Month: May 2014

The Rivers Thames and Severn have been connected by the Thames & Severn Way.

A footpath has been marked out by volunteers from the Cotswold Canals Trust. It mainly follows the towpaths of the Stroudwater Navigation and Thames & Severn Canal between Lechlade on the Thames and Framilode on the Severn but in places deviates to use other paths including the Thames Path.

Upstream walkers on the Thames Path wishing to continue beyond the source can make their way to the nearby old canal path behind the stone. The first landmark is the Tunnel House Inn.

The route has been marked using nearly 500 specially designed waymarks provided by Stroud District Council which is co-operating in producing an online map. Meanwhile the canals map is helpful.

The local aim is for the Thames & Severn Way to be part of the National Trail so the full Thames Path could run from Dartford to the River Severn which is route once easily navigated.

Guiding Lights exhibition at Greenwich’s National Maritime Museum marks the 500th anniversary of Trinity House.

The Corporation of Trinity House, first recognised by Henry VIII on 20 May 1514, looks after our lighthouses and buoys.

It had started in March 1513 in nearby Deptford where mariners were unhappy about unregulated and unreliable pilots in the Thames estuary.

The only disappointment is that the exhibition fails to say much about the beginning and where in Deptford could be found the fraternity’s great hall and almshouses. Trinity House is now based on Tower Hill in central London and at Harwich.

But this display is an opportunity to see around 70 rarely seen objects from Trinity House and the NMM’s own collection.

The exhibition is open 10am-5pm daily until Sunday 4 January; admission free to both museum and Guiding Lights.

A London Pub For Every Occasion is published today May Day highlighting 161 of the capital’s 7,000 pubs.

The delight of this book is not just the choices but the pictures by Anna Hurley. Her Cutty Sark pub picture shows the lovely bow window above the cobbles. Other Thames pubs mentioned are The Dog & Bell at Deptford and The Mayflower at Rotherhithe. There is even The Pelton Arms which was for a time on the Thames Path whilst riverside redevelopment took place.

A London Pub For Every Occasion is a pocket hardback edited by Ben Olins and Jane Smillie and published by Ebury Press (£9.99).