X-Nico

55 unusual facts about river Thames


1614 in literature

In the first six months of the year, no theatres operate on the south bank of the Thames, causing a severe decline in demand for the watermen's taxi service.

1830 in sports

10 August — the Wingfield Sculls, amateur championship of the River Thames, is founded at the instigation of barrister Henry Colsell Wingfield and raced from Battersea to Hammersmith.

1836 in sports

17 June — the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race, first held in 1829, is revived and the 2nd race takes place on the Thames between Westminster and Putney.

1863 in art

March - American-born painter James McNeill Whistler settles close to the River Thames in Chelsea, London, where he will live for most of the rest of his life.

Ada F Kay

Although much of it reflected known historical facts about James IV, it also included some surprising new revelations about the events of the time, e.g. that James III of Scotland was a homosexual, and that James IV had built his warship the Michael to sail it up the River Thames and bombard the royal palaces in London.

AirSea Lines

On 7 November 2006 an AirSea Lines Twin Otter seaplane landed at Royal Victoria Docks on the River Thames, London, at the end of a proving flight testing the feasibility of seaplane operations from the river.

Allhallows, Kent

Situated in the northernmost part of Kent, and covering an area of 23.99 km², the parish is bounded on the north side by the River Thames, and in the east by the course of Yantlet creek, now silted up.

Ankerwycke Yew

On the opposite bank of the River Thames are the meadows of Runnymede and this tree is said to have been witness to the signing of Magna Carta.

Are You Ready for Love?

The film includes a speed dating sequence that takes place on board the charter boat The Dixie Queen on the River Thames at Tower Bridge.

Battle of Schooneveld

Michiel de Ruyter, since February 1673 Lieutenant-Admiral-General of the confederate Dutch fleet, planned to blockade the main English fleet in the River Thames by sinking blockships in its narrowest part, and then to deal with the remaining English squadrons at his leisure.

Bishops Park

The park runs north of the River Thames from All Saints church by a broad tree-lined avenue, and an embankment path along the river, and ends at Bishop’s Park Road.

Carole Tongue

In 1999, she co-produced The Fleeting Opera on the River Thames with The Couper Collection and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Child murder

An unknown child (referred to as Adam), whose decapitated torso was found in the River Thames in London in 2002 is believed to have been the victim of a muti killing.

Chinese mitten crab

It was reported in the London Evening Standard in 1995 that the residents of Greenwich saw Chinese mitten crabs coming out of the River Thames and moving towards the High Street, and other reports indicate that the crabs have been known to take up residence in swimming pools.

College Garden

The north side is formed by the great hall of Westminster School (originally the monks' dormitory), and the houses of the Abbey canons; the east and south sides are a mediaeval wall with a watergate which formerly opened into the River Thames, now embanked fifty yards away beyond the House of Lords.

Coventry Canal

Five miles north of Coventry, at Hawkesbury Junction, a superbly preserved iron bridge crosses the start of the Oxford Canal, which journeys southwards to join the River Thames at Oxford.

Croydon parks and open spaces

The River Wandle is also a major tributary of the River Thames, where it stretches to Wandsworth and Putney for 9 miles (14 km) from its main source in Waddon.

Double Bunk

After rebuilding the engine with the help of his friend Sid (Sid James), a used-car salesman, Jack and Peggy plan a trip down the Thames River to Ramsgate, taking along Sid and his partner Sandra (Liz Fraser).

Edward Scholefield

On 16 May 1929 Scholefield was killed when the aircraft crashed and burned at Shepperton on the shore of the River Thames.

Find the Time

The video features the band performing a dance routine alongside the River Thames and the Houses of Parliament in London.

Ford Kent engine

This series of engines became known as the Kent engine because Alan Worters, the company's Executive Engineer (Power Units), lived across the river from Ford's Dagenham plant in the English county of Kent.

Found Drowned

Found Drowned depicts the dead body of a woman washed up beneath the arch of Waterloo Bridge, with her lower body still immersed in the water of the River Thames .

Fred Potts

Potts was born on 18 December 1892, and first came to public notice in 1913, when he saved a five year old boy named Charles Rex from drowning in the River Thames.

Frostfire

Vicki recalls a journey in which the TARDIS landed on the frozen River Thames, during the frost fair of 1814.

Georgette Heyer

Heyer's paternal grandfather had emigrated from Russia, while her maternal grandparents owned tugboats on the River Thames.

Greenwich parks and open spaces

Greenwich is a riverside borough, and one of the largest open spaces is the Thames itself, forming the northern boundary of the borough.

