From Gravesend to the Nore

The final stage of our journey downriver with artist T.R. Way

This first picture on our continuing journey downstream is of Gravesend seen from Rosherville Pier. Thames Waterman and Lighterman, Eric Carpenter, who has kindly been sharing his extensive knowledge of the river as we travel along Thames Past, explains that this is a view towards the Royal Terrace Pier, though this is not shown in the image. He adds: “Terrace Pier is the heart of riverside Gravesend, it serves as the hub for ships’ Pilots, Watermen and tug crews.”
It is now also the headquarters of the Port of London Authority’s Pilotage Service. A passage on their website explains what they do: “Fourteen specialist River Pilots work in the stretch of the Thames between Gravesend and London Bridge. Four of these are Bridge Pilots working upstream from London Bridge to Putney Bridge, where expertise on the shallower water and low air draughts is vital, particularly for awkward one-off project type cargoes.”

From Rosherville Gardens

Rosherville Gardens was a very popular pleasure garden in Victorian times. In her book The Place to Spend a Happy Day: A history of Rosherville Gardens, Lynda Smith describes the many boats crowded with day-trippers from London landing at the nearby Rosherville Pier. From there they could walk to enjoy a whole host of attractions including a maze, an archery ground and a bear pit set in lovely gardens. Later, restaurants, theatres and an open air stage were added together with a whole variety of popular entertainment such as “fireworks, tightrope walkers, balloon ascents and a gypsy fortuneteller.” It was sailing from there on September 3, 1878 that passenger steamer SS Princess Alice, was involved in a fatal collision with the collier Bywell Castle, in one of the worst British inland waterway accidents ever recorded, with the loss of 640 lives, 240 of them children. From then on, marked by the tragedy, and a public drawn to the new fashion for train trips to seaside resorts, the central London attractions of Hyde Park, and the new museums in Kensington, the gardens fell slowly into decline. In 1899 T.R. Way, heard that Rosherville Gardens were to be sold, and having seen a poster advertising a fête in this once famous setting, he was curious to see them. He boarded The Mermaid at Charing Cross Pier with his family and writes “that it was this trip which at last determined me to go on with a scheme which some years before had been started when making a series of Thames lithographs.” And so began his work with W.G Bell for their book The Thames from Chelsea to the Nore published in 1907.

Tilbury Fort

Tilbury evoked many memories for Eric Carpenter when I showed him the picture of Tilbury Fort, albeit more than half a century later. In 1971 he was transferred from his work in London to Tilbury Docks, where his “main function was the overseeing of cargo discharging from various ships into the barges of the Thames & General Literage Co. The cargo would range from copper bars, sacks of coffee, logs, timber and chests of tea to name but a few…” This was a time before containerisation, when men generally worked closely with identifiable cargoes…

In the Estuary, near Leigh

W.G. Bell, author of the text of The Thames from Chelsea to the Nore, has a particular feeling for the spirit of Thames Estuary and its sheer sense of space in contrast to the river’s managed confinement inland, which I’ve heard echoed in other works on the subject. He writes: “The ships passing out to sea or coming up against the tide no longer cluster together but seem to shun each other. They keep a distance apart….The vessel upon which one is travelling becomes a little self-centred world of its own, a point of outlook into the larger universe around.” And observing the mercantile fleets of England he remarks that the open seas “have no such sight as this…The big ocean liner is here a living thing, imposing, magnificent…”, moving with speed but in “the narrower waters upstream it will slow down, become subdued, lose its freedom in the press of shipping through which it must thread a way.” He describes the many hurrying steamers, at variance with “sailing-ships seemingly immovable, contented to pass the day so far as the tide and lightest of breezes will take them.”

The Nore Light

Bell ends his description of shipping in the Estuary by writing of the Nore Lightship which marked the treacherous Nore sandbank, the limit of his journey along the Thames with Way: “Least of all in appearance”, compared to all the shipping in the Estuary “but first in importance, for its masthead beacon lights the way for every vessel that sails in and out of the Thames”.

