Clifton Hampden Bridge

The door is of the church note the two carved faces and the ornate ironwork on what is essentially a modern door. It is a legal requirement that notices are pinned to THE DOOR which is a bit destructive of the woodwork and this parish council has decided on a sensible notice board. The picture of the bridge was taken from the church

Clifton Hampden

I have already revisited Cricklade, Lechlade and Henley on Thames but on 14th March 2009 went to Abingdon to look around the town the EG and I whizzed by. It turns out the town is one of the oldest in England. We, Maggy and I, had lunch at a pub on a midstream island then went on the Clifton Hampden, particularly to see the church redesigned by the father of Giles Gilbert-Scott who also did the bridge. This picture shows a seriously refurbished cottage in the village, if you go back you can see what it was like last August. Note the boards forming the sidewalk just to right of centre, they aree for pedestrians to walk on during a flood, my guess is the cottage floods too.

In the train going back to Richmond

We got a train from Charlton to Waterloo then another to Richmond, had a good clean up and went out for a celebratory dinner.
The next day EG went up north to friends prior to flying to Nice?
We met her on her return to London and took her out to dinner at her Heathrow hotel for her 60th birthday.

It now needs EG to write her story but that is a while off, she has problems at home which are much more important.
Good luck Sis, you were a super companion all the time, I could not have wished for anyone better.

Mission accommplished

You can see the shape of the housing for the motors on the left. EG has a smile as wide as the river, I fear I ws a bit pooped but Maggie was there to greet us....not the Queen, not the TV, not even a friend but that is the way it goes. EG was disappointed that there was no mug or T shirt on sale for people like us who had done the whole trip so unbeknown to her I had a T shirt specially printed with an outline of the river plus her picture and mine.

You will remember that we had to divert outside Oxford and two weeks later I went back there and walked the missed 2 miles, EG had to return to USA and did not make it but when she is over next we will do it together.

Was it worth it? YES, YES, YES.

Would you do it again? Perhaps, but not at breakneck speed, there is just too much to see so close to the river that you could spend days around the London Bridge area alone.
I shall soon be giving a list of books to read and some words about where to stay, meanwhile, Thank you for staying with me.

We made it

This tunnel takes the path across the barrier control systems to parkland on the other side

Modern art...the barrier

The modern art looked like a mess of wire and that could be said of the Millenium Dome project.
The other picture is our first sight of The Barrier, it looks a little like a series of hoods straddling the river.
The Dome was built on the site of an old gas works (vide Brentford) to be a large exhibition hall in south London which had needed one since 1934 when The Crystal Palace was burned down. The Dome was inspired by The Government and as with so many Governmental ideas it went wrong from the start and although finished on time the cost overruns were staggering and then no one could be found to operate the place as intended. That problem has been solved to some extent by having an exhibition arena and associated shopping precincts.

Looking backwards upriver and economically

A large notice stated we must take instructions from the crane operator. Who would argue with that bucket liable to drop half a ton of gravel on you?
It is sad to think that what was once a very thriving industrial area is now either derelict or used for recreational purposes. As a student in 1951 I was walking on the adjacent ground watching real men 'spin' 2" steel plate into saucer shaped dishes 8ft diameter for use in all sorts of pressure vessels to go around the world.
What would Shakespeare have said?

Back side of Greenwich

It is a well laid path, pity about the fencing on the right, however we trundles along, missing the path at one place because the temporary signage was only obvious to those going in the reverse direction.

Trafalfar Tavern, Greenwich

We got a good last supper at the Trafalgar and got going on the last few miles to The Barrier. The Trafalgar is at the edge of a piazza with The Cutty Sark, a windjammer and Lively Lady a yacht sailed round the world solo by the late Sir Francis Chichester. He was knighted by the Queen when he got back to Greenwich, all very symbolic, she used the sword used by Queen Elizabeth I to knight either Walter Raleigh or Francis Drake. Francis Chichester was no mug, he had been flying pre 1939 and knew his way round the worlds of aviation an sailing. About two years later an upmarket greengrocer from Portsmouth with no experience of the seas beyond the English Channel decided to repeat Chichester's feat and he did. He was knighted too, perhaps his was the greater feat, long live Sir Alex Rose, (now dead). After that the word went out that there would be no more gongs for feats of endurance and skill. In fact two have since gone to women for sailing skills.
So off we go, one last great effort to reach our destination.

