Gone are the boom days of the early 1960s when the section of the tidal Thames upstream from Tower Bridge to Teddington lock used to be crowded with boats delivering all kinds of cargo. Vic Clarke remembers “The dry cargo tramp steamers tied up daily had to be seen to be believed, all unloaded and goods moved by barge to the dozens of warehouses along the Thames. Tea was a big import and the number of colliers with daily coal for the power stations was massive.” Added to this, Waterman and Lighterman, Eric Carpenter has kindly given me a long list of the wharves and the goods unloaded there including: “chilled produce such as cheese and butter delivered to Hibernian Wharf next to London Bridge and to the Nine Elms cold store; assorted canned goods to Millroy and Grosvenor Road Wharves, where sacks of beans were unloaded for transportation to the Heinz factory at Uxbridge; to the candle manufacturer at Price’s Wharf; cement from Cement Manufacturers at Northfleet and petrol from Thames Haven refineries to Fulham Wharves; and many, many more.” So the river was very busy then, and as Vic says, “the barges went everywhere, like ants on water working continuously as cargo ships had to be unloaded as quickly as possible.” The colliers that he worked on had a twenty-four hour turn around and there were always more waiting to discharge.
After this boom in trade, the arrival of container ships in the latter part of the 60s meant that the Pool of London, lacking the dock or riverside space to cope with larger ships and their cargo, became largely redundant. River traffic from there declined and trade moved eastward to Tilbury, which at present is undergoing expansion, and also in 2013, to the vast London Gateway deep sea container terminal, by the Thames in Essex.
A far cry from the massive sizes and quantities involved with Tilbury and London Gateway, and the earlier cargoes mentioned by Eric Carpenter and Vic Clarke, here follows a personal look at cargo boats, or cargoes of all sizes under tow, spotted on my walks along the central London tidal Thames over the last few years. Many of them have been concerned with the major construction sites along the river, including the Tideway super sewer for London; building works in and around the old Battersea power station; and more recently the extension of Craven Cottage, Fulham Football Club’s ground.
HEIKO, one of Thames Marine Services’ motorised fuel tankers pausing at their Westminster fixed refuelling barge, August 2020FAST WIL, Belgian company Fast Lines’ general cargo ship, March 2018General cargo ship POLLA ROSE, for a while a familiar sight on the central London river, July 2020
Now under new ownership POLLA ROSE was spotted by Thames Waterman and Lighterman Ben of Liquid Highway, departing the inner berth at Tilbury Grain terminal last week. He pointed out that she was carrying “Thirty-six lorry loads in one trip”, relieving London’s roads of much traffic, adding “Let’s get the river busy again and see more commercial use.”
Ed Livett kindly lent me these two pictures, among many that they have in their collection marking significant events in London. And if you look at their site here, you will discover the wide range of their towage services.
Lastly, ending where I began with Cory tugs and their tows, there is one sight, the second of the two photos below, that’s particularly poignant during this time of Covid: the tribute to the NHS pulled along the river past St. Thomas’ Hospital.
RECOVERY, one of the Cory waste-removal tugs, ever present on the river throughout the pandemicFinally, a barge towed by Cory tug RECLAIM as a ‘thank you’ to the NHS for their fight against Covid
The Port of London Authority & Thames 21 leading the fight for a cleaner and safer river
Since the much quoted judgement by the Natural History Museum in 1957 that the Thames was “biologically dead” and incapable of supporting life, a lot has happened. The first changes began soon after that as a result of much discussion and soul-searching.
In a long, wordy, and complex debate in the House of Lords on December 3rd, 1959, on ‘The Pollution of Rivers and Estuaries’ there was an interesting remark by one Viscount Simon: “The natural channels for the disposal of waste in a country like ours are undoubtedly our rivers.” Referring to earlier comments that some of the UK’s rivers were “like an open drain”, he goes on to say “In my view, that is exactly what a river ought to be; but it should be a clean and healthy drain, not a foul one.” He accepts that in a heavily built up area there might not be sufficient oxygen in a river to accomplish the breaking down of human waste and therefore the construction of sewage works would be necessary. However, he adds: “…our rivers are still capable of looking after quite a lot of organic waste, and it would be wasting the value of our rivers as a national asset […] if we did not give them something to do.” Well, that’s a view that evolved. Luckily.