These days the complex navigational safety in operation along the river is managed by the Port of London Authority, here outlined as a basis for yachting or leisure traffic in an interesting short film: Safely navigating in the lower tidal Thames. And in the difficult days of Covid-19 and the lockdown, the Port of London is there for London and the South East, remaining operational, “with over 1,300 commercial shipping movements, keeping essential supplies on the move.” Thank you to them and to all those performing vital services along the river…

From Limehouse Reach to Woolwich

Continuing our 1907 journey downstream with T. R. Way

With no end in sight to the tragedy of the Covid-19 virus and its terrible toll, it has been a pleasurable distraction to continue our journey towards the sea in the slipstream of artist T. R. Way and in the company of Waterman and Lighterman, Eric Carpenter.

After studying the sketch above, Eric believes the view to be from “Pageant Stairs”, Rotherhithe, “stairs that Watermen would use to ply their trade”. With his long time familiarity with the Thames and his deep-rooted knowledge of its powers and peculiarities, he can tell that here “the tide is ebbing as the vessels are making their way downstream and the boatmen are approaching the barges head upon tide”.

East and West India Docks: Sailing Ships

Sailing ships traditionally present in the Port of London were gradually overtaken by steamships as vessels of choice and, according to a History of the Port of London pre 1908, by 1875 “steam represented 5.1 million tons and sail only 3.6 million tons.”

Greenwich Hospital

Eric suggests that the artist was “positioned in the Island Gardens on the Isle of Dogs, Millwall.” He notices that “the vessels are proceeding downstream so that one can assume that the tide is ebbing.” Then he adds a detail that only a Waterman with intricate knowledge of the river can know: “The artist is once again applying his artistic licence: he has drawn the barges too close to the north shore.” He explains: “The tide sets at Greenwich towards the bend of the river on the south shore, so the tide, wanting to go in a straight line, strikes the outer curve. The barges would therefore be midstream to use the flowing tide more.”

Eric has lived and experienced this, and says that “with regard to a ‘drive’, a journey under oars, the object is to get from A to B with minimal effort.” This is quite unlike the strains of rowing a barge in a race. “The aim here (as in the picture) would be to use the tidal flow to the maximum advantage, positioning the barge as much as possible in the fastest flow so making the trip manageable using only one oar.”

Royal Albert Dock

You’ll notice that some of the ships in the Royal Albert Dock seem to be a form of hybrid vessel and at the time that T.R. Way and W.G. Bell collaborated on their book, the docks along the river were used by all kinds of shipping. Bell describes a typical scene:
“In the breadth of the river, and above all in its moving shipping, lies the secret beauty of the mercantile Thames. Ships are here in endless variety, never still, forming one picture after another as they pass in mid-stream. Behind the steamships which come and go, are the barges floating by with big brown sails spread to the wind, and lighters which heave and toss in the wash…”
Some of the steamships of the time also relied on sails as a backup. Gregory Atkinson writes in Cogent Engineering (Vol 5, 2018) that “Most early steamships had masts and sails in case of engine failure, or to use them as a source of propulsion when the wind conditions were favourable.”

Woolwich

Watching the Thames from the riverside in Victoria Tower Gardens on my daily allowed *lockdown* walk, the contrast with the busy, industrious river depicted by Way and Bell couldn’t be greater. The tides still ebb and flow but in silence now, an infinite variety of mesmerising patterns ruffling the surface. Occasionally, the passing of one of the river sentinels: a Police launch, Fireboat, Port of London vessel, or RNLI launch, will coincide with my visit. And if the tides are right, I’ll see one of the Cory tugs performing the vital task of London’s waste removal from one of their depots further upstream. Then perhaps a few splashes of wash and back to calm. Back to hearing the distant sounds of a train from the tracks behind buildings over to the east; geese honking overhead; ducks squabbling on the foreshore; wind rustling the unfurling plane tree leaves above; children shouting with delight, running freely on the grass; and the heart tugging song of a blackbird.
Let’s hope that life will return to normal soon, and that all those whose lives are intimately bound up with the river will be able to return and to continue the successful renaissance of the Thames as both a commercial highway and a resource of leisure and spiritual renewal.

************************************
Grateful thanks to Eric Carpenter for sharing his knowledge and experience of the River Thames.