Access to the River Thames
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16519
Port of London Authority
Book
Port of London Authority
1996
QINUK
In Stock
Port of London Authority
Book
Port of London Authority
1996
QINUK
In Stock
Review Date:
06/03/2005 Publisher:
The PLA carried out a detailed survey of steps, stairs and other landing places along the Thames. These are the places, between Teddington and Southend, from which watermen ran ferries before bridges connected the north and south banks. The survey identifies 246 such sites. In the sixteenth century a contemporary account estimated there were 40,000 Thames watermen plying for trade. Whilst probably an exaggeration, paintings and other accounts suggest that they formed a significant proportion of the working population.
CA 16519 is in two parts. We have a slim booklet of 16 pages that gives some of the fascinating history behind the development and the background to the survey. A balance between the desire to hold open existing access, re-establish deteriorating sites where ownership allows and preserve sites of historical and ecological interest is a nice one. The booklet describes the approach.
The second part is the full database of the sites giving a description of the sites with their access from the public highway with simple charts, borough by borough. Six are listed within a few hundred metres of the entrance to Limehouse Basin.
We do not know what progress has been made since this report was published – HSS