Three important service

Pillar box, Telephone and Public Loo. The glass dome is the top of the tunnel lift shaft. The weather had improved by now and it was time for some food, a trip into the nearby naval museum produced a handy bookshop but not a place to eat our final lunch so we poked around and found the Trafalgar Tavern.
We are in Greenwich, an important place from the naval aspect, previously home of the Royal Naval College as well as the Greenwich Observatory and the place that longitude and time is measured from, some of my Parker ancestors lived around here.

Brunel's tunnel at Greenwich

Having walked along the path from that crazy sign to Island Garden our path went under the river, the final chance for EG to sing to me 'we are crossing the Thames'. The acoustics in this tunnel are such that she sounded like someone singing in a tunnel. We had to walk down stairs to get down but at the Greenwich end there was a lift with a really miserable man operating it. Then we were in the fresh air and on the south side. Even at the Source there was a difference between the two sides of the river and the people living each side, there is still a difference 180 miles down stream, on the whole north of the river looks down on south of the river, perhaps because south of the river had The Stews, perhaps not.

Isle of Dogs

There is a loop in the Thames at this point, it has created a near island which was used 150 years ago to create The West India Docks, the soil was removed and carted to Vauxhall to raise the ground level and provide the basis for The Pleasure Gardens. We are standing at West Ferry Circus and as a pedestrian one can see that this is a piece of modern art, the lights are changing all the time and although the colours are not standard traffic light colours they are nearly so and as a driver I am sure I would have been confused. We are opposite Rotherhithe where my grandfather's second wife once lived. I never met that grandfather, his first wife was so ashamed of having to divorce him that she and her children 'killed' him during World War I thus accounting for the fact that there was no father until my grandmother remarried. A sad sorry story, many times repeated I am sure.

Final day...mixed emotions

The emotions were mixed but the weather was bad. We left Richmind on the District Line and got a straight run to Tower Hill Station, walked down to Tower Bridge, I admired the statue of the 'girl on a dolphin' in front of the Tower Hotel (her brother is on the Chelsea Embankment) and we went on through St Katherines Docks keeping to our well marked path. It was wet and cold and windy, most depressing but as seasoned travellers we were not down hearted, just miserable. We are at present on the north bank because that is the shorter route and in many ways more interesting because one can see the south bank. This part was all docks and warehouses in the 1950s but has been rebuilt as living accommodation and the picture shows an imaginative glass cased sun lounge attached to each floor, it also serves as a fire escape. A feature of the walk yesterday was the large number of people we kept on having to find our way through, this morning was a total contrast, hardly a soul rto be seen and I asked one of the few people we met why there was no one around, 'Because they are all at work'. Rather obvious, we were in the residential area for 'City Workers', the smarty pants people who we now know were drawing large pay packets for bringing the economy to its knees.

Tower of London and Tower Bridge

The Tower of London, built in 1070 or so by King William I, scene of a number of notable executions and home for the Crown Jewels. The flag is on a boat and is called The White Ensign and flown by ships of the Royal Navy. The bridge is Tower Bridge, opened in 1894 and it looks most regal, even in bad weather. The bascules were originally operated by hydraulics but although the mechanism is in the museum electricity has taken over, the centre picture is taken from downstream and just shows The Tower, colour picture taken from upstream just shows the Tower Hotel. We had to walk over Tower Bridge and get the Underground train back to Richmond, I messed up and failed to see a non existant sign resulting in a longer walk than we should have had. EG was not pleased, no more was I but it was the end of the last full day , less than 10 miles to go. Come what may I knew we would make it.

