London 14 - The Thames & its Bridges

Liquid ‘istory

The river Thames is the aorta of England. It has played an essential part in our culture and history for more than two thousand years. As a division between kingdoms and counties, as a haven for seafarers and a thoroughfare for traders, and as a watermark on the fragile seals of parliaments, its importance is unrivalled.

While its currents are ever-changing, and its banks are never-the-same, the river has an entity that transcends ephemera.  From one end of London to another, the streaming tides are constantly washing the face of history, and as we walk along its length we stumble on shards of stories that shore up the life of this fragment of the world.

And as the centuries pass, despite its wilful energy, the Thames has been to a certain extent tamed, and leashed, and crossed and tied. Basins have been dug to shelter ships from excess; tributaries have been sheathed and tapped and dried; tunnels have been bored underneath, and bridges have been stepped across its mighty flow.

For two thousand years we have endeavoured to span the dangerous flow, and from the time when the river was practically impassable, to the 200 bridges, 27 tunnels, six public ferries, one cable car link, and one ford that today allow passage to humankind, the story has followed in the wake of man’s technological development, and has tallied the history of transport, politics and the language of this land.  Without Chaucer, Shakespeare might not have achieved such fame; without Spenser, poetry might not have flowed so free; without Dickens, our fondness for story and character might not have grown so florid.  And all of these, besides their imitators, have been shaped by the dark coursing waters of the Thames as it scours its way through London…..

Though other rivers far outstrip this stream in magnitude, from the Tagus to the Nile, and from the Mississippi to the Amazon, few may challenge the tales these waters can tell, and to this day, to my mind at least, there is little so pleasantly intriguing, so imaginatively distracting, as a walk beside our father, the Thames.

And now, as Janus looks back and forth, and it is the season of the quiz, I offer you a little game to play.  I realised just recently how often I have spent time beside the river, and then realised that over the years I have followed its course from Surrey into Kent, crossing and re-crossing both above and below the waves, so it seemed fair to create a game. 

And what better than a game of Bridge?

A Game of Bridge

1)     Who built the first London Bridge?  (a) Alfred the Great (b) The Romans (c) Boadicea? 

2)     Why did Old London Bridge fall down?  (a) Fire in 1212  (b) Neglect by Eleanor of Provence in the 1270s (c) Ice in 1281? 

3)     Until when was the Medieval London Bridge the only bridge across the Thames in London?  (a) mid sixteenth century (b) mid seventeenth century (c) mid eighteenth century? 

4)     Where is the 1831 London Bridge (which replaced the medieval one) now?  (a) at the bottom of the river (b) in Japan (c) in Arizona? 

5)     Which bridge carries the following notice:  All Troops Must Break Step When Marching Over This Bridge?  (a) Chelsea, (b) Hammersmith, (c) Albert? 

6)     Under which bridge was Italian banker Roberto Calvi found hanging on June 18^th, 1982?  (a) Blackfriars Road Bridge, (b) Blackfriars Railway Bridge, (c) Waterloo? 

7)     Which is the only bridge across the Thames east of Tower Bridge?  (a) Dartford, (b) Emirates Air Line, (c) Queen Elizabeth II? 

8)     Why is Westminster Bridge green and Lambeth bridge red?

9)     Between which two bridges does Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend begin? In these times of ours, though concerning the exact year there is no need to be precise, a boat of dirty and disreputable appearance, with two figures in it, floated on the Thames, between ***** Bridge, which is of iron, and ***** Bridge, which is of stone….. 

10)  Earth has not anything to show more fair: Why could William Wordsworth not have composed any lines on the current Westminster Bridge? 

11)  Whose view might this be, and from which bridge?

12)  What is the name of this bridge?

13)  What’s the story here?

14)  Which is the oldest bridge across the Thames in the Greater London area?

15)  Which bridge was reopened in 2002?

And for a bonus point:

16) Between which two bridges are Joanna Lumley and Boris Johnson intending to get into a flower bed together?

Answers: 
1) b; 

2) All three; 

3) c; 

4) c; 

5) c; 

6) a; 

7) c; 

8) Because Westminster bridge is painted the same colour as the seats in the House of Commons and Lambeth bridge is the same as the seats in the House of Lords. 

