I am always amazed at the expertise offered on this forum! I was hoping someone could answer this rather obscure question.
What are the "rules", if any, about public access to the shore of the Thames in London. Is beachcombing allowed at low tide, are there "better" points of access that I should know about before giving this a try? I have seen some mention of this as an activity occasionally offered by the London Walks company and thought it might be a different, outside activity that we might enjoy with our teenagers who, like us, share a love of London and history.

topping...I'd love to hear an answer!

I don't *think* there are many legal rules about access - the foreshore isn't privately-owned as far as I know. You do see people wandering around, but I'm not sure you'd find much. It's stony, muddy and quite silty in places; don't expect your footwear to come back in high-street condition. You should be aware of the tide timetable - it rises and falls 20-30ft twice a day - so best to go down when the tide is maybe an hour or two before the end of the fall.

There are also strict rules if you should happen to find anything that might be 'treasure trove' - a big issue once people started going out with metal detectors: http://www.ukdetectornet.co.uk/artic...?article_id=59

A bit more googling has come up with something that looks much more closely suited to your needs:
http://www.london-footprints.co.uk/wkforeshoreintro.htm

This site also looks like a very useful set of suggestions for London walks more generally off the beaten track

You can beachcomb in the public eye at the foot of steps down from the Founders Arms at the southern end of Blackfriars Bridge. Sixty years ago this place used to yield me broken clay pipes from the eighteenth century, but so far as I can see pipes are few now.

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This question was asked sometime ago and I believe the answer was that 'mud larking' as it is called does require a licence BUT who is going to ask you for one I don?t know! I think it is only require if items are to be removed, or some commercial benefit is likely to be made, just walking on the riverbank is free for all. Check out all the oyster shells from when this was a staple London dish.

Showing my ignorance: Was the Thames "moved" at some point in the relatively recent history? If so, wouldn't that cut down on the artifacts? I was thinking the Thames covered what is now the Embankment. On a walking tour, I thought we were shown a place on the embankment where boats could moor a long time ago.

Mudlarking! I had totally forgotten that term for scrounging the river bank, I had even seen the Alec Guiness movie of that name some 30 years ago. Thank you Patrick, Jim, Ben and everyone else for your responses. Has anyone out there actually done this? I would love to hear more from your experiences if so. We hope to travel light on our trip and weren't planning on bringing wellies with us. If any of you are in London the last week of December, we will be the ones walking along the foreshore with plastic bags over our shoes. Now all I need is a website that will tell me when low tide will occur.

Before the Romans, the Thames was very wide and extended into marshland - most of what is now Lambeth/Southwark and Westminster was marsh. Over the centuries, wharves and embankments were built and land drained to build on. I think what Bitter is referring to is the great building programme of the 1860s, where the building of what is now the District/Circle line and (at last!) a main sewer system allowed the creation of the Embankment along the north bank from Westminster to the City, which left Somerset House and other grand buildings separated from the water. If you look at Somerset House you can see how it would have been possible to enter direct from the water before the Embankment, and in the Embankment Gardens you can see the original water gate to one of the houses there. The Strand has that name for a reason, too.....

Kevdoy, if I recall, the London Walks link I posted has a link to the tide tables, though I didn't check it. It's something you can work out when you get here - look at the river and work out whether it's coming in or going out (if in doubt, the boats in the middle of the river will be travelling with the flow, the boats at the side will be travelling against), and remember that there are slightly less than six hours between the highest and lowest points on each tide. Or you could try asking someone on one of the major piers.

You can get times of low and high water for the next week on www.hydro.gov.uk under "EasyTide". The times are also given in the daily papers, usually alongside the weather forecast.