River Thames
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The River Thames is a large river in England. It goes through London.
The Thames has a length of 346 kilometres (215 statute miles) with its source is near the village of Kemble in the Cotswolds; it flows through Oxford (where it is called "Isis", a shortening of its Latin name), Reading, Maidenhead, Eton and then Windsor. From the outskirts of Greater London, it passes Syon House, Hampton Court, and Richmond (with the famous view of the Thames from Richmond Hill), and Kew. Then it passes through London, then Greenwich and Dartford before it enters the sea in a drowned estuary, The Nore. Part of the area west of London is sometimes called the Thames Valley and the area east of Tower Bridge development agencies and Ministers is called Thames Gateway.
About 90 kilometres from the sea, upstream of London, the river begins to show signs of tidal activity as the North Sea begins to affect it. It is said London was made capital of Roman Britain at the spot where the tides reached in 43 AD, but a variety of happenings have pushed this spot up river in the 2000 years since then. At London, the water is slightly salty with sea salt.
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[edit] History
Like the local Celts, the Romans called the river Thamesis. The Thames provided the important highway between London and Westminster in the 16th and 17th centuries. The guild of watermen ferried Londoners from landing to landing. One of them, John Taylor, the Water Poet (1580—1653), described the river in a poem.
In the 17th century and 18th century, during the period now called the Little Ice Age, the Thames often froze over in the winter. This led to the first "Frost Fair" in 1607, with a tent city set up on the river with lots of odd amusements, like ice bowling. After the temperature began to go up again, starting in 1814, the river never again froze over completely. The building of a new London Bridge in 1825 may also have been a factor; the new bridge had fewer pillars than the old and so allowed the river to flow more easily, thus stopping it from flowing slowly enough to freeze in cold winters.
By the 18th century, the Thames was one of the world's busiest waterways, as London became the centre of the very big British Empire. During this time one of the worst river disasters in England took place on September 3, 1878 on the Thames, when the crowded pleasure boat Princess Alice crashed into the Bywell Castle killing over 640 people.
In the 'Great Stink' of 1858, pollution in the river became so bad that sittings at the House of Commons at Westminster had to be abandoned. A concerted effort to contain the city's sewage by constructing massive sewers on the north and south river embankments followed, under the supervision of engineer Joseph Bazalgette.
The coming of rail transport and road transport, and the decline of the Empire in the years following 1914, have reduced the importance of the river. London itself is no longer a port of any note, and the Port of London has moved downstream to Tilbury. In return, the Thames has undergone a massive clean-up and life has returned to its dead waters.
In the early 1980s, a massive flood control device, the Thames Barrier, was opened. It is used several times a year to prevent water damage to London's low lying areas upstream.
There are many bridges and tunnels crossing the Thames, including Tower Bridge, London Bridge, Lambeth Bridge, and the Dartford Crossing.
[edit] The Thames in Literature
Many books refer to the Thames. Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome describes a boat trip up the Thames. Somewhere near the Oxford stretch is where the Liddells were rowing in the poem at the start of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Somewhere near here was where Alice fell asleep. The river is mentioned in both The Wind in the Willows and the play Toad of Toad Hall.
In books set in London you will find Sherlock Holmes looking for a boat in A Study in Scarlet. Bill Sykes kills Nancy just near the river, in Charles Dickens's classic novel Oliver Twist.
[edit] Crossings of the Thames
See Crossings of the River Thames for a full article. Famous crossings include
- Dartford Crossing
- Thames Barrier
- Blackwall Tunnel
- Rotherhithe Tunnel
- Thames Tunnel
- Tower Bridge
- London Bridge
- Millennium Bridge
- Hungerford Bridge
- Westminster Bridge
[edit] Islands in the Thames
Listed in upstream order.
- Canvey Island
- Isle of Grain
- Frog Island, Rainham
- Isle of Dogs
- Chiswick Eyot
- Oliver's Island, Kew
- Brentford Ait
- Lot's Ait
- Isleworth Ait
- Corporation Island, Twickenham
- Glover's Island, Twickenham
- Eel Pie Island, Twickenham
- Trowlock Island, Teddington
- Steven's Eyot
- Raven's Ait, Surbiton
- Boyle Farm Island
- Thames Ditton Island
- Ash Island, Hampton Court
- Tagg's Island, Hampton Court
- Garrick's Ait, Hampton
- Platt's Eyot, Hampton
- Sunbury Court Island, Sunbury
- Swan's Rest Island, Sunbury
- Rivermead Island, Sunbury
- Sunbury Lock Ait
- Wheatley's Ait
- Desborough Island, Shepperton
- D'Oyly Carte Island
- Lock Island
- Hamhaugh Island
- Pharaoh's Island
- Penton Hook Island
- Truss's Island
- Church Island, Staines
- Hollyhock Island, Staines
- Holm Island, Staines
- The Island, Hythe End
- Magna Carta Island, Runnymede
- Pats Croft Eyot
- White Lily Island
- Katie-Jo's island
- Isle of The Great Crostini
- Poodle island
- Caspars island
- Mather Island
- Kat Isle
- Scuttle Island
- Davage Ait
[edit] Other uses of the name
- Thames Television
Other rivers with the same name include:
- Thames River (Canada)
- Thames River (Connecticut)
