Many people passing along Petersham Meadows upstream of Richmond look out for Ian Hamilton’s makeshift raft near the left bank. I hear that his 20 year old home was nearly destroyed by fire a week ago. The local fire service did what it could from the bank whilst the fireboat was on its way from […]

The Discover Greenwich attraction which has opened in the Old Royal Naval is good news. Really this is a new tourist information centre with a good cafe and museum attached. The displays include some good historical information and artifacts excavated on site. Featured is the Tudor royal palace which preceded the Naval College. We now […]

‘The Great Bore’ is open this weekend at Rotherhithe before the Underground service is resumed shortly. The Guardian has one of the many weekend reports. Those who choose to walk through will be doing what Brunel expected when he designed the tunnel. Trains were an afterthought. Walkers can have a drink at The Mayflower where […]

Watercolour painter Paul Sandby is best known for his pictures of Windsor in George III’s reign. The exhibition at the Royal Academy marking the 200th anniversary of his death in 1809  brings together his other Thames views. He certainly knew the river well because his earliest drawing is of the Tower of London and he […]

The garden at the back of Tate Modern has gone to make way for the extension and its worksite. However, the long hoarding round the back has just been decorated with over a hundred drawings by Swedish artist Martin Karlsson. He includes places on the Thames Path which you may have just passed such as […]

The Thames will have its lowest tide for five years on the morning of Wednesday 3 March. Thames 21, London’s waterways charity, is organising a deep clean of the river bed. Volunteers are invited to put on old clothes and meet at the south end of Hammersmith Bridge at 11am.  The event will be over […]

A pancake race was run along a stretch of the Thames Path today. Southwark’s Shrove Tuesday race was in Montague Close where the national trail passes the cathedral. See page 31.

News has reached me of improvements to the path between Islet Park House in Maidenhead and Cookham’s Mill Lane. This comes from the Royal Borough of Maidenhead which has been responsible, with a Natural England grant, for widening the path and repairing the bank. The erosion problems were mainly tackled early last year whilst the […]

Paul Nash’s Wittenham Clumps painting is on the poster advertising the Paul Nash exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery. It’s also the cover picture for the catalogue. This star picture, called Landscape of the Vernal Equinox, has been lent by the Queen. This is because the painting was purchased by the Queen Mother who hung it […]

Clink Street, running under Cannon Street railway line bridge, used to be a delightful Dickensian road between warehouses. It may be too light soon. The details are on the London SE1 website. Although this stretch of the Thames Path, just west of Southwark Cathedral, is not alongside water it was thought to be an important […]