The Ferries of London 2017

So how many ferries are there in London that cross the Thames?

As noted in the previous post, I'm working with this definition:

• The ferry must have run for at least one day in the last year, taking members of the general public directly across the river Thames at some point between the London Stones.

The ones that I've identified which have run between Summer 2016 and Summer 2017 are as follows, starting at the west and heading downriver to the estuary:

1. Shepperton to Weybridge
2. Hampton Ferry
3. Hammertons Ferry
4. Tower Bridge - Temporary Ferry
5. Canary Wharf to Rotherhithe Ferry
6. North Greenwich to Trinity Buoy Wharf
7. Woolwich Ferry
8. Gravesend to Tilbury Ferry

Over the last year or so I've been visiting them, only using public transport to get there and back, taking the ferry just one way across the Thames.

The next set of posts will describe the visit and journey on each one.


Updated: the Tower Bridge ferry only ran for one day so it might be better to classify these as there being 7 London ferries and for the 2016-2017 period one additional temporary ferry. Also initially missed the North Greenwich to Trinity Buoy Wharf ferry that some have called the secret ferry.


.

Quiz: How many ferries across the Thames are there in London?

So now we've defined how much of the Thames is in London its time for another quiz: how many ferries are there across the Thames in London?

But what do we mean by ferry? In this case I'm going with boats that take members of the general public as passengers between two points approximately on opposite sides of the river Thames (e.g. with line of sight between them).

So the Thames Clippers do not count if they go up and down the river e.g. from Embankment Pier down to Greenwich.

Then finally what time period are we talking about? In the past there were lots of ferries and this is meant to be about ferries in London now. But some ferries don't run all the time and at least one was recently suspended.

The final definition is then the time frame:

• The ferry must have run for at least one day in the last year, taking members of the general public directly across the river Thames at some point between the London Stones.

So what do you think? How many have run over the last year?

And how many of them have you been on?

The London Stones and the Thames

So how much of the Thames is London's?

That of course raises an important question: what definition of London should be used? The Londonist has a fantastic video that discusses all sorts of alternatives, including post codes, the London boroughs, the M25, the 020 phone area code, the tube or maybe out to zone 6 of the tube and train network.

But these don't work for the Thames, as it doesn't have a phone or tube stations at either end of the London Thames.

One possible answer is the scope of the Port of London Authority (PLA), which according to Wikipedia is from the "obelisk just downstream of Teddington Lock (the upstream limit of the tidal river) to the end of the Kent/Essex strait of the North Sea (between Margate to the south and Gunfleet Lighthouse, near Frinton-on-Sea, to the north".

The trouble with that is the PLA, however important, is not London, and Margate most definitely is not part of London. The Thames Police remit is from Hampton Court to the Queen Elisabeth Bridge, and that sounds closer to what I'd consider the London bit of the Thames, though maybe it should be a bit wider.

There is an older definition that works even in today's London, using the ancient London Stones (not to be confused with The London Stone). These were defined in times gone by as the limits of jurisdiction of the City of London. To quote Wikipedia:

In 1197 King Richard I, in need of money to finance his involvement in the Third Crusade, sold the rights over the lower reaches of the River Thames to the City of London. Marker stones were erected to indicate the limit of the City's rights

These are then:

• In the west, in Staines (which now would like to be known as Staines-upon-Thames but everyone just calls it Staines). Apparently, as recently as Victorian times, the Lord Mayor would come in procession by water and touch the stone (above) with a sword to re-affirm the City's rights
• In the east, the line in the Thames estuary connecting the Crow Stone at Westcliff-on-Sea in Essex and Yantlet Creek on the Isle of Grain in Kent

These points are shown on the Google Earth map below and I think they work today too.















I'll come back to these London Stones in future blog posts, but until then its time for another quiz, in
the next post....

Quiz: What is the London part of the Thames?

This is the Google Earth view of London, with the river Thames wiggling its way from left to right.

The Thames in total is 346 km in length, but how much of that is the London Thames?

Don't actually need a length - the key question is: where would London's part of the Thames start and end? How would you define it?

Answers in the comments please!

Boats! Boats! Boats! ... on the Thames above Hampton Court Bridge

It's a sunny Sunday afternoon and this chap is sailing in a Laser... no wonder he has a content smile on his face.

Boats! Boats! Boats! ... on the Thames at Putney

... and, apparently, an amphibious car.

The Greenway of East London

I walked to the Abbey Mills pumping station from West Ham tube station, taking a route along something called the Greenway. I thought it was a disused train track that had been converted in a similar way to the High Line in NY, but I was wrong.

It was actually part of Bazelgette's great work and one of the reasons for Abbey Mills.

Those great pumps that look like ammonites rise the waste up so it can fall under gravity to the outflow in Beckton. As the land is pretty flat it means that at this end the pipes must be several metres above ground level. So under this track are a number of huge pipes flowing down to the Thames.

While walking along the Greenway I had a flash back to a few years earlier, September 2012, when I'd walked that way without knowing what it was.

It had been near midnight just after the end of the final event of one of the greatest summers that London has known, the Closing Ceremony of the Paralympics:

It makes me sad as I look at the chaos today to remember those wonderful days and weeks when the UK was united and positive.

