Author: Leigh Hatts

Twenty years ago the Queen and the President of Hungary dined at the Compleat Angler by the Thames.

The hotel terrace is alongside Marlow Bridge which is why the venue was chosen.

William Tierney Clark, who had designed Hammersmith Bridge in the 1820s, was the engineer for Marlow Bridge completed in 1832.

Budapest’s landmark Széchenyi Chain Bridge across the River Danube, linking Buda and Pest, is also the work of Clark. In 1839 he designed a large scale version of his Marlow work for the city. It took ten years to build.

The Swan at Streatley is one of The Sunday Times 100 Great British Hotels.

Most are expensive, especially for a walker wanting just a sleep and not a health club, but The Swan is The Best Budget Hotel winner.

“…agreeable nooks, booths with Thames views and a terrace. The menu sounds standard -burgers, pizza, pasta- but is executed with aplomb.”

Doubles at The Swan are from £70.

JMW Turner’s painting The Fighting Temeraire is to feature on the new £20 bank note.

Confirmation of the suggestion made three years ago was given this morning at the Turner Contemporary gallery in Margate where Bank of England Governor Mark Carney announced that the note will be issued on Thursday 20 February 2020.

The painting, in the National Gallery, shows the Trafalgar ship in 1838 being towed up the Thames to be broken up at Bull Head Dock Wharf in Rotherhithe.

Turner began the painting by sketching from Cherry Garden Pier on Bermondsey Wall East near Rotherhithe.

Rotherhithe church has an altar made from Temeraire wood.

The painting was exhibited in the Royal Academy the following year.

The bank note will be the first to feature the signature of Sarah John, the Bank’s first female Chief Cashier.

“The new £20 note celebrates Turner, his art and his legacy in all their radiant, colourful, evocative glory,” said Mark Carney.

He was speaking a short distance from Long Nose Spit which will eventually be the start, or finish, of the Thames Path.

There will be a night-time closure of the Thames Path (9pm to 6am) in Reading from Thursday 22 August to Saturday 24 August.

The closure for the annual Reading Festival will start around Caveresham Bridge and end at Scours Lane near Tilehurst.

During the day walkers will see a temporary footbridge spanning the river near Scours Lane.

This first appeared in 2008 and replaces a temporary ferry where queues built up.

This year sees the 30th anniversary of the Marchioness Disaster on the River Thames.

In the early hours of Sunday 20 August 1989 the Marchioness pleasure boat sank in the River Thames having collided in the dark with the Bowbelle dredger. 51 people died in the water following the accident downstream of Southwark Bridge.

There will be commemorations on the anniversary of the night when the boat set out on the party cruise and on the actual anniversary date of the loss of life.

Monday evening 19 August

An open air service of remembrance led by the Bishop of Southwark will take place on the Thames Path on Monday 19 August at 8.15pm.

A procession will leave Southwark Cathedral at 8.05pm and make its way along Clink Street and past The Anchor pub to a location on Bankside between Cannon Street railway bridge and Southwark Bridge.

Those attending are invited to bring a candle in jam jar and natural petals to throw on the water.

Tuesday lunchtime 20 August

On Tuesday, the 30th anniversary of the Marchioness Disaster, the Bishop of Southwark will preside at a Memorial Eucharist in Southwark Cathedral at 12.45pm.

Flowers can be laid at the memorial at the end of the service.

Prince Street in Deptford is being closed to traffic this month. 

This has always been part of the Thames Path and will remain so until a new long planned path is created across Convoys Wharf. 

The temporary closure of Prince Street is to assess the possibility of making it permanently traffic-free.

The best known building in the street, linking Watergate Street to Sayes Court, is the unique Dog & Bell pub.

If you are walking into Abingdon on Saturday 3 August you might think of St Ethelwold who knew the Thames.

Saturday is St Ethelwold’s Day.

In 955 he re-established Abingdon Abbey.

He also restored downstream Chertsey Abbey.

He died on 1 August 984 and was buried in Winchester. An arm and a leg were taken to Abingdon Abbey when he was recognised as a saint.

St Saviour’s Dock footbridge is now back in use although refurbishment work continues.

“We still have work to do at dock level …. including minor works to the decking,” say contractors Conway in an update statement.

“The unique design of the bridge means that all the parts of the mechanism which facilitate the opening, are bespoke. “

“There will need to be two further days of closure to complete the inspection and commissioning of the bridge ‘swing’ mechanism.”

Conway’s Helen Mcconnell adds: “To ensure all checks are completed, a ‘full day’ closure to the pedestrian access may be required. The dates are likely to be the same day on two consecutive weeks.”

St Saviour’s Dock is near Tower Bridge. The footbridge, spanning the dock entrance, links Jacob’s Island and Butler’s Wharf.

Sailor Caroline Crampton who has known the tidal River Thames since childhood set out to explore upstream and downstream.

Her book is called The Way To The Sea which means that she starts at the source rather than following the water to see where it comes from.

She describes setting out by train to Kemble to begin at the official source. Like most people she is disappointed that the field in front of the stone marker appears to be dry.

Caroline’s problem is that finding the start is uncertain most of the year. It is possible to visit the stone many times and never see water.

On eventually finding it at Ewen she feels obliged to paddle.

“If the source of the Thames is elusive its ending is even more so,” she writes 283 pages later. “There is no definate point at which the estuary finishes and the sea begins.”

Is it Tilbury where pilots hand over to the sea colleagues, the London and Crow Stones line, the Nore Lightship position or back upstream at Teddington?

This matters because Natural England’s England Coast Path project intends bringing the continuous path up the Thames as far as Woolwich. We may be talking about walking from Margate to Kemble one day.

This book reminds us that most of the Thames population and heritage lies in the tidal Thames valley to the east.

Coming downstream that major heritage begins at Runnymede where Caroline is convinced that the location of the Magna Carta agreement is the meadow and not the island.

She suggests that this cornerstone of liberty has now shifted east to Westminster adding the interesting reminder that Augustus Pugin travelled to that riverside building site from Ramsgate by water.

Before reaching central London Caroline pauses at Putney which she finds has an attractiveness easily missed on Boat Race day. She sees old Putney as a tiny village like Cricklade in the upper reaches.

However, it is not the obvious places that take up most space in this well-researched book but the lower reaches where you find Grays, Mucking Marshes and Shivering Sands. They will become more familiar as the Thames Path lengthens.

The Earl of Wessex, Patron of the London Gardens Society, visited the Floating Barges Garden on Wednesday.

The garden barges, just downstream of Tower Bridge and Butler’s Wharf, are converted from a variety of vessels including lighters.

Yesterday was a dull day but even at low tide the green growth was a striking contrast to the City skyscrapers.

The gardens, known as Downings Roads Ancient Moorings, are best viewed from the wharf at the end of East Lane (by East Lane Stairs) on Bermondsey Wall West or further upstream where the path runs alongside alongside Jacob’s Island.