Hannington Bridge

Hannington Bridge is a road bridge across the River Thames in England.

Isaiah Oke

In 2001, Ju Ju became the subject of public attention in the UK when the body of a decapitated child was found floating down the River Thames, horrifying onlookers.

Jade Kindar-Martin

In the six years they performed together, the two became known equally for their highly technical bicycle acrobatics and dramatic skywalks, including their Guinness World Record-setting double skywalk across the River Thames in London in 1997.

Joseph René Bellot

The young explorer was mourned widely, and £2,000 was raised after his death of which £500 went towards a granite memorial obelisk (designed by Philip Hardwick and unveiled in 1855) in his memory on the Thames riverside in front of Greenwich Hospital; a nearby Greenwich street, Bellot Street SE10, also carries his name.

Juliette Mole

In the 1990s, she lived on a houseboat on the River Thames, where she was reported to keep collections of black and white photographs and hats.

Ladywell Fields

There is a café on site, and the park is part of the Waterlink Way cycling and walking route that extends from the River Thames at Creekside, Deptford to Sydenham.

Lambeth parks and open spaces

Lambeth is a riverside borough, and one of the largest open spaces is the Thames itself, forming the northern boundary of the borough.

London-Brabant Massif

The London-Brabant Massif or London-Brabant Platform is in the tectonic structure of Europe a structural high or massif that stretches from the Rhineland in western Germany across northern Belgium (in the province of Brabant) and the North Sea to the sites of East Anglia and the middle Thames in southern England.

Love River

Love River is the spine of Kaohsiung, playing a similar role to the River Thames of London.

Norman Tucker

Other tensions between Tucker and the board, combined with his great disappointment when a plan for a new opera house on the South Bank of the Thames was abandoned, badly affected his health.

North v South

There was a change to the fixture's naming convention between 1866 and 1868 when the River Thames became the dividing line and the teams were called North of the Thames and South of the Thames.

Northumberland House

Most of the grandest houses were on the southern side of the road and had gardens stretching down to the River Thames.

Pocock Racing Shells

As a young man, George raced single shells on the famed River Thames.

Richmond Flyers

The club ceased to exist from 1992 when their home ice rink, Richmond Ice Rink, was demolished to make way for flats overlooking the River Thames.

River Tame

River Thames, a river that flows through Oxford, Reading, and London

Sea Fencibles

In 1798 watermen and other groups of river tradesmen on the River Thames voluntarily formed associations of River Fencibles.

Seven Springs

Seven Springs, Gloucestershire, a spring and hamlet, and one possible source of the River Thames

Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened

A few leads point to the docks by the Thames, and there, Holmes and Watson learn that similar kidnappings have occurred.

Southwark parks and open spaces

Southwark is a riverside borough, and one of the largest open spaces is the River Thames itself, forming the northern boundary of the borough.

SS Royal William

She departed from Pictou, Nova Scotia on 18 August 1833 with seven passengers, a small amount of freight and a load of coal and arrived at Gravesend on the River Thames after a 25-day passage.

St. John's Bridge, Lechlade

St John's Bridge is a road bridge across the River Thames near Lechlade, England.

Swandown

To make the film, Andrew Kötting and Iain Sinclair pedaled a swan pedalo over 160 miles down the River Thames from the seaside in Hastings to Hackney in East London, occasionally joined by guests including Alan Moore, Stewart Lee, Dudley Sutton, Dr Mark Lythgoe and Marcia Farquhar.

The Railrodder

He promptly throws the newspaper away and jumps into the Thames.

The World Triathlon

The World Triathlon consists of a 275 mile (about 442.6 kilometers) swim along the length of the River Thames and across the English Channel, then a 8,875 mile bike ride from Calais, France to Calcutta, India.

Thomas Dale

However, soon after leaving London, as John Rolfe and his wife sailed down the Thames River, Rebecca became very ill and died on 21 March 1617 while still in England.

Thomas Doggett

The race had to be rowed annually on August first on the River Thames, by six young watermen who were not to have exceeded the time of their apprenticeship by twelve months.

Wandsworth Park

The park is situated along the south bank of the River Thames and bordered to the south by Putney Bridge Road.

Wharf borer

They can be found anywhere where there is moist and decaying wood, such as wharf timbers that are regularly submerged by a tidal flow river, for example near the River Thames.

White Hart

The Great House at Sonning in Sonning, Berkshire, on the banks of the River Thames, was formerly known as the White Hart because Richard II's wife, Isabella of Valois was kept prisoner in the village after his death.


