Author: Leigh Hatts

After the surprise approval for the high buildings on London’s South Bank TV studio site there is news of another possible change downstream.

Bankside’s ancient Anchor pub could be overshadowed by LandSec’s Red Lion Court plan.

The redevelopment would have the former Financial Times building on its upstream side.

The original riverside Anchor inn existed in William Shakespeare’s time on Bankside and later Samuel Pepys watched the Great Fire of London from outside.

Dr Johnson briefly lived there when The Anchor Brewery occupied the next door Red Lion Court site. The present building was known to Charles Dickens.

The former London Television Centre on London’s South Bank is due to be replaced by high buildings.

ITV has vacated the existing building although the river backdrop still appears on ITV London news programmes.

London Television Centre was home to Carlton, LWT and GMTV. ITV’s This Morning also had a live river backdrop when broadcasting from next to Gabriel’s Wharf.

The decision on the proposed replacement structure is expected to be made next Tuesday by Lambeth Planning Committee.

A large number of local residents are objecting to the scheme which has been described as ‘excessive, overbearing and overly dominant’.

The Thames Path in front of the London Television Centre site was to have been narrowed for the Garden Bridge until the project was abandoned following opposition by residents and many others worried about crowds and loss of river views

You can now expect to find the St Saviour’s Dock Bridge open during the day.

The bridge takes the Thames Path from Bermondsey Wall to Butler’s Wharf just downstream of Tower Bridge.

There has been four years of on and off closure with a two month diversion announced last autumn.

FM Conway, the infrastructure services company with ‘Going the Extra Mile’ slogan, worked with the London Borough of Southwark to deliver what the company described as ‘a complex refurbishment’.

The bridge first opened in 1995 but in recent years had only been open to riverside walkers as the crossing had ceased being able to swing open for craft to enter the dock.

After the overcoming of numerous problems the crossing will serve both pedestrians and those arriving by water.

The bridge was designed by local resident and architect Nicholas Lacey who also devised the nearby floating gardens.

This year is the 150th anniversary of William Morris signing the tenancy of Kelmscott Manor which makes it appropriate for the V&A to publish a new edition of its William Morris exhibition catalogue.

It is 25 years since the exhibition was staged for the William Morris centenary but interest has only increased with new discoveries and research.

There were two important Thames-side Morris exhibitions in 2019.

In 1878, seven years after moving into Kelmscott Manor, William Morris found a riverside house at Hammermith for his London home which he called Kelmscott House. It was on the left bank like the country house.

Morris, we are told, was delighted that both his residencies were near the Thames. George Bernard Shaw called the London home ‘a magical house’ due to its mix of furnishing.

The book has a wonderful photograph showing the interior of Inglesham Church on the Thames Path near Kelmscott.

Morris took part in the campaign to preserve this church ‘as found’. It is not restored but safeguarded and so retains, even with its box pews, a feeling of reaching back to the pre-Reformation era.

In 1888 Kelmscott also gave its name to the Kelmscott Press at Hammersmith.

2034 will be the bicentenary of William Morris’s birth when maybe the V&A will stage another exhibition featuring new insights.

William Morris edited by Anna Mason (V&A/Thames & Hudson; £50).

What has changed since the pandemic hit us? On the Thames Path it is mainly the pubs which have been most affected.

A good stop just before reaching Oxford Station and crowded tourist eateries is now The Punter pub on Osney Island.

You pass the door shortly after walking through Osney Lock and over its weir bridges.

The Punter is the end house in a lovely terrace of waterside cottages. It dates from 1871 and for most of the time has been The Waterman’s Arms. There is still a Morland of Abingdon brewery tile in the brickwork.

The change of name came recently and since the lockdown the quiet pub has adopted a vegetarian and vegan menu with an emphasis on local seasonal ingredients.

The star must be the very filling mushroom & lentil burger with beef tomato, red onion marmalade and stout mayonnaise served with fries (£14). The bun includes charcoal.

For pudding there is the intriguing parsnip, macadamia and olive oil cake with duck egg & bay leaf custard (£7).

There are lots of tables, art and flowers inside and an outdoor area at the side.

This is a rare case of a pub improving despite a change of name and management. It is pleasure to visit and not just a refuelling stop.

The Punter, 7 South Street, Osney Island OX2 0BE. Open weekdays noon to 11pm. Food: until 2.30pm & 5pm – 9pm; weekends noon to 9pm.

Fifty-one figures looking like giant skittles are standing in Southwark Cathedral churchyard this week.

Gratitude is a public art installation honouring the ongoing courage and dedication of NHS staff and key workers during the pandemic.

The exhibition is curated by Southwark-based Dame Zandra Rhodes and continues until Saturday 10 October.

Spanish tapas bar Brindisa has a strong presence behind Southwark Cathedral in Borough Market where it was founded.

From Wednesday 13 October walkers will find another Brindisa fifteen miles upstream at Richmond.