9) Southwark, and London; 

10) The sonnet was composed in 1802; Wordsworth died in 1850; the current Westminster Bridge was built in 1862; 

11) James McNeill Whistler, from Battersea Bridge; 

12) Barnes Railway Bridge; 

13) The bridge on the left is Blackfriars Road Bridge; the one on the right is the new Blackfriars Railway Bridge; the pillars in the middle are what remains of the 1864 Blackfriars Railway Bridge which carried the London, Chatham and Dover Railway; the eastern line of supporting columns have been incorporated into the new railway structure; 

14) Richmond Bridge, 1777; 

15) London Millennium Bridge, originally opened in 2000, but closed for two years following significant wobbles!

16) The Garden Bridge will be a 366 metre long, 30 metre wide, copper-nickel structure across the Thames between Waterloo and Blackfriars Bridges.  Joanna Lumley and Mayor Boris Johnson are prominent supporters.  It is expected to cost at least £175 million.

How did you do?

For a tie breaker, can you identify from which bridge this photo was taken?  

For the answer, contact me.....


Cheers!

London 9 - From Kew to Putney

Down by the riverside.....


  

 
KEW GARDEN

A poem in two Cantos, 1767

HAIL to the fpot, where Britain's laurel fprings
With item renewed, and rears its growth to heaven ;
What moral beauties, in their claffic robe
Tranfparent, thus in regal ftate exprefs'd,
With fweet benevolence enchant my foul ?
What new creation rifes to my view ?
Where niggard nature every boon denied;
Where earth and water, with ungenial bent,
To form and tafte, and order feem'd averfe.
What powerful Fiat call'd this Eden forth,
Like that firft paradife from chaos form'd,
And o'er the wafte a beauteous world bid rife? 

& fo on & fo forth

by Henry Jones, an Irishman

whose drunken habits, indolence, coarse manners, and arrogant temper disgusted most of his patrons (according to Wikipedia)

On the finest day this winter I chanced to find myself at the gates of Kew Garden.  My plan was to stroll through the gardens and then take the Thames Path to Putney, but there was an obstacle.  A lady of Irish origin, who I want to call Maeve, wished to extort £14 from me for the pleasure of perambulating dans les jardins!  And this was the discounted price. 

And what, pray, do these parterres offer which merits more funds than my journey here from deepest Hertfordshire?

Well,  she said,  there's three hundred acres...

Madame, we have at least that many acres in Hertfordshire!

It's what they charge.....  They're doing a lot of work....

I realised that my options were to pay or not to pay, as so often is the case, these days.  Where's the healthy art of bargaining gone?  Had I known at that point that winter had denuded all but the most evergreen of trees and that precious few plants flower at this time of year, and, most especially, had I been informed that the Temperate House, a place that chimed with the sense of New Year Resolution that fired me at that particular point in time, was CLOSED (fermé, geschlossen, chiuso per restauro) then I would really have fought for a further discount.  But, gentle reader, I am but a meek soul, conditioned by a lifetime of bureaucracy to respect minions behind glass, and so, I paid.

And then, Lo, what did I behold?  Something akin to a Hobbit (an Hobbit?) was helping itself to Holly Berries, as if this was a public park!

I rest my angst.....

At least the Palm House, the first and greatest wrought iron and hand blown glass construction in the world, a grounded airship, half deflated, stranded like a whale..... was open, and so, temporarily, my hopes were raised.

Even though it seemed to have been appropriated by a crèche.....

And then, the mortal blow, the Temperate House, far larger than the Palm House, a gleaming steamer of the line, though some years younger, closed, as I said.  Chiuso per restauro!  Agh!  I should have read the small print on their website:

The Waterlily House is now closed until April 2014.
Kew Palace and the Royal Kitchens, Queen Charlotte's Cottage are now closed until 29 March 2014.
The Temperate House and the Evolution House are now closed for a major restoration project. The anticipated completion date for the project is summer 2018

I have only myself to kick!  But how can they justify the entrance fee?

 

Anyway, it is a lovely day, and my friend and I make the most of the scenery:

Canada Geese water-skiing,

Aeroplanes stuck in the trees,

and Pochard (eyed up by a lusty Mallard) enjoying the Chinese Lanterns.