Following on from this, the 1960s saw a gradual improvement and eventual repair of London’s Victorian sewerage system which had been badly damaged during the Blitz. And now, as many of you know, Tideway are constructing a 25 kilometre super sewer under the Thames to serve London and to deal with the raw sewage spills that can still make their way into the river after heavy rainfall. So the quality of Thames water, now already supporting a wide variety of wildlife, will become even cleaner. However, there are other hazards including floating debris of all kinds, and the ever growing scourge of plastic pollution.
The first of these, floating debris such as logs, tree trunks or old railway sleepers, which can cause serious damage to vessels on the tidal Thames, is covered by the Port of London Authority’s Driftwood Service. And first in their line of defence are their Passive Driftwood Collectors, known as PDCs, conceived about twenty years ago. Fixed “at carefully chosen points on the river, where the current and tidal stream will carry the most driftwood they trap the floating debris.” This is then collected for recycling and disposal by their Driftwood craft.
Port of London’s Passive Driftwood Collector at Westminster, marking their partnership with Thames 21
Their annual haul is impressive but rather concerning. “Each year we pull more than 400 tonnes of assorted floating rubbish from the river including branches and tree trunks, plastic bottles and traffic cones.” They also recover bicycles, supermarket trolleys, and cars parked too close to the river swept into the water by a rising tide.
The two Driftwood craft that I’ve seen most often are the simply named Driftwood II and Driftwood III. As well as their primary function being the “collection of driftwood and other debris, they are equipped with hydraulic cranes, burning gear, and salvage pumps”, to deal with emergency maintenance or repairs. Each has a Dory tender in tow, either Ray or Tyburn, to allow flexibility of movement for the crew.
DRIFTWOOD III heading past old St. Thomas’ Hospital, Westminster DRIFTWOOD II and RAY approaching Westminster BridgePLA tug IMPULSE pushing an empty debris collection barge upstreamA loaded PLA barge being pushed downstream Punchy PLA tug IMPULSEDRIFTWOOD II heading towards moorings at Lambeth BridgeThe crew of DRIFTWOOD II attending to M.V. SUERITA close to Lambeth Bridge
The *giant* of the fleet, London Titan, and I’ve only seen her a couple of times, is sturdy enough to undertake a whole variety of work in the outer estuary, and also “squat and shallow enough to negotiate the Thames bridges as far upriver as Richmond”, where she can be used among other tasks to “haul wreckage from the riverbed.”
LONDON TITAN at work close to Westminster Bridge in January 2018
The second concern over the state of the river is the increased amount of plastic pollution. In 1994 the Port of London Authority teamed up with Thames 21, an independent charity dedicated to the environmental improvement of rivers and canals in and around London. And one of the several tasks their partnership has set itself is the removal of litter present everywhere along the waterways. Their Report on Plastic Pollution in the Tidal Thames highlights the problem. A particular scourge of the Thames foreshore is the use of wet wipes, some of which have accumulated into large mounds that, because they’re mixed in with river mud, look natural. Paul Hyman, Founder and Director of the stand up paddle boarding group Active 360 highlighted the problem for Thames 21 during a campaign back in 2016, “There is one very persistent problem that is spoiling the enjoyment and the safety of watersports and that problem is litter.” And that hasn’t changed. In 2018 he co-founded In The Drink to raise awareness among riverside pubs and bars, by promoting the use of re-usable alternatives to replace single use plastic.
During the Covid pandemic, there’s actually been an increase in the amount of plastic drink bottles, mugs, and containers dropped along the banks or into the river. This alarming issue is underlined in the latest River Thames Survey by Thames 21, published on December 21st, 2020, which also notes a new specifically Covid related phenomenon that “plastic gloves & masks were found on seventy percent of the stretches of the river monitored…”
Several hundred clean-ups are organised every year, and volunteers give their time to gather the rubbish and place it into steel cages provided by the PLA, which then sees to their disposal. They recover “an estimated 800 cubic metres of litter and rubbish from the foreshore” every year. Among the unusual items recovered on their events are handguns, motorbikes and fridges.
As you walk along a stretch of the river that you know well, particularly at low tide, you’ll appreciate how much litter accumulates in certain places and how there’s more of it than before. A certain amount of it is collected by organised litter picks but as A J McConville, coordinator of Thames 21’s plastic monitoring programme, rightly says: “The health of the Thames should not depend on volunteer clean-ups. We need to turn off the plastic tap at source.” In fact, we need better education. Much better education…
Latest News from Thames 21 Obituary of Celia Hensman MBE 1936 -2021, founder of Thames 21, published on January 6, 2021