1790 in Great Britain

1 January - The 91-mile Oxford Canal is opened throughout, providing an important link between the River Thames at Oxford and Coventry in the English Midlands.

Aulus Plautius

However, Plautius defeated first Caratacus, then Togodumnus, on the rivers Medway and Thames.

Castle Eaton Bridge

Castle Eaton Bridge is a road bridge across the River Thames in England at Castle Eaton in Wiltshire.

Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802

Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 is a sonnet by William Wordsworth describing London and the River Thames, viewed from Westminster Bridge in the early morning.

CSS Tallahassee

The iron Confederate cruiser Tallahassee was named after the Confederate state capital of Tallahassee in Florida and was built on the River Thames by J & W Dudgeon of Cubitt Town, London for London, Chatham & Dover Rly. Co. to the design of Capt. T. E. Symonds, Royal Navy, ostensibly for the Chinese opium trade.

Cynegils of Wessex

The later kingdom of Wessex was centred on the counties of Hampshire, Dorset, Somerset, and Wiltshire, but the evidence of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is that the kingdom of Cynegils was located on the upper River Thames, extending into northern Wiltshire and Somerset, southern Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, and western Berkshire, with Dorchester-on-Thames as one the major royal sites.

Desborough Cut

The Desborough Cut is an artificial channel in the River Thames above Sunbury Lock near Walton on Thames in England.

Grandpont Bridge

Grandpont Bridge is a footbridge across the River Thames near the centre of Oxford, England.

Historical climatology

The River Thames was made more narrow and flowed faster after old London Bridge was demolished in 1831, and the river was embanked in stages during the 19th century, both of which made the river less liable to freezing.

HM Coastal Motor Boat 4

After the action the boat was returned to the United Kingdom where it was on display first at the Imperial War Museum in London and then at the Vosper works on Platt’s Eyot (island) on the River Thames near Kingston for many years with a Victoria Cross painted on the side until the Vosper works there closed.

Jack Morton Worldwide

The pyrotechnic display over the River Thames and the London Eye is viewed by millions of people on BBC One and live by hundreds of thousands more lining both banks of river.

London water supply infrastructure

In 1582, Dutchman Peter Morice (died 1588) developed one of the first pumped water supply systems for the City of London, powered by undershot waterwheels housed in the northernmost arches of London Bridge spanning the River Thames.

Playing company

Theatres proliferated, especially (though not exclusively) in neighborhoods outside the city's walls and the Corporation's control — in Shoreditch to the north, or the Bankside and Paris Garden in Southwark, on the southern bank of the River Thames: the Curtain, the Rose, the Swan, the Fortune, the Globe, the Blackfrairs — a famous roster.

Pontage

Grants were made from 1228 until the 1440s, the earliest being for bridges at Ferrybridge, Yorkshire and Staines, an important crossing of the river Thames.

Putney Sculpture Trail

Putney Sculpture Trail encompasses nine sculptures by British sculptor Alan Thornhill which are permanently publicly sited along the south side of the River Thames to either side of Putney Bridge, in the borough of Wandsworth.

Putney, New South Wales

The name was later changed to Putney, derived from its namesake Putney on the River Thames in London.

River Ember

The two rivers then flow side by side approximately north east and merge 400 metres before joining the River Thames at the eastern end of East Molesey opposite Hampton Court Palace on the south side of the last non-tidal reach, which is above Teddington Lock.

Rough Sleepers Initiative

In the early 1980s it existed close to the River Thames at the London Embankment tube station and was closed as a rough sleepers site by Westminster City Council working with the voluntary sector so that the space used by rough sleepers could be upgraded into a retail shopping area.

Shotgate

The Hurricane fighter recalls the incident on 31 May 1940, when RAF Pilot Officer William Henry Hodgson, a New Zealander, engaged hostile bombers and fighters over the River Thames in his Hawker Hurricane, but it was hit and caught fire.

Sonning Regatta

Sonning Regatta is the regatta of the village of Sonning in Berkshire and the hamlet of Sonning Eye in Oxfordshire, England, on the north and south banks of the River Thames.

Splitting maul

It is also known as a beetle; there is a well known pub on the River Thames at Moulsford called the Beetle and Wedge.

Undertakers sketch

The tactless undertaker (Chapman) suggests they can "burn 'er, bury 'er, or dump 'er in the Thames", but rules out the latter after Cleese confirms that he liked his mother. Of the other two, the undertaker says both are "nasty," and describes the sordid details. When the son shows the undertaker his mother's body, which is in a sack, he sees that the dead woman "looks quite young". He tells his assistant, Fred (Eric Idle) that he thinks they've "got an eater."