Category: Updates

A section of the Thames Path between the Founders Arms near Tate Modern and Blackfriars Bridge is being closed for at least two years from  next month.

The closure will take place in the week beginning 14 September which is just after the Thames Festival.

The path diversion will be signposted behind the Bankisde Gallery and down Hopton Street, right along Southwark Street to pass under the railway and right into Blackfriars Road.

The long closure will allow work to continue on the building an entrance from the south side Thames Path to the new Blackfriars Station which will span the river. The work is part of the much delayed Thameslink rail project.

See page 34.

Expect to see flowers on the Marchioness memorial at the back of Southwark Cathedral over the weekend.

Today is the 20th anniversary of the disaster when 51 people drowned after the Marchioness was hit by the Bowbelle. The pleasure boat was between Southwark Bridge and Cannon Street Railway Bridge.

The names of the dead were read at today’s two masses at the cathedral and tonight there is choral evensong sung by a choir recalled from holiday for the occasion. Among those due to present are Odette Penwarden who helped to organise the river trip and is now a volunteer at the cathedral.

See page 33.

The Forbes family is selling some of the pictures in Old Battersea House which was restored by the late Malcolm Forbes. He paid a peppercorn rent to Wandsworth Council in return for a massive restoration. The house can be seen peeping above  a wall across the road from the Thames Path between Battersea Old Church and Battersea Railway Bridge.

I see that I claim that the house dates from 1899. This is nonsense. It’s more like 1699. How did I miss that one?

Although much restored after long neglect, the house is at least late 17th-century.

It’s good to know that it is now in good shape. The Evening Standard says that Prince Charles’ art students visit for sketching.

Two days ago The Sunday Times revealed plans for a new Thames bridge in central London. Today The Times has a report about work on a possible bridge linking Kew Gardens and Syon House.

This must be resisted. The joy of walking along the towpath at Kew is that the left (‘north’) bank is little changed.

The riverbank at Syon is very special. The natural creeks of the tide meadow were known to Lady Jane Grey who embarked here and Cromwell’s prisoner Charles I who was allowed to land here by barge from Hampton Court to visit his children.

It is not a bridge that is needed but a return to the earlier levels of river traffic.

There is already an historic link between the Kew towpath and Syon. This is at Isleworth where there have been several attempts to revive the daily ferry service. This would be a much more exciting experience for visitors than a modern bridge.

The river is in danger of having too much clutter.

Pages 55 to 57.

Boris Johnson’s plan for a new bridge across the Thames in central London is bad news.

English Heritage and SE1 residents will certainly oppose it.

According to today’s Sunday Times, the Mayor of London is suggesting a bridge lined with shops linking the South Bank with the Embankment. It would be midway between Waterloo Bridge and Blackfriars Bridge.

The north end would have twin 35-storey towers filled with luxury flats.

It could be All Fools Day rather than the May Day weekend.

This scheme will not be popular with lawyers in The Temple. Only yesterday Judge Simon Brown was writing in The Times about the setting of its historic garden.

This plan takes no account of the much admired view of the City of London from Waterloo Bridge or the view up the wide expanse of King’s Reach from Blackfriars Bridge.

There is only one place for an Old London Bridge style bridge with shops and houses and that is London Bridge itself. But that might spoil Boris’s view from City Hall.

Radio 4’s Any Questions? comes from Cookham tonight which reminds us that the Cookham Festival starts today and runs to Bank Holiday Monday 4 May.

The Sunday service on Radio 4 is coming live from Cookham Church this weekend to mark the 50th anniversary of Stanley Spencer’s death.

Canon David Winter who is preaching at the service has been wondering where the artist was buried. He could not find anyone who remembered although the funeral was of course in the church.

The answer has been found just in time. Yes, Stanley Spencer is buried in the churchyard he depicted in his painting The Resurrection. But he was cremated so it is his ashes which lie there.

I claim (page 103) that he is buried just to the left of the Thames Path which runs through the churchyard. David Winter says that the ashes are “probably under the present memorial stone”.

The summer exhibition at the Stanley Spencer Gallery opens next Wednesday.

Today’s Good Friday edition of The Times has a report on a plaque unveiled at Teddington marking the site where the newspaper’s founder John Walter lived in retirement from 1795 until his death in 1812.

I was unaware of this important part of Teddington’s heritage. Sadly the house was pulled down in 1923.

It’s interesting that Walter set up his logographic printing presses at Printing House Square overlooking Puddle Dock at Blackfriars and went upstream in retirement.

See page 62.