Kings, Cardinals and Commoners have grown up beside the River Thames.
The Thames is the chief river of Southern England, being 215 miles long and spanned by 200 bridges – the longest being the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge at Dartford. Its name is derived from ‘Tamesis’ or ‘Tamesa’, the ancient Celtic name for the river, meaning “the dark one”.
For the past few years, The Kew Society has been delighted to offer its members an annual draw-off of the tidal Thames walk Richmond to Ham. The draw-off occurs when Richmond Lock remains open to allow river water to flow out with the tides to the mouth of the Thames – giving time for maintenance of the lock, weirs and sluices.
The draw-off has been extended this year to 23 December in order to carry out additional repairs, so the river between Richmond Lock and Teddington Lock will continue to drain down at low water on each tide.
Our morning walk started with an update about Thames Landscape Strategy (TLS) work close to the obelisks in the Old Deer Park and we then moved back to the riverside– with low fog adding an eerie silence and calm to the riverbank. Soon, much of the river bed on the foreshore at Richmond was exposed and the fog was starting to lift. Jason Debney, Co-ordinator of TLS / Rewilding Arcadia and Laura Nee, Outreach and Education Officer informed the group about innovative and exciting TLS work proposed for the future.
Oh yes, we took advantage to look for what normally lurks below the waterline, searching for treasures buried in the mud but now exposed by the movement of sediment – a pastime dubbed ‘mud larking” – which actually dates back to the 18th Century.
We learnt about the history and heritage of the river…. for our group “what comes out of the river, returns to the river” (The PLA and the Crown Estate are the largest land owners of Thames foreshore and can issue permits, administered by the PLA, to allow searching or digging)– but that’s for another day…….. our lucky finds included pottery, flint, clay tiles from Richmond Palace, a Chinese mitten crab and an elver hidden underneath rocks alongside clumps of invasive Sargasso seaweed.
The foreshore surface was slightly rocky and difficult to walk on, but there are some mountain goats amongst Kew Society members who bounded along.!
Feedback included :
‘….The draw off walk was fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable. Seeing mitten crabs, Asian clams and elvers was very exciting and the find of a stone-age flint was just amazing! The enthusiasm of the TLS team was infectious, and I would strongly encourage anyone who has not yet done this walk to go on the next one. It was also great to see climate change mitigation action being given such emphasis…..”
“…..A quiet understated walk on a serene misty autumn day ; lots of wow moments- who would have expected to see so many mussel shells ( native and foreign interlopers), sharpened flints, examples of centuries of different glass bottles but best of all tiles from Richmond Palace scattered on the riverbed and the oak remains of the jetty for that distant Elizabethan palace! Definitely a walk through living history, flora (how interesting to see evidence of the wetland plans) and fauna….”.
“…The walk was most interesting and informative – thank you….”
“…….Who knew what riches the river hides besides shopping trolleys. The draw off walk showed us mussels, good but invasive clams, bad.( from Foreign ships discharging downriver ), baby sea bass(?), dab, , eels tho reduced numbers and crabs. Tudor tiles and stone age stone axes. An eye opening walk…..”