In 1357, Edward III described the state of the river in a proclamation: "... dung and other filth had accumulated in divers places upon the banks of the river with ... fumes and other abominable stenches arising therefrom. [27] Until around 500,000 years ago, the Thames flowed on its existing course through what is now Oxfordshire, before turning to the north-east through Hertfordshire and East Anglia and reaching the North Sea near present-day Ipswich.[28]. Whitewater playboaters and slalom paddlers are catered for at weirs like those at Hurley Lock, Sunbury Lock and Boulter's Lock. In 1909 the powers of the Thames Conservancy over the tidal river, below Teddington, were transferred to the Port of London Authority. The growth of road transport, and the decline of the Empire in the years following 1914, reduced the economic prominence of the river. [3] The origin is shared by many other river names in Britain, such as the River Tamar at the border of Devon and Cornwall, several rivers named Tame in the Midlands and North Yorkshire, the Tavy on Dartmoor, the Team of the North East, the Teifi and Teme of Wales, the Teviot in the Scottish Borders and a Thames tributary the Thame. The Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle often visit riverside parts as in The Sign of Four. Both the tidal river through London and the non-tidal river upstream are intensively used for leisure navigation. Sixty sediment cores of 1 m in depth, spanning the entire tidal River Thames, between Brentford and the Isle of Grain have been analysed for total Hg. From Teddington Lock to the head of navigation, the navigation authority is the Environment Agency. Various species of birds feed off the river or nest on it, some being found both at sea and inland. Chiswick Eyot is a landmark on the Boat Race course, while Glover's Island forms the centre of a view from Richmond Hill. The Victorian era was one of imaginative engineering. The River Thames , known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. Gas manufactories were built alongside the river, and their by-products leaked into the water, including spent lime, ammonia, cyanide, and carbolic acid. The world's first underwater tunnel was Marc Brunel's Thames Tunnel built in 1843 and now used to carry the East London Line. The earliest known major crossings of the Thames by the Romans were at London Bridge and Staines Bridge. The northern tip of the ancient parish of Lambeth, for example, was marshland known as Lambeth Marshe, but it was drained in the 18th century; the street name Lower Marsh preserves a memory. View or download a our route map, which shows all of our departure locations, nearby train stations, bridges and also points of interest along the way. Lying below sea level, it is prone to flooding at exceptional tides, but has nevertheless been inhabited since Roman times. The 214 bridges and 17 tunnels that have been built to date have changed the dynamics and made cross-river development and shared responsibilities more practicable. The figures in this boat were those of a strong man with ragged grizzled hair and a sun-browned face, and a girl of nineteen or twenty. Please reorganize this content to explain the subject's impact on popular culture, CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (, Peter Ackroyd, Thames: The Biography, New York: Doubleday, 2007. Although London's upstream enclosed docks have closed and central London sees only the occasional visiting cruise ship or warship, the tidal river remains one of Britain's main ports. Aquatic mammals are also known to inhabit the Thames. First bridge built – first century. Kenneth H. Jackson has proposed that the name of the Thames is not Indo-European (and of unknown meaning),[4] while Peter Kitson suggested that it is Indo-European but originated before the Celts and has a name indicating "muddiness" from a root *tā-, 'melt'.[5]. The Environment Agency has patrol boats (named after tributaries of the Thames) and can enforce the limit strictly since river traffic usually has to pass through a lock at some stage. Among a host of other things, this granted the barons the right of Navigation under Clause 23. [23], Below Teddington Lock (about 55 miles or 89 kilometres upstream of the Thames Estuary), the river is subject to tidal activity from the North Sea. Efforts were made to resolve the navigation conflicts upstream by building locks along the Thames. Here it entered a substantial freshwater lake in the southern North Sea basin, south of what is called Doggerland. The Thames is popular for a wide variety of riverside housing, including high-rise flats in central London and chalets on the banks and islands upstream. [73] Mercury concentrations in the River Thames decrease downstream from London to the outer Estuary with the total Hg levels ranging from 0.01 to 12.07 mg/kg, giving a mean of 2.10 mg/kg which is higher than many other UK and European river estuaries.[74][73]. These deposits were brought in by the winds during the periglacial periods, suggesting that wide, flat marshes were then part of the landscape, which the new river Brent proceeded to cut down. The dumping of raw sewage into the Thames was formerly only common in the City of London, making its tideway a harbour for many harmful bacteria.