Thames Embankment

“ One could walk from Pimlico along this Thames Embankment for some miles towards the east. One passed little black jetties with dangling oil lamps; there was a traffic of barges and steamers on the river altogether mysterious and romantic to me; the frontages of the houses varied incessantly, and ever and again were cleft by crowded roadways that brought a shining and twinkling traffic up to the bridges. Across the river was a coming and going of trains along a railway viaduct ”

“ Just as Big Ben strikes two, the moon, flashing across the Thames and lighting up the stone work of the Embankment, brings into relief a pitiable spectacle. Here on the stone abutments, which afford a slight protection from the biting wind, are scores of men lying side by side, huddled together for warmth, and, of course, without any other covering than their ordinary clothing, which is scanty enough at the best. ”

“ The Victoria Embankment, which sweeps round from Blackfriars to Westminster, is a mile and a quarter long. Its river face consists of a great granite wall, 8 feet in thickness, with tunnels inside it for the carrying of sewers, water-mains, gas-pipes, etc., all of which can be reached without interfering with that splendid wide road beneath which the Underground Railway runs. There is a continuation of the Embankment on the south side from Westminster to Vauxhall, known as the Albert Embankment, while on the north it runs, with some interruptions, as far as Chelsea. ”

“ Viewed in connection with the benefits to public health and convenience, by the improvement of the course of the Thames, and the removal of the mud banks formerly disfiguring the shores, the Embankment may be truly said to be the greatest public work undertaken in London in modern times. ”

“ The most popular and agreeable mode of communication between London and the Court was by the Thames, and a stately barge with liveried rowers was as much a part of a nobleman’s equipment as his carriage or his “chair.” Very pretty must have been the appearance of the Thames at that time, although there was no Thames Embankment to view it from.
The streets at night were manifestly unsafe, being infested by a description of drunken young blackguards known as “Mohocks,” who apparently “