Globe Theatre, the stews and Anchor pub

Cross under Waterloo Bridge, pass the OXO tower, cross under Blackfriars Bridge and you are on Queens Walk. There is a modern riverside pub which we walked through, passed Tate Modern, an old power station with a new use and we got to The Globe Theatre, a faithful reproduction that Shakespear would have recognised. The driving force behind this building was Sam Wannamaker an American citizen who fled USA before McCarthy got him and his family, his grandfather fled Russia before the Russians got him and his family. Doubts have been raised that this theatre is not built on the site of the original Globe becasue some evidence has been found that The Rose theatre was in the same area. Willy Nilly Shakespeare at one time operated from the Cutain Theatre in Shoreditch which is on the other side of the river and very close to where some of my ancestors lived. We also walked through The Achor Pub, a great deal older than the modern Globe. Very close to the Globe is a small alley way which it is said leads to the 'Stews', the brothels of 18th century London. There was no bridge over the Thanes at that time except London Bridge which was closed to all traffic at curfew time so those men wanting female assistance had to cross the river by ferry, enough to put one off. I came across something similar in Denver, Colorado; a smart hotel on one side of the road with an underground railroad to a bawdy house opposite.

Both banks

On the South Bank, between Hungerford Bridge and Waterloo Bridge we have the remains of the 1951 Great Exhibition, the Royal Festival Hall and the Queen Elizabeth Hall, modern buildings which replace the superb shot tower shown. Called a shot tower because molten lead and possibly iron was dropped from the top, through a sieve to create small pellets whcih were round and cold by the time they hit the ground, superb industrial archaeology replaced by a concrete monstrosity. Across the river, on the north bank and Victoria Embankment we have Cleopatra's needle, brought from Egypt around 1900.
The Victoria Embankment is so called because it was one of the earlier flood prevention schemes along with Chelsea Embankment.

The South Bank

Definitions vary but we walked downstream from St Thomas', crossed Westminster Bridge and reached the large promenade generally known as South Bank. The first building is the former offices of the former London County Council created about 1905 as an artificial county to allow London, or at least most of it to have a unified government. A simple building it is now a mixture of hotel, museum, shops and this and that. Then we get to the London Eye, a large Ferris wheel taking about 30 minutes to complete a revolution. The view is interesting all the way from near ground level to the top and down again, especially if you know the area or have a suitable map. Moving on one passes the Shell building then on to Hungerford rail and footbridge. The whole of this promenade is crowded, very crowded with people either drifting or watching the buskers. The tower with OXO on it deserves a mention. Planning laws are quite strict and appear to be erratic, the story goes that the builders and owners wanted to advertise the product OXO on the building but that was vetoed so the architects incorporated a series of windows which you see.

View upstream from Lambeth Bridge

The picture on the left is copied from my own whilst the other is a copy from a painting by Maude Parker previously mentioned.
The tall tower is St Stephens Tower and the shorter one with the clock face is known world wide as Big Ben, in fact the term Big Ben really refers to the largest of the bells in the clock tower and was named after the Clerk of Works, a portly man named Ben.
I have looked at my original and it is clearly low tide, those boats are beached.
Here is an interesting fact, we are close to Westminster Bridge and at the time the Romans were around BC 45 or so the tidal rise and flow was about 3 feet, I am guessing a bit but now it is nearer 10 feet. The reason is that the eastern part of the country is gradually leaning more and more into the sea. The quick witted will have realised that is the reason for the Thames Barrier.

Lambeth Palace

The London home of the Archbishop of Canterbury, deputy head of the Church of England, HM The Queen is head thanks to her ancestor Henry VIII declaring himself so. The palace has a prison within the towers, used at one time to imprison, possibly torture, those who disagreed with the King. There is also an interview room known as The Star Chamber, if you gave the wrong answers you were a gonner.

The church to the right has a graveyard containing the tomb of Captain Bligh, one time captain of The Bounty. There was a famous film Mutiny on The Bounty starring Charles Laughton, folk lore has it that a scene dated about 1800 was shot overseas and a steam ship appeared in shot but was not noticed until the film was shown. Good for a laugh

St Thomas's Hospital, Lambeth

I I was born here in January 1929 and it shows but that is the way life hits you. The old maternity unit has gone. By chance a cousin was born in the same hospital a year or two later but he survived only a few months, the poor scrap had a number of defects, defects which were fatal then but now could be dealt with by some skilled surgery.

