The Thames — History as water. Credit: Daniel LEAL / AFP/Getty
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London is a cruel city. Live here long enough, and you will see everything familiar vanish: neighbourhoods transformed, venues closed, old friends moving on. There is just one permanent thing in the capital, one thing that transcends the flux of urban life, and that is the river snaking through its centre.
The Thames is the only place I feel truly rooted, even if it too is rushing out to sea, as the poet John Denham wrote, “like mortal life to meet eternity”. The river is the reason London is here: it is a primordial presence in the city, with its murky waters and oozing tidal beaches.
It is also a human artefact, its banks and bridges part of the ever-changing fabric of the city. The spaces and structures along the Thames determine who can enjoy its redemptive powers, and in what ways. With sensitive design, London’s riversides could be an unparalleled treasure — but we’re not there yet.
The Thames encompasses many worlds, from the bucolic neighbourhoods of Kingston to the pincushion of skyscrapers that is the Isle of Dogs. That is what makes it a true index of London’s character, for the city remains in many ways a disparate collection of villages. And the riverside is at its best when it provides an intimate dialogue of public and private, something all too rare in the contemporary mega-city. In Wandsworth and Battersea, for instance, the Thames path passes riverboat communities and occasionally zig-zags, in almost labyrinthine fashion, around the contours of low-rise apartment buildings. The private spaces enrich the public by making them less anonymous, but there is enough distinction that you don’t feel like an interloper.
In all of these ways, the Thames allows Londoners to see and know their city, and discover its hidden corners. These are glimpses of how the river could tie the city together.
But only in the past 50 years has it been possible to imagine the Thames as something Londoners share in common, and that prospect is rapidly disappearing again. Before the Seventies, the river had for centuries been dominated by warehouses, docks, shipping and industry; more toil and smoke than afternoon walks. This was the often brutal and impoverished landscape that Dickens observed throughout his life, having worked as a boy in a shoe-polish factory on the Thames’s shore (now the site of Charing Cross station), and which gave him the unforgettable opening of his last novel, Our Mutual Friend, where a pair of scavengers salvage a corpse from its waters.
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SubscribeI wonder what happens when we run out of things to sell off. It must be getting close.
We’ve always got Scotland and at a pinch Wales!
Scotland is also being bought by foreign investors. The largest landowner is Danish among a host of others. They probably don’t realise the land-grab that will happen if SNP ever get their way.
Couldn’t give them away
Scotland is also being bought by foreign investors. The largest landowner is Danish among a host of others. They probably don’t realise the land-grab that will happen if SNP ever get their way.
Couldn’t give them away
NFTS. Trump has some for sale.
Why not sell the Palace of Westminster? We’d get a couple of billion for that from the Qatar National Investment Fund.
We’ve always got Scotland and at a pinch Wales!
NFTS. Trump has some for sale.
Why not sell the Palace of Westminster? We’d get a couple of billion for that from the Qatar National Investment Fund.
I wonder what happens when we run out of things to sell off. It must be getting close.
Is the Thames also racist and misogynist? I think we should be told.
Definitely!
After we used to call it ‘Old Father Thames’’.
It also an entirely English, unlike say the Severn, and thus must be racist.
Oh the Patriarchy!
Oh the Patriarchy!
Absolutely, and the Thames Barrier must be torn down immediately.
Definitely!
After we used to call it ‘Old Father Thames’’.
It also an entirely English, unlike say the Severn, and thus must be racist.
Absolutely, and the Thames Barrier must be torn down immediately.
Is the Thames also racist and misogynist? I think we should be told.
A much better article than the one last week about Mormons – an actual point (even though I disagree with it). I know a couple of people who have bought flats in these high-rise flats on the river, an aussie and a young couple, who seem to be very happy with their purchases. Just because others (including myself) thinks they are awful would it really be better to have crumbling dockyards or industrial zones that were previously there (like Liverpool)? I’m not sure the article knows where it stands on that point. The writer is wrong to say that brutalism was only decried in the late 20th century – it was at the time by the majority of people who weren’t architects. The writer at least acknowledges his own suggestion (central planning) would probably be a recipe for even greater sterility.
