B.B.C

PROJECT

River Thames

Length 346 km (215 miles)Source is about a mile north of the village of Kemble, near Cirencester.The area of floodplain is 896 km2.There are in all 47 locks,

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION ON RIVER THAMES

The Thames has been frozen over at various times, the earliest recorded occasion being AD 1150.

There is a 23-ft (7-m) difference between low and high tide at London Bridge.

The Thames is navigable by barges is navigable for 306 km (191 miles) from Lechlade.

ORIGINThe source of the Thames is a spring called Thames head. The spring is supplied by water deep under the ground. It is marked by an ancient ash tree and a stone engraved with the words:

Thames Head is a site in Gloucestershire, traditionally identified as the source of the River Thames, a major river which runs through the centre of London. It lies near the village of Kemble and the town of Cirencester.The source of the Thames is a spring called Thameshead. The spring is supplied by water deep under the ground. It is marked by an ancient ash tree and a stone engraved with the words:

Some people believe that the true source of Thames is at Seven Springs, some eleven miles further north. Officially this is the source of the river Churn, a tributary of the Thames that joins

at Cricklade. The Environment Agency, the Ordnance Survey and most authorities now accept

that Thames Head is the source.

The Thames flows through or alongside Aston Keynes, Cricklade, Lechlade, Oxford,Abingdon, Wallingford, Goring-on-Thames and Streatley, Reading, Wargrave, Henley-on-Thames, Marlow, Maidenhead, Windsor and Eton, Staines-upon-Thames and Egham , Chertsey, Shepperton, Weybridge, Sunbury-on-Thames, Walton-on-Thames, Molesey and Thames Ditton

The Thames passes by some of the sights of London, including the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye.

Course

History of River ThamesThe River Thames can first be identified as a discrete drainage line as early as 58 million years ago, in theThanetian stage of the late Palaeocene epoch.

In the most extreme Ice Age of the Pleistocene, theAnglian about 450,000 years ago, the ice sheet reached its furthest extent south, Hornchurch in north-east London.

 It dammed the river in Hertfordshire, causing large ice lakes which eventually burst their banks and caused the river to be diverted onto its present course through London .

Scenes from River Thames

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF RIVER THAMES ON ENGLAND

 TRADE & TRANSPORT The river has been an important trade and transport route

since prehistoric times. Barges and river boats brought fish, wood and wool to the

City, while hundreds of watermen in small rowing boats ferried people up and down.

Tea, silk and a fortune of spices came from the East. Sugar was brought from the Caribbean, timber from Norway

and iron ore from Sweden. The Thames was so busy that traffic on the river could

hardly move. As trade with the East Indies increased, East India Company

ships with their cargoes of spices, tea and cloth had to moor at Deptford and transported their goods on covered barges as there was no room for the large ships upriver.

Often goods were left on the wharves where they could be stolen or damaged by the weather.

CULTURE

VISUAL ART

The River Thames has been a subject for artists, great and minor, over the centuries.

Four major artists with works based on the Thames are Canaletto , J. M. W.

Turner, Claude Monet, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler.

MUSIC

The Water Music composed by George Frideric Handel premiered on 17 July 1717,

when King George I requested a concert on the River Thames.

The song 'Old Father Thames' was recorded by Peter Dawson at Abbey Road Studios in

1933 and by Gracie Fields five years later.

The Sex Pistols played a concert on the Queen Elizabeth Riverboat on 7 June 1977, the

Queen's Silver Jubilee year, while sailing down the river.

English musician Imogen Heap wrote a song from the point of view of the River

Thames entitled "You Know Where To Find Me". The song was released in 2012 on 18

October as the sixth single from her currently untitled album.[56]

Ewan MacColl's "Sweet Thames, Flow Softly", written in the early 1960s, is a tragic

love ballad set on trip up the river.

RELIGION Very few Thames-side parish churches have been the

subject of detailed archaeological investigation; the dedication, and location of the church within the landscape, are therefore important indicators of the possible origins of the building.

the churches along the tidal Thames, over half are dedicated either to St Mary the Virgin or to All Saints, (or All Hallows) which may be an indication of an early foundation date.

The location of the church within the landscape may provide clues as to the shape of river during the Anglo-Saxon period.

St Mary’s Batttersea Mention must also be made of the tributaries of the Thames.

In addition to further study of the origin and form of the churches, a study of their associated churchyards may also prove rewarding.

The importance of the church in relationship to the river is clearly shown at Chiswick, where a causeway aligned with the east end of the church runs across the foreshore.