Vhelseea, early water works

On the left you have a picture of an old water works at Chelsea, the village of Cjelsea also had a 'Physic Garden' which still exista and is devoted to growing exotic plants, mainly the drugs of the days gone by. The more modern picture is the view up stream from St Thomas's Hospital by courtesy of Elsa Montgomery who was a nurse at the hospital. For me it is the most important building on the river.

Trying out more than one picture RubbishRubbish

Battersea and Vauxhall

On the left a horizontal windmill to power a corn mill, on the right the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, a place for the well heeled to ostentatiously display their wealth, the hoy-poloy were kept out.
Battersea became well known because it housed a 'dogs home' for lost dogs, Vauxhall once was home to a small engineering company making petrol motors for small river boats but, like many other engineering companies of the time they had a go at making motor cars with some success. The first cars were steered with a tiller a la a boat but wheel steering took over before long. In time the Vauxhall company expanded to near Bedford and was taken over by General Motors. Despite being a US company they made most of the lorries for the UK army for WW2, they had no option. The same lorry but with a different colour paint served the RAF and Royal Navy.

The original Chelsea Bun bakery

Chelsea is close to Millbank on the left bank and is more usually known for the Hospital built in 17th Century for old army veterans, they wear a distinctive Red Coat uniform and can be seen in many pubs in the area. Great guys.
The Chelsea bun is a current bun loaded with large crystals of sugar on the top. Incomparable.

Millbank Prison

The prison was damp, dark and unpleasant, I have a list of prisoners in 1881, that is available from Latter day Saints. The main entrance was from the river and if you google you can get a full history.
Apart from the Tate there is a school on the site and a pub, the pub even has as its cellar one of the old cells.

River embankment by The Tate Gallery

Nothing spectacular but the Tate is on the site of a notorious prison and I wanted to juxtapose the two images.
The trees you see are London Planes, the bark naturally exfoliates and thus discards the industrial grime which would kill almost all other trees. One wonders why they developed that way, were they originally growing beside a volcanoe?

Break step

An order to marching troops. The point is that a suspension bridge is designed to sway, walk over the Golden Gate bridge as I have and you will know what I mean, but if you get a group of people marching in time there is the possibility that the whole road will sway in time and without worning the whole thing gets out of control. Very nasty.

We crossed this bridge to get to the other side, of course, but the other reason was to get some lunch in The Tate Gallery and EG wanted to use the artistic rest rooms.

Albert Bridge, the most beautiful on the river

On the right we have a modern residential block with modern lights on the Riverside walk but middle distance you can see the outline of the suspension chains, wires and rods for the bridge. It is a spectacular sight when illuminated at night.
We are in the areas of Chelsea, Battersea and Vauxhall.

Putney to Tower Bridge

This is London without a doubt, suburbs come in rapid succession, mostly with a history that is worth a page and I have made a selection of the ones I found most interesting, others would find a different selection. Numerous pictures but I am not sure how to get more than one at a time.
Be Patient, I am doing my best.

This is a Sunday, half church, half walk

The intention was to get to Matins at All Souls Church, Regent Street followed by travelling back to Kew, then walk forward to Putney.
We reached All Souls in time but wearing our walking gear. All Souls is in the heart of wealthy London and it shows, there are of course many casual visitors from around the globe. We were required to put our back packs and all weather gear well away from the rest of the congregation 'in case it frightens people'. This is a church that aims to put over the Christian message in the most strident terms and as often as possible. Five enormous video screens, not a bad idea really EXCEPT that one obscured the altar, either you follow the cross and it is central to the whole service or you go along with the razzmataz. A good idea was to have the words of the hymns displayed, no need to keep looking down at you hymn book. I was not happy with the service but I would hope one day EG will give her version, as an American she sees more of the display than I normally do.