As an ex-north londoner I never really felt an affinity with the river in a way that I am told by others that Parisians feel about the Seine or Hamburgers about the Elbe. The centre of London has always appeared as a place of work rather than leisure but as a place of work there is nowhere better. Hyde Park is a poor substitute for Richmond or Hampstead Heath. Compare the jobs market in London to anywhere else outside of West/East coast USA and you would be hard pressed to find somewhere better for a bright, driven individual. Would the UK be better or worse off without the magnet of London drawing in expertise, investment and innovation from the home nations as well as Europe? I would suggest the UK would be relegated to a par with Spain or Poland if we didn’t have the second largest financial centre in the world with all the loss to tax revenue which would ensue if it were to decline. You don’t have to look far for a comparison: Birmingham is desperate for foreign investment but can’t get it and has been in managed decline for decades. Average house prices are a third of those in London but does that mean that young people can afford them?
The writer does well to point out the churn that is part of London’s nature but then goes on to decry the current trends. That is the way of an organic city, much more so than centrally planned ones in which parks are gridded and more sterile even than Hyde Park. London (and by extension the Thames) has its own rhythm, just not the rhythm that the author (or I) might like. At least the river is cleaner than it used to be – an unusual omission in an article on the river though perhaps not the thrust of the proposition. Why shouldn’t private landowners place fencing/gates/cameras to make their tenants feel safe? It is what any sane person does in a large city nowadays if they have enough money.
In short, as most people get the government they deserve, Londoners get the river they deserve.
Excellent intelligent comment
Excellent intelligent comment
A much better article than the one last week about Mormons – an actual point (even though I disagree with it). I know a couple of people who have bought flats in these high-rise flats on the river, an aussie and a young couple, who seem to be very happy with their purchases. Just because others (including myself) thinks they are awful would it really be better to have crumbling dockyards or industrial zones that were previously there (like Liverpool)? I’m not sure the article knows where it stands on that point. The writer is wrong to say that brutalism was only decried in the late 20th century – it was at the time by the majority of people who weren’t architects. The writer at least acknowledges his own suggestion (central planning) would probably be a recipe for even greater sterility.
As an ex-north londoner I never really felt an affinity with the river in a way that I am told by others that Parisians feel about the Seine or Hamburgers about the Elbe. The centre of London has always appeared as a place of work rather than leisure but as a place of work there is nowhere better. Hyde Park is a poor substitute for Richmond or Hampstead Heath. Compare the jobs market in London to anywhere else outside of West/East coast USA and you would be hard pressed to find somewhere better for a bright, driven individual. Would the UK be better or worse off without the magnet of London drawing in expertise, investment and innovation from the home nations as well as Europe? I would suggest the UK would be relegated to a par with Spain or Poland if we didn’t have the second largest financial centre in the world with all the loss to tax revenue which would ensue if it were to decline. You don’t have to look far for a comparison: Birmingham is desperate for foreign investment but can’t get it and has been in managed decline for decades. Average house prices are a third of those in London but does that mean that young people can afford them?
The writer does well to point out the churn that is part of London’s nature but then goes on to decry the current trends. That is the way of an organic city, much more so than centrally planned ones in which parks are gridded and more sterile even than Hyde Park. London (and by extension the Thames) has its own rhythm, just not the rhythm that the author (or I) might like. At least the river is cleaner than it used to be – an unusual omission in an article on the river though perhaps not the thrust of the proposition. Why shouldn’t private landowners place fencing/gates/cameras to make their tenants feel safe? It is what any sane person does in a large city nowadays if they have enough money.
In short, as most people get the government they deserve, Londoners get the river they deserve.