It is intriguing to note that on theRiver Fleet are located two of the oldest churches in the Greater London area, St Pancras and St Andrew’s Holborn.

LITERARY INFORMATIONSEdmund Spenser wrote Prothalamian (1596)William Wordsworth-On Westminsters BridgeAlwyn Marriage-Charting the ThamesJulian Colton -Thames River OdysseyFred S Thacker-Mortlake Bridge (1920)Rudyard Kipling-The River’s Tale (1911)Oscar Wilde-The Burden of ItysJohn Betjeman-Henley On Thames (1948) T.S.Eliot-The Waste Land Jerome K JEROME THREE MEN IN A BOAT

WESTMINSTERSAbove all the Thames rivers

health renownWhose berl streams, pleasant and

precdareUnder Thames lusty walls runneth

down;Where many a swan doth swimme

with fairWhere many barge doth sail, and

row with owrWhere many a ship doth ret with

top-royalLondon, thou art the flower of

cities.

:William Dunbar

From Lyrics of the HeartLet poets rave of Arno’ streamAnd painters of the winding RhineI will not aska lovelier dream,A sweeter scene, fair Thames, than thine;An ‘neath a summer’s sun’s declineThou wanderest at thine own sweet willReflecting from thy face divineThe flower-wreathed brow of Richmond Hill.

LL.; Alaric Watts

FOREIGN SETTLEMENTSON THE BANKS OF RIVER

THAMESIn around 50AD The Roman created a settlement on the River Thames called Londinium. The settlement went on to become a major trade and ship building area for the Saxons, Normans and Tudors making London an important port long before it was transformed into the beautiful city it is today. The port of London was the world’s most foremost trading port and an important centre for shipbuilding during the 16th century

Human activity along points from its source to its mouth is evidenced for thousands of years in places; now it provides dwelling places, water power, food and drinkThe river’s strategic position has seen it at the centre of many events and fashions in British history, earning it a description by John Burns as “Liquid History”.

More recently, the river has become a major leisure area supporting tourism and pleasure outings as well as the sports of rowing, sailing, sniffing, kayaking, and punting.

Habitation 

.

IN VICTORIAN TIMES, The Thames became very polluted. Filthy water from factories and newly invented water, Toilet poured straight down drains into the river killing all the wildlife. Londoners still drank river water due to which thousands of people died because of cholera. Some people use a drain road or outside in their garden to dispose oil or dirty water . This generally goes straight into the river. In the 1960s,a big clean up began : sewage system and many more things was improved. Due to this Thames is now one of the most cleanest river in the world

POLLUTION

River Thames –England

Causes of pollution of river Thames• In 1878 the pleasure steamship Princess Alice sunk in a river collision. Most of the 600 or so passengers who died did not die from drowning; they died because of the pollution in the river. •

[Image: 1855 Punch cartoon of Father Thames greeting Faraday.]

•This cage is floating along the Thames River and gathering rubbish that has been thrown into the water. "I eat rubbish. •Steve Holmes, a member of Thames Anglers' Conservancy, said he tried to help dying fish by Barnes Bridge because of the pollution.

The £220,000 prize, awarded at the International River symposium in Australia, will go to the Thames Rivers Restoration Trust. Actor David Suchet, a keen boater and chairman of the River Thames

Alliance, said: 'I am fortunate in my life to have travelled extensively and enjoyed many other rivers worldwide.

Thames Water’s planning applications shows 24 building sites along the Thames, including the main construction site at Carnwath Road on the Fulham riverside.

To clean the river Thames government of England has taken many steps to stop the pollution.

Steps take n by the government to clean river Thames

Thames Valley flood of 1947This period was the worse period for the people of Thames valley because a worst kind of flood was caused in the year 1947. The precipitation of the flood was 117mm(4.9 inches) . It also was caused in many parts of England during the middle of March 1947 after a severe winter. The flood harmed the property of total cost $12 million. Some significant Thames floods since 1947 have occurred in 1968, 1993, 1998, 2000, 2003 and 2006.

                                                                                                              The Thames Barrier is the                                                       world's second-largest movable                                                       flood barrier and it is located at                                                        the downstream of central LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM. Its purpose is to prevent London from being flooded by exceptionally high tides and storm surges moving up from the sea. It is being raised only during the high tides.  Its northern bank is in Silver town, London Borough of New ham and its southern bank is in the New Charlton area of Charlton in the Royal Borough of Greenwich.