John Martin's pre-Bazalgette Designs

This is John Martin's 1838 drawing showing his design for a combined sewer and rain fall system contained within an embankment of the Thames.

It pre-dates Bazalgette's work by not just years but decades but while the concept is on the right lines it is lacking in engineering technique. For example the gradient along the bank of the Thames is too slack which would have caused this sewer canal to silt up badly.

But it is a lovely drawing and shows some of the ideas that were taken up by Bazalgette.

Book and Talk Review: The Frozen Frontier by Jane Maufe

The amazing Tanya Tagaq and Nanook of the North concert made me want to head north again. Alas no plans for such a trip at the moment but a good excuse to post about this book and talk.

Back in April there was a talk at Arthur Beale by Jane Maufe about how she and David Scott Cowper went through the North West passage not just once but twice in Polar Bound (above).

It was a fascinating talk and I should have blogged about it at the time but got distracted. However that gave me the opportunity to read the book, The Frozen Frontier, and then do a review of both together.

One of the high spots was Jane Maufe herself. You have to have an understanding of British class symbolism, but it was important for her to wear a pearl necklace even when surrounded ice and she had that clipped English my grandmother spoke in. She was also the four times great niece of Sir John Franklin so had the right pedigree.

She joined David Scott Cowper who is someone I'd been aware of without fully acknowledging his achievements. He took a backseat during talk and let her take the attention, which apparently is in character for both. At the back of the book was his list of achievements and I was pretty blown away - you can read some of them here. I looked for his personal web site and couldn't find one, which again seems in character. One of those quiet chaps that just goes off and does stuff without fuss.

For those with an interest in relationships, my advice is read the book as it was sweetly told there. For those with an interest in Arctic sailing read on here.

The boat was staggering well constructed, built around a Gardner engine, pretty indestructible and prepared to over-winter with plenty of stores (I mentally compared this to Jimmy Cornell's approach).

Their first traverse of the NW passage was in 2012 in which they took the most northerly route, through the McClure Strait. It was a race to be the first private vessel to get through, with strong competition from Belzebub II, a Hallberg-Rassy boat from Sweden. But Polar Bound got through first, leaving Belzebub II with the consolation prize to be the first sailing yacht. Then on through the Bering Strait to leave the boat over winter in the Alaskan Inside Passage. In 2013 they were back, taking a more southerly route, aiming for the Hecla/Fury straits.

There and back they'd encounter the usual high Arctic experiences: whales, seals, polar bears, Inuit, ice bergs, storms and fog. They also met up with Bob Shepton, who'd I met at at boat show a few years ago.

A remarkable story from two equally remarkable people.

Tanya Tagaq and Nanook of the North at the NMM

As posted previously I've been to quite a few concerts and gigs this year but nothing I'd been to had the impact of the one at the National Maritime Museum (NMM) Sunday evening.

It was a showing of the classic documentary film Nanook of the North together with a performance from Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq in the The Great Map, the heart of the NMM.

It was extraordinary: her voice and presence dominated the room, raw and beautiful like the scenery of the far north:


It was part of the Origins festival of first nations in London, and the music and singing came first, dominating the film which had rather a small feel, only taking up a small part of the screen. But maybe that was appropriate, for the point of the festival was to give a voice to native cultures directly, rather than the observed viewpoint.

You can see the film for yourself here:

Five Gigs for Glastonbury Weekend

I haven't done a music post for some time and already we've reached Glastonbury weekend. Its another year of following the streams from afar, remembering gigs over the last few months.

How many of these five bands can you identify?

Now updated with descriptions.

Above and below:  Putney group The xx at the Brixton Academy:

Below: Underworld at Alexandra Palace

Below: Francois and the Atlas Mountains at the Moth Club:

Below: British Sea Power at Shepherds Bush Empire

Below: Kraftwerk at the Albert Hall

The Mystery of Seville's Guadalquivir River

Recently I went to the city of Seville in Spain and it turned out to be an extremely pleasant place to spend a long weekend.

One evening we decided to go on a cruise on the Guadalquivir river - a tourist jolly, starting at the Torre del Oro (above) which is an old Moorish tower and now houses a small Maritime Museum.

Except... was it really a river? Have a looking at this Google Earth photo:

The "river" has actually been filled in higher up, so it isn't a river at all, more a elongated inlet, which explained why we couldn't see any flow. The boat turned round before getting to this point, as if to keep this a secret.

This probably relates to Seville being a working port but the river has a problem of silting, hence the long straight bit of the new channel. Large cruise ship can still make it all the way up the river to Seville as in this photo:

We did see a few rowers, kayakers and paddle boarders, but not really enough to do a Boats! Boats! Boats ... in Seville.

Anyhow, it wasn't really a real river.

Scorchio!

Unseasonably warm at the moment in Blightly land.

Skies were clear all across the country, a bit like this:

This photo was actually taken at the end of May when went to Seville for the Bank Holiday Weekend - have a post on that coming up. Apparently there it is due to hit 41C today and 43 later this week - that is proper scorchio weather.

