Updates

From Thursday 24 August to Saturday 26 August, during the Reading Festival, the Thames Path will be closed from 9pm to 6am between Caversham Bridge to Scours Lane near Tilehurst. The festival is sold out so 100,000 people can now be expected to attend. A temporary bridge has again been erected across the Thames near […]

A bid to extend a private garden across the Thames riverside path at Wandsworth has been stopped by the planning authority At present the path adjoining Wandsworth Park has no upstream exit so does not yet form part of the Thames Path. However, it has long been London-wide policy to secure the riverside for public […]

Tuesday 1 August is Lammas Day when when the first wheat from the harvest is made into a loaf to be the bread consecrated with the wine at a thanksgiving Mass. Lammas comes from an Anglo Saxon word meaning loaf mass. The ancient custom predates the autumn harvest festival. There will be the blessing of bread in […]

The Berks, Bucks & Oxon Wildlife Trust (BBOWT) is hoping to extend its protection of meadowland at Chimney which is midway between Newbridge and Tadpole Bridges. The Trust wishes to buy the Duxford floodplain opposite Chimney and on the south side of the Shifford Lock Cut. The land is downstream of Tenfoot Bridge with the […]

Swan Upping, the annual census of the Thames’ swan population, is now underway. Yesterday the Swan Uppers, Her Majesty’s and the Vinters’, arrived at Romney Lock below Windsor Castle and toasted the Queen. The skiffs carrying the party will continue to move upstream all this week following this timetable: Tuesday 18 July Eton Bridge 08.45 […]

Today is the 300th anniversary of the Handel’s Water Music premiere. Handel’s Water Music was composed for King George I’s progress up the Thames on Saturday evening 17 July 1717. The King embarked on a borrowed City livery barge at Whitehall Steps, near the PS Tattershall Castle’s present mooring, at 8pm to be rowed  up […]

Nine Elms Bridge is a proposed foot crossing linking St George’s Square in Pimlico with Nine Elms. It would land on the right bank at a point near the new US Embassy. During the last General Election Labour candidates on both sides of the river strongly opposed the bridge. Marsha de Cordova unexpectedly won Battersea whilst […]

The first Waterloo Bridge was opened 200 years ago on Wednesday 18 June by the Prince Regent. The Georgian granite bridge was to have been called the Strand Bridge but after the Battle of Waterloo victory in 1815 it had to be Waterloo Bridge. The opening, in the presence of the Duke of Wellington, was […]

An attempt is being made to close the Thames riverside path at the Putney end of Wandsworth Park. Residents with gardens abutting the path are seeking to obtain a long lease to prevent the public using the walkway. The path is not part of the Thames Path since the west end runs up against a […]

Canon Giles Goddard, vicar of St John’s Waterloo, has been on the South Bank’s Thames Path to bless its trees. The riverside trees, within his Waterloo parish, are now thought to be safe from being felled for the proposed Garden Bridge. This follows the Mayor London’s decision to withhold all further funding. Planning permission for the controversial crossing lapses later this […]