It will be difficult to miss with its distinctive awning and logo on the restored 18th-century Holtham House.

Inside there is an open kitchen and good views of the river. In warm weather around sixty people will be able to eat outside.

If Richmond is too far from London Bridge for one day (and it probably is if you want to enjoy the walk) there is a smaller recently opened Brindisa on the Thames Path at Battersea Power Station.

A Northern Line Underground station has opened 200 yards from the Thames Path in Battersea.

Battersea Power Station now has a station at the end of a new Northern Line extension. The spur runs off the line just south of Kennington to serve Nine Elms with a new station as well as Battersea Power Station.

The Tube’s railway station for Battersea Power Station is close to Pump House Lane which currently carries the Thames Path through the Battersea Power Station complex.

A riverside path is not expected to be completed for some years.

Pump House Lane is one of the recently reconfigured roads so upstream walkers (unless wanting to keep ahead for the station) should now be ready to turn right at the Booker warehouse crossroads and not just after as in the past.

The lane is now very wide and no longer gated.

Lara Maiklem has an exhibition of her finds at Southwark Cathedral.

The new display of found objects from the Thames beach coincides with the publication of her new book A Field Guide to Larking.

Lara is giving a talk at the cathedral on Thursday evening 19 August.

The Thames Path passes the door of Southwark Cathedral next to London Bridge. Walk through the courtyard, past the cafe (left), to find the display ahead.

A Field Guide to Larking is available from the cathedral shop.

This coming weekend will see the 25th anniversary of the Thames Path’s inauguration writes Leigh Hatts.

On 24 July 1996 I joined David Sharp to walk downstream through Greenwich to the Thames Barrier.

As we turned into Crane Street, behind the Trafalgar Tavern, we found that the narrow passage had been decorated for the occasion.

Our arrival at the Barrier marked the start of the opening ceremony.

The late David Sharp was the Ramblers’ Association Thames expert who had produced the first guide to walking from London to the Source in Gloucestershire. He was a crucial part of the RA campaign to get a national trail.

I had been in awe of him when in 1981 I started work as the Thames Walk Field Officer.

I was reporting to the Countryside Commission and given a desk at Thames Water in Reading. My task was to spend a year writing a feasibility study for the ‘Thames Walk’.

On 1 June I started out from the Lion on the end of Westminster Bridge and headed upstream. My wife Marion and baby son James were with me for a short distance.

After that I was in my own as a I sought to meet every riparian owner and riverside council.

Most council boundaries run along the middle of the river and I soon found that what happened on the edge of a council area was often not a priority.

David Sharp’s publication was invaluable but there were still huge obstacles to overcome.

London lacked stretches of riverside path and so the Jubilee Walkway signs were the best guide for weaving one’s way along the Thames.

The towpath starts at Putney but it was not continuous.

The path at Windsor was closed and only later did the Crown Estate provide the present alternative on the Datchet side.

There were small problems around Maidenhead and Cookham which were eventually resolved by East Berks Ramblers footpath secretary Margaret Bowdery who is one of the many who made the Thames Path possible. Margaret died in 2017.

At Purley, where the towpath changes sides without a ferry, provision had already been made for a path above the river but as houses were built opposition from new residents grew. That is why you now have to walk through an estate rather than drop down under the railway as older residents had proposed.

At Dorchester there was a long debate over whether to follow the towpath as much as possible or go through woodland below Wittenham Clumps. Dorchester won.

The towpath ends at Inglesham and as many know it was only in recent years that the walk from there upstream to Cricklade has ceased to involve a very busy main road.

By the New Year I had reached Gloucestershire where I managed to negotiate agreement for a path to be near the infant Thames only to read of the landowner’s death a few weeks later .

Soon after I was cut off by snow in Cirencester for several days.

My recommendations submitted in July 1982 were not published immediately but after a pause the proposals were examined in detail and turned into a report for the Secretary of State by Jenny Blair.

In 1989 Environment Minister Virginia Bottomley announced that there would be a Thames Path national trail when she opened Temple Bridge which replaces a lost ferry near Bisham.

Two years after the path opened the first edition of Walking the Thames Path guide appeared. I wrote the upstream guide because I had started in the capital and knew that many like to discover where London’s river comes from. David Sharp wrote the downstream guide.

Regrets? I had suggested that the path should start further downstream. In the end the commissioners agreed on the Thames Barrier but it would have been cheaper in the long term to have seized the moment for Erith or even Margate a quarter of century ago.

I hope that the Thames Path can bring enjoyment rather than just be, as for too many it is, just a fundraising challenge.

Slow walking is the best way to appreciate our heritage of churches, pubs, villages and, best of all, the wonder of the ever changing nature by the water.

One should have time to pause and rest at David Sharp’s memorial seat at Barnes.

I had a unique job for one so young and I consider myself fortunate to have been able to continue being so intimate with the river during forty years of walking and writing.