After the service we went into the Underground, caught the Central Line (Red) to Ealing Broadway, a trip I have made scores of times during 1940 to 1953. The railway station has been adjusted since my earlier days and now has various small shops including a Cornish Pasty joint which provided a reasonable snack, I was happy, EG not.
Then the 65 bus to Kew Bridge. I have done that route many, many times and knew exactly where we were going and when to get off. By the time we got to Brentford EG was a bit edgy, quite convinced we should alight. As it was she insisted in alighting just on Kew Bridge close to where the Q theatre had been. ( saw a Strindberg play there in 1949, not my cup of tea).
Now we are going again...down to the River and heading downstream, the first place of note is Stand on the Green, hard by the bridge and across the water from us, sorry no pics. Then Mortlake Bridge and Brewery. This is a famous Brewery because it overlooks the finishing line of the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race who race in light or dark blue colours because at the time of the first race, presumably in Henley, Oxford turned up wearing Dark Blue kit and Cambridge nothing in particular so the guy organising the race decided that Cambridge would wear light blue because that is the other colour in an Old Etonian tie (The old school tie much derided by those who do not have one but worn as a statement by those who do, a bit like those fraternities they have in USA).
It happens that the first time my wife and I went out together we went to the Boat Race on 1950, Cambridge won, I support Oxford because my mother told me to.

The boat race is London's greatest free sporting event, last about 25 minutes and 16 young men row their guts out under the control of a coxswain who can be of either gender.

Going further down stream we got to Hammersmith Bridge pictured above, then on to Putney where a bridge was built a fair time ago as the one nearest to London Bridge at the time, the ferrymen were a bit upset. Like it or not Putney is London proper, a Sunday and it was full of people shopping or dawdling. We were able to get an electric train back to Richmond after a short wait.

Brentford, Middlesex

Forty years ago Brentford was a bit of a dump, it had a gas works, coal gas that is, and not much else. With the arrival of North Sea gas the old works was abandoned until flattened and rejuvenated as a park. There is also a Music Museum and a Hall of Steam, both worth a visit if you are inclined that way.
Brentford also has a football team, highly thought of by some.
Round about 1943 I had walked along part of this path having jumped into the Ha-ha with some friends who did not want to go out the easy way.
One girl, Norah Marriott landed badly and cut her knee, it was several weeks before that was cleared up, where are you now?
This section finished at Kew Bridge, we got a good old 65 bus back to Richmond passing the Maids of Honour bake house on the way.

Grand Union Canal

Nothing much to look at, there is a lock but it in the canal side not the river side. You have to have a lock otherwise all the water would run out of the canal at low tide. The Grand Union runs up to Birmingham and all places north, it passes by What used to be known as Hanwell Lunatic Asylum. The asylum dates back to about 1850 and was considered to be one of the most advanced places in England for treating mental illness. Where possible the inmates were free to roam the enclosed hospital grounds and mostly took part in agricultural activities which meant the asylum was very nearly a self sufficient community, it even had its own brewery (remember water was frequently not fit to drink).
My interest was awakened when I discovered that a GG greatgrandfather had died there. I was able to get a copy of the inquest report, known as an INQUISITION at that time. It makes unhappy reading but it also showed me that there was a social service system operating in this country in 1861 (the year he died).

Syon Park, Brentford and Kew

I said earlier that anyone who was anyone had a house by the river, Syon Park is well worth a visit.
The flag is not the City of London but the cross of St George. The lion type thing top centre is probably a play on the name of the owner. It is now a garden centre and sculpture park. The Thames Path here is good solid stuff but there is a deep ditch on the non river side, this acts a ha-ha for the animals in the palace gardens.
A ha-ha was a feature of numerous large gardens where the owner wanted to keep animals pout of his garden but still be able to see them. The same is supposed to be derived from the remark a visitor would make as he approached the animal only to find a ditch prevented both parties from meeting.

Richmond on Thames

Somehow we did not manage to photograph Richmond, a pity because there are remains of another royal palace, it was said to be Queen Elizabeth I's favourite and she died there, naturally. EG and I stayed in Richmond as well as my wife. EG did not want another B & B or hotel, she wanted to have a washing machine, drier, iron and all that sort of homely stuff which I do know how to use but prefer not to. The flat we rented was beside the railway and only 5 minutes walk from the station, shops and buses and restaurants very convenient all ways round and it had a car park for residents.
This day we got to Richmond at lunch time and decided to eat by the river then go on to the bridge at Kew. ( Having lived in Ealing, some 5 miles away, I knew that there would be a bus back to Richmond every quarter of an hour).
I had a good meal at that pub, EG did not seem too pleased but we got moving and had the choice between the right or left bank paths. I considered that the right bank path would be nicer because I had explored some of the other side earlier in the month and knew it to be a bit industrial.
So we went off merrily and soon found ourselves beside the grounds of the Royal Botanical Society, generallly known as Kew Gardens...not another lock but another Palace, recently restored. Kew Gardens has an enormous cast iron green house, the one in San Francisco is a copy, my recollection is that Paxman, who designed the glass house known in 1851 as The Crystal Palace, also designed Kew glasshouse. Paxman was in advance of Henry Ford, he had the foundry set up as a production line and used as few pieces as possible.

