London J: Thames Trivia
 

The River Thames has always capitvated me during my many sojourns in London - i love to sit on a bench on the South Bank and watch the river and its flotsam flow by - the tour boats, odd behemoth barge and oogle the London skyline across the way.

Some Thames Trivia

The Thames was named Tamesis by the Romans - this name may have meant either 'dark water' in Sanskrit or 'wide water' in Latin.

The Thames begins in the Cotswold Hills and, at 344 km long, is Britain's second longest river. (Believe it's called the Isis??? near Oxford??)

In very cold winters the river often froze solid so folks could walk across it - huge festivals called Frost Fairs were held on the ice. The last such affair was held in 1814 - today the river of course never freezes solid.

TBC

7.2 million people get their drinking water from the Thames - a drop of rain falling into the source of the river will have passed thru the bodies of 8 people before it reaches the sea!

IOW- the water you're drinking in London will have been drunk AND eliminated by seven people before you!

That last bit I had heard before. :-[

Fascinating info. I wonder how long it takes a drop of water to get to the ocean? In Switzerland we were told it takes a drop of water 17 years to get from one end of Lac Leman to the other; I wonder if that included the passage through humans, dogs, cats, wild animals, etc.

It's astonishing how little we know for certain about the pre-Roman history of the Thames Valley. We don't know whether the Romans invented the word Thames, for example, or adapted it from the Celtic people who'd been living in England before the Italian imperialists stole our country.

But one thing that IS certain is that there weren't any Hindu priests christening the river in their sacred language 4,000 years ago.

The word Thames may be of Latin, or or Celtic, origin: damn pre-Roman Britons didn't leave any written remains. But no reputable philologist would believe for a nanosecond that Latin or the Celtic languages are derived from Sanskrit, Hindus' sacred language
- though practically all agree that Latin, Sanskrit and the Celtic languages have a common origin.

However, there are many triumphalist - and badly educated - Indians posting theories about Sanskrit primacy on the Web. So anyone trotting out nonsense about pre-Tudor English words (like 'Thames') being of Sanskrit origin is committing the most unEnglish of mistakes: gullible acceptance of nationalist myth making.

There are words in English of Sanskrit origin. All postdate our unjustifiable intrusion into India's affairs: none predate Italy's equally reprehensible intrusion into ours.

What have the Romans done for us, eh?

But seriously, those who are interested in the river and what it's done for us would be interested in the Museum in Docklands:

www.museumindocklands.org.uk

The Thames begins in the Cotswold Hills and, at 344 km long, is Britain's second longest river.>>>>>>>
Bob; are you trying to get yourself lynched? The Thames is the second longest river in the British Isles. The longest is the Shannon, which is in Ireland. Irish people have quite fixed opinions on being referred to as British. Really quite fixed opinions indeed.

The Thames is the third-longest river in the British Isles, and the second-longest in Great Britain. The Severn is the longest in Great Britain, but is partly in Wales. The Thames is the longest river which is wholly in England.

As usual, the devil is in the details.

<The Thames begins in the Cotswold Hills and, at 344 km long, is Britain's second longest river.
Bob; are you trying to get yourself lynched? The Thames is the second longest river in the British Isles. The longest is the Shannon, which is in Ireland. Irish people have quite fixed opinions on being referred to as British. Really quite fixed opinions indeed.>


"The Thames is the second longest river in Britain" - you can lynch me but you really want to lynch the Brits who were paid to research and write this VERBARTIM as i copied it!

The above passage was written in the brochure i have entitled Below the Thames, a part of the Walk This Way A Young Person's Guide - the brochure was "researched and published by South Bank Employers Group (SBEG) on behalf of Cross River Partnership (CRP) and supported by several Thames-side Councils.

So i don't know why after presumably volumnous research Brits used that term - and why the same brochure said that the Sanskrit origin of the Thames was a possible - i guess an example of shoddy British education??

Tsk Tsk tsk... even Britains don't seem to know the meaning of the word Britain!

Who or what are "Britains" ? People from Britain are Britons.
There is a mass of incorrect information on the internet. Don't assume that anything displayed on your computer screen is reliable, accurate or up to date.

THE LOST RIVERS
Four of the largest rivers, now sewerized in culverts, that flow into the Thames are: Effra, Fleet, Neckinger and Walbrook.

Effra - flows into the Thames by the Vauxhall Bridge, coming from the South Bank and running under Brixton Road. The river was once used by the Vikings to attack London Bridge in 1016 AD.

Fleet-

So is everybody agreed that the pamphlet is correct? The Thames is the second longest river in Britain. There was no reason to even mention the Shannon.
Now I know a farmer near Seven Springs in Gloucestershire who insists it's there and not Thames Head at Kemble where the Thames has it's source, making it just slightly longer than the Severn!!

I don't really know any farmers, Gloucestershire or otherwise. Just opening up another debate on river lengths (albeit an old one amongst Cotswold folk).

THE LOST RIVERS

Fleet - This river divided Westminster from the City and folks used a bridge near Holborn to go between the 2 boroughs. In medieval days the abbatoirs and tanneries along the river caused it to often sport a red hue. The river was completely covered between 1732 and 1765 and, as the story goes, once when a pig was lost a rumor spread that a whole family of sewer-dwelling swine inhabited the underground river.

The Fleet poured its detritus today into the Thames at Blackfriars Bridge.

LOST RIVERS - WALBROOK
The Walbrook River runs under the City of London and empties into the Thames under Cannon Street Station. Navigable in Roman times, the Romans built a port at the furthest place boats could reach - remains of which were recently found under Queen Victoria Street.

I thought the Thames rose at Cirencester. But I was wrong aboput the severn so who knows?

Slightly off topic, but interesting.

I have the memoires of an ancestor living in the City at the end of the 18th century.
"Tired of the hussle and bussle of London, I moved to Westminster" He used to walk between the two, carrying his musket to bag pheasants on the way.

LOST RIVERS: NECKINGER

Sounding like something out of Germany, the Neckinger River today pours its effluent into the Thames from just downstream from Tower Bridge, on the Thames' South Bank near Rotherhithe.

'Named after the Neckinger Wharf, where Thames pirates were hanged with a rope called the Devil's Neckcloth or Devil's Neckinger. the river begins near the Imperial War Museum and was once powered Southwark's many water mills to produce everything from rope to gunpowder.'