Strange – my experience is the exact opposite. Over the last 40 years I’ve been up and down the Thames both sides, country (where most of it is) and city, on/in water and land. As far as London is concerned, access has opened up enormously. For at least a couple of decades it has been a legal requirement for developments to install/maintain the river path (even where there was none before). Now that the rehab of Fulham stadium is restoring the path, one of the last holdouts is the Hurlingham Club – that bastion of modernity.
Moreover, the super-sewer is being built, in a few years all the effluence will be carried away, and it may be healthily possible to swim centrally.
To the well travelled person, it is clear that access to the river Thames, in London or outside, is extraordinarily broad – a minor miracle of openess. The longest, best maintained, best protected public path in the country. Many many places to launch your boat, sit, swim if you dare. All I take from this article is that the author doesn’t like modern high rises along the river – in the case of St George’s Wharf he is 100% correct – complaints about most of the others will fade in time (part of the long tradition of bemoaning modernity, and then loving it when it’s older).
Good post, but on a point of info, there are several public footpaths in England longer than the Thames Path: the South West Coastal Path, at over 600 miles, for one.
Good post, but on a point of info, there are several public footpaths in England longer than the Thames Path: the South West Coastal Path, at over 600 miles, for one.
Strange – my experience is the exact opposite. Over the last 40 years I’ve been up and down the Thames both sides, country (where most of it is) and city, on/in water and land. As far as London is concerned, access has opened up enormously. For at least a couple of decades it has been a legal requirement for developments to install/maintain the river path (even where there was none before). Now that the rehab of Fulham stadium is restoring the path, one of the last holdouts is the Hurlingham Club – that bastion of modernity.
Moreover, the super-sewer is being built, in a few years all the effluence will be carried away, and it may be healthily possible to swim centrally.
To the well travelled person, it is clear that access to the river Thames, in London or outside, is extraordinarily broad – a minor miracle of openess. The longest, best maintained, best protected public path in the country. Many many places to launch your boat, sit, swim if you dare. All I take from this article is that the author doesn’t like modern high rises along the river – in the case of St George’s Wharf he is 100% correct – complaints about most of the others will fade in time (part of the long tradition of bemoaning modernity, and then loving it when it’s older).
Earlier this year I stumbled across an interesting video from 1982 with Bob Hoskins’ talking about the sterilisation of the Thames on Omnibus. A good watch if you are also interested in what has happened to the land around the Thames. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTgqHsJ4410&t=330s
‘Revenge? It’s me that’s gonna take revenge. I’ll crush them like beetles!’
‘Revenge? It’s me that’s gonna take revenge. I’ll crush them like beetles!’
Earlier this year I stumbled across an interesting video from 1982 with Bob Hoskins’ talking about the sterilisation of the Thames on Omnibus. A good watch if you are also interested in what has happened to the land around the Thames. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTgqHsJ4410&t=330s
It is possible to walk from the South Bank, to Battersea and to the end of Battersea Park, almost entirely along the left bank of the Thames, save for short detours at Vauxhall Bridge and the Nine Elms sewage plant near Riverlight. (And much the same on the opposite bank). I think much of the new development in this area is rather good, and that the area is being progressively revitalised, even if the flow of investment has been bumpy. I’m not sure who would want to preserve a post-industrial wasteland of broken down warehouses and contaminated mud, which was here before? I know it is fashionable to decry ‘gentrification’, but this part of London desperately needed the investment it has received, and is generally the better for it (although I do wish that the Gehry buildings at Battersea had been more radical).
Wouldn’t that be the right bank?
Depends which way you’re facing! I do mean the south bank, of course.
You’re able to edit your post, which is otherwise good. It’s the right bank which you mean.
You’re able to edit your post, which is otherwise good. It’s the right bank which you mean.
Depends which way you’re facing! I do mean the south bank, of course.
Wouldn’t that be the right bank?
