Postscript - Back at The River
Since the walk, I've wondered often about the Thames; the fields, tow paths, tracks, streets and roads that led me between Trewsbury Mead and the beach at Margate; a walk I began in May 2007 and completed in stages, arriving at Margate in September 2007.
Back at the riverside shortly after the walk, I found an
aggreeable and familiar antidote - breathing space from
the angst-ridden and congested environs of my everyday
world. From Rotherhithe Station, first left and a short walk
ahead lies the Thames. A silk worm inspired the tunelling
process that created the Thames Tunnel, unseen below;
a tunnel beneath a river was a world first, engineered by
the Brunels (Marc Brunel and son Isambard Kingdom
Brunel), and like a premonition of another outstanding
achievement, the Channel Tunnel some 150 years ahead
in the future. The Thames tunnel forms part of the East
London Line on the London Underground (the orange one!).
A floor map at the Brunel Museum (www.brunel-museum.org.uk) - a short walk from Rotherhithe Station. The East London Line is closed for modernisation and reopens in 2010.
The river here is strung with wharves where boats
swish their wash across its width. Walking westwards
takes you to St. Saviour's Dock where the wall-mounted
cranes lend a characterful ornamental touch to the now
exclusive dwellings at the old River Neckinger. In another
life, Shad Thames was a storage point for tea, coffee and
spices. Here, within a short walk of Tower Bridge, is an
upmarket patch of eye-catching eateries and enough charm
to gainfully employ the tourist cameras.
The Old River Neckinger, St. Saviour's Dock.
At Tower Bridge the tall-masted vessels of the past, straining with their cargoe from across the world, met the limits of any further progress they could make upriver. The river here (the 'London Pool'), offers the imagination an awe-inspiring vision of trade, progress and Empires; ships that are themselves awed by the vastness of oceans and seas beyond these reaches of the River Thames.