For those that want to know where scorchio comes from, here's a short video:

What not to put in the sewers

Ok, time for some of the harsh facts of life: some things just shouldn't be flushed away.

Take wet-wipes: these don't decay but just clog up the pipes as was demonstrated above. Then there's fat and grease: if you flush it away with a kettle-full of hot water it just gradually cools until it makes a ball of fat underground.

Now most of these will flush away in a heavy rain but some of the tougher items could clog up the pumps and the largest fat-balls have to be dug away by some poor worker.

So treat the sewers like you would a yacht heads: with care.

Of course our next question was what is the most interesting thing you've found in the sewers and the answer was quite a lot. Take this pile by the exit ladder:

Excuse me if I don't rush to eat my yogurt with these.

Above they had a display cabinet with some of the more interesting items that have been picked up:

Seriously, who looses these things down the sewer?

London OnWater 2017 at St Katharine Docks

This weekend there was an event called London OnWater 2017 at St Katharine Docks.

The blub on their web site called it "London’s No.1 On-Water Boat Show & Festival" but... well.. it wasn't that big to be honest. However I guess that technically it was accurate as the London Boat Show had zero boats actually on the quayside by the ExCel exhibition centre in January.

London OnWater was held in one of the St Katharine Docks and seemed almost as much about cars as boats:

One of the boats looked like something off a James Bond set, namely the Glider Yachts "sport limousine":

Apart from looking like a rocket ship apparently it can go like one too - this model can reach 56 knots and another in the range is rated as up to 96 knots!

I didn't ask the price as not really my market though I did wander off to the Oyster Yachts to have a little dream:

Then back to Tower Hill and the tube home.

So what did I think? Well I had an interesting couple of hours at London OnWater 2017 but I'm not quite sure where it fits in the boat show marketplace. I'm guessing that being located bang in the City means there was potential for boat makers to address the high end luxury market which isn't really my thing.

My favourite chats were with the Cruising Association and the London Corinthian Sailing Club, both of which I've been to in the past and should try to visit again.

The Thames Tideway Tunnel and the fate of the Bubbler

I've posted before about the Thames Tideway Tunnel aka the Super Sewer.

Why do we need this super sewer? Well, London is getting bigger and bigger and with all those extra people are doing what people do the sewer system can't cope. In addition it's never been that good at coping with heavy rainfalls and that has led to lots of raw sewage going straight into the Thames.

So there is a clear need for additional capacity, lots of it, and the statistics are pretty mind boggling. The main tunnel will have a width of 7m, enough for three double-decker busses to drive side by side along it (take that the Italian job) - that's wider than Crossrail.

6 tunnelling machines will be boring away about 75m under London at 100m / week with something like 25 km of tunnel to dig.

Of course it won't be cheap, with figures like £ 4.2 billion being quoted and there's a lot of engineering involved disturbing familiar places such as Putney Embankment, home of the start of the University Boat Race.

The digging will of course generated lots of soil, but the plan is to take as much as possible off by boat along the Thames itself - resulting in a projected 60% increase in river traffic.

Inevitably there will be disruption but it won't last for ever and at the end there's planned to be 3.5 acres of additional public spaces. And hopefully the Thames will be a lot healthier with much less outflows.

So what about the Bubbler? Well this is the Bubbler:

This is Thames Water's special boat that goes out after a major overflow event to pump oxygen into the river to keep the waters alive. It has over the years become a common sight, but the plan is for it to be retired as it wouldn't be required any more.

And that would be good news indeed.

Did someone give Buff the microphone?

Must admit I've just said "Oh bother"!

Or words along those lines

Watching the America's Cup much?

If you weren't watching the America's Cup yesterday one has to ask: why not?

Gripping stuff and very, very wet.

PSB: London Can Take It

Let's keep a sense of proportion - or at least lets hope the US media (Jon Oliver excepted) gets one.

London has a long history, not all of it pleasant:

• In AD 60, under the Romans, it was destroyed by the Iceni led by queen Boudica
• London was also sacked in 842 and 851 by the Vikings
• After 1066 (and all that) William the Conqueror occupied the city
• About half the population was killed in the Black Death of the 14th century
• During the English Civil War London took the side of Parliament and was where the King was executed in 1649
• Almost a quarter of the population was lost in the Great Plague of 1665
• The plague was swiftly followed by the Great Fire of 1666
• During the 20th Century London was the target of the German Blitz (as in the video above from the band Public Service Broadcasting (PSB), who have seen a couple of times before).

London does not "reel" easily: we mind the gap and drink tea (though we might not say no to something stronger).

London is doing now what it has done for millennia: keep calm and carry on.

Upon Westminster Bridge

Earth has not anything to show more fair:

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by

A sight so touching in its majesty:

This City now doth, like a garment, wear

The beauty of the morning: silent, bare,

Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie

Open unto the fields, and to the sky;

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did sun more beautifully steep

In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;

Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

The river glideth at his own sweet will:

Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;

And all that mighty heart is lying still!

No, the NY Times and others, we are not reeling. We are going about our business as normal in this fantastic, wonderful, brilliant, beautiful city.

That's what we do.