It is possible to walk from the South Bank, to Battersea and to the end of Battersea Park, almost entirely along the left bank of the Thames, save for short detours at Vauxhall Bridge and the Nine Elms sewage plant near Riverlight. (And much the same on the opposite bank). I think much of the new development in this area is rather good, and that the area is being progressively revitalised, even if the flow of investment has been bumpy. I’m not sure who would want to preserve a post-industrial wasteland of broken down warehouses and contaminated mud, which was here before? I know it is fashionable to decry ‘gentrification’, but this part of London desperately needed the investment it has received, and is generally the better for it (although I do wish that the Gehry buildings at Battersea had been more radical).
I went to Esfahan a few years ago. Noticeably the riversides are accessible to all. We have to pay to see the sea from a council car park.
London is City One in the ‘Hunger Games’.
If you think the only way ‘to see the sea’ is by sitting in your car – that’s your problem!
Proving your age there James!
You were fortunate to find any water in the Zayanderud, for much of the year it is now sadly dry.
I’m puzzled by “the bucolic neighbourhoods of Kingston”.
Personally I think the Thames ought to be lined with skyscrapers on both banks. The general character of low-rise development isn’t attractive at all in my opinion: you only have to look east down the river from Canary Wharf to appreciate how barren and uninspiring it can be.
High rise buildings can be extremely beautiful, they can be neither brutalist nor tackily opulent if done well, and there are many examples of how they can be done well. I don’t envisage turning the whole Thames into a skyscraper alley by any means, but there are still huge lengths of riverside that could be turned high rise, and this is, let’s remember, a time when we have never been so short of homes where people actually want to live, namely London.
Would one consider Vauxhall and Nine Elms an architectural gem?
Even the view from the train into Waterloo brings utterly depressing thoughts of Hong Kong boxes and my pity for who choses to live behind those hermetically conformist windows. At ground level try finding a community or a shop.
I agree some high rise buildings are beautiful, but only if politics and vested interests take genuine local advise. Look how long Battersea Power Station had to wait while passing through various Malaysian, Singaporean,Chinese and Mayor’s hands.
If you’re looking east of Canary Wharf then don’t, unless you’re holding your passport. There have been concerted efforts since 1990 and all have failed. Stratford had the Olympics in 2012. Simply brilliant for a year – still not a place you’d live by choice then or now.
I live just downstream of the last lock on the Thames. Things have changed but character does remain.
Mr Riordan you speak like a detached architectural student hypothesing.
The needed homes don’t need building in London. Other towns perhaps?
Would one consider Vauxhall and Nine Elms an architectural gem?
Even the view from the train into Waterloo brings utterly depressing thoughts of Hong Kong boxes and my pity for who choses to live behind those hermetically conformist windows. At ground level try finding a community or a shop.
I agree some high rise buildings are beautiful, but only if politics and vested interests take genuine local advise. Look how long Battersea Power Station had to wait while passing through various Malaysian, Singaporean,Chinese and Mayor’s hands.
If you’re looking east of Canary Wharf then don’t, unless you’re holding your passport. There have been concerted efforts since 1990 and all have failed. Stratford had the Olympics in 2012. Simply brilliant for a year – still not a place you’d live by choice then or now.
I live just downstream of the last lock on the Thames. Things have changed but character does remain.
Mr Riordan you speak like a detached architectural student hypothesing.
The needed homes don’t need building in London. Other towns perhaps?
Personally I think the Thames ought to be lined with skyscrapers on both banks. The general character of low-rise development isn’t attractive at all in my opinion: you only have to look east down the river from Canary Wharf to appreciate how barren and uninspiring it can be.
High rise buildings can be extremely beautiful, they can be neither brutalist nor tackily opulent if done well, and there are many examples of how they can be done well. I don’t envisage turning the whole Thames into a skyscraper alley by any means, but there are still huge lengths of riverside that could be turned high rise, and this is, let’s remember, a time when we have never been so short of homes where people actually want to live, namely London.