And then, with William Empson, once famed for decorating the bar of the Star and Garter close by the Arts Tower in Sheffield University, in mind, we leave the Gardens to the likes of Thom Gunn, in order to watch the Fuller's Griffin Brewery, Chiswick, float past on the high tide.

Note on Local Flora

There is a tree native in Turkestan,
Or further east towards the Tree of Heaven,
Whose cold hard cones, not being wards to time,
Will leave their mother only for good cause;
Will ripen only in a forest fire;
Wait, to be fathered as was Bacchus once,
Through men's long lives, that image of time's end.
I knew the Phoenix was a vegetable.
So Semele desired her deity
As this in Kew thirsts for the Red Dawn.

by William Empson



Fuller's Red Dawn, the Griffin Brewery at Chiswick

 

As Fuller's state on their website, Cultures define themselves heavily through their food and drink. There is nothing more British than beer and Fuller’s is acutely aware and protective of its place in British life.  I am not sure that the same can be said of Budweiser (of St Louis and Newark), especially since the American Eagle can be seen in this photograph to be warding off complaints from the Budweiser Budvarís beers [which] are brewed only in one place in the world, at the Budweiser Budvar brewery in Cesk.....  And neither of these companies belong on the Thames in the Stag Brewery at Mortlake, where Watney Combe and Reid brewed from 1889 (having moved from Victoria) until Scottish Courage leased the premises to Anheuser-Busch Europe Ltd, who have recently announced that, having planned to close it, they will keep it open until 2014, at least...... 

What was it Empson said, in the Star and Garter, about seven types of ambiguity?

Anyway, we move on.  Leaving poetry behind, we stumble on serious music and the origins of the Royal Ballet, no less, at Edris Stannus (aka Dame Ninette de Valois, 6 June 1898 – 8 March 2001, an Irish/Englishwoman from Wicklow)'s bijou riverside cottage in Barnes.  And only a few doors down,

lived Gustav Holst (Gustavus Theodore von Holst: 21 September 1874 – 25 May 1934, an Englishman from Cheltenham), from 1905 to his death music master at St Paul's Girls' School, Hammersmith.

The two no doubt coincided, and one can imagine them enjoying the likes of Humphrey Lyttleton and Ronnie Scott, or the adolescent Rolling Stones, in the music room at the Bull (or Bull's Head to the precious), though sadly Holst predeceased them all.

The current management have spruced the place up since I was last there (well that was some forty years ago), purging the residue of fifty years of Zoot Money and Phil Seaman, though they still allow in the odd soul brother (see below, smile please) and keep the jazz traditions going with polyglot bar staff and exquisite sausage rolls..... 

 

In the meantime, Holst's girls still catch crabs down by the riverside, here seen training outside William Morris's home,



And pairs lay down their heavy loads against the flow not far from

Craven Cottage, the home of Fulham FC, a place to put on your long white robe, yessir.....



The Thames path, puddled and weedy in places, allows for exercise, or contemplation, for heirs, and for Gracies.  At times, such as in this inclement season, it floods (notably at Chiswick, where you park on Chiswick Mall at your peril; or at Mortlake, where an alternative route is signposted; and the northern banks and islands, such as Chiswick Eyot, are ripped and strewn by high tides and heavy rains).  But the sunken cottages behind the newer banks, and the views across the powerful stream, are unspoiled and bright in the unfiltered light.  Uncluttered air enfolds you, and whatever the weather the way is there to follow.  Unencumbered.....

Of course, some people could have started earlier,

And others could have made more of an effort to be sociable,

And still others could have spared the time of day, perhaps....

But, when all is dead and sunny, the rather wonderful thing is that the space is free and each is to his, or her, own.  As Putney approaches and a pint at the Bricklayer's Arms, Waterman Street, beckons (in preference to the Star and Garter where one just might get involved with William Empson and his dyspepsia) my rancour at Kew's entrance charges has worn off, and the afternoon's sense of wandering with a river that Ratty and Mole enjoyed so much in The Wind in the Willows, has taken over. 

I am going to lay down my sword and shield.  I am not going to study war no more..... 

 Gonna meet my loving mother.....

Down by the Riverside,

Down by the riverside....

Mahalia Jackson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eiwb67-TMd0