming a favoured residence for Hanoverian royals for several decades in the 18th century.
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LondonLife – City lights…
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