Eel Pie Island

This island has a history being the home for eccentrics and wierdos as well as Trevor Bailey, the inventor of the wind up radio, designed for the mains powerless and batteryless people of Africa but now adapted to so many items of daily use.
Perchance I used to swim in the Thames at this point in 1940/41 along with the boy next door and his sister. Gordon and Eileen Aitken are you there? We gave up after a while because some dope had thrown in a bottle and I trod on it. Messy.
Not as messy as the state a few young women were in by the time they had been attacked and killed by a mad axe man around 1960. His name escapes me but he was found by the Police after 3 or 4 murders living quite close to the local Police Station. There is a painting of the island in Barry Keene's gallery in Henley on Thames, he has a web site but is not too keen on photographs.

Teddington Lock..the big one

I said earlier that the royal barge had to negotiate this lock to reach Hampton Court. That was not totally accurate because the lock is later than Henry VIIIand although I do not know just how it was done I assume that the bargee would do his best to wait for high tide then the barge would be towed/pulled/rowed over whatever weir was left.
I await correction from others.
There is also a coffin lock here, not for coffins but for easily manhandled boats.

The last lock, or the first...Teddington

Teddington is the last lock on the Thames and is also the upper limit of tidal flow at present. Later I will go into the geology/geography of the river, you will come to understand what I mean.

Note the berk fishing at the edge of the flowing water,about a boats length to his right is a small control gate

Kingston on Thames 1933

It was a bit wet that day and the wooden road slabs lifted.
Some say that Kingston is a corruption of Kings Stone, certainly there is a long tradition that Kings were crowned there away back.
At one time the Hawker aircraft company was in Kingston and they made the Hurricane fighter aircraft. Most people have heard of the Vickers Supermarine Spitfire plane which helped to win the Battle of Britain in 1940 however folk lore has it that the pilots preferrred the Hurricane, they were both single seat fighters and by the end of the Hitler war the Spitfire could fly at 400 mph but was not quite as fast as the enemy flying bomb, also known as the V1, a very clever piece of aeroengineering using a form of jet propulsion.
Because the Spitfire was a tad slow the technique for catching these things was to fly high, dive down to increase speed then fly alongside and tip a wing to put the bomb off course, no good shooting at it because the shooter would be destroyed by the explosion. People on the ground knew a flying bomb was nearby because you could hear the engine going 'whoomp, whoomp'; if you realised the 'whoomping had stopped you had about 30 seconds to decide what to do...run..lie down..hide..pray...if you heard the bang you could decide it you had taken the right action. I have made light of it but one was playing a form of Russian Roulette.

ErrorTeddingtonLock

The quadrangle, Hampton Court

This is in fact the main entrance from the road, the inner quadrangle is even more impressive.
This Palace has a number of 'Grace and favour' homes within. These are homes owned by The Crown and various privileged persons are allowed to live there, rent free. I cannot name names because I do not know but they appear to be the offshoots of minor aristocracy or people who have served the crown directly in some capacity. There are similar residences at Windsor Castle.

Palace at Hampton Court

This notice outside the palace gives you some idea of the size of the place. Enormous and mainly Tudor. Building started by Cardinal Wolsey but he had a little dispute with King Henry VIII, lost and had to go off and build another large house at Layer Marney Towers near Colchester, Henry completed the palace as we see it now. Transport from London to Hampton Court was easy, he just hopped into a barge at whichever palace he happened to be in London, The Tower, Lambeth, Richmond or with a friend, everyone who was anyone had a riverside house of course, and was rowed upstream by willing servants. There was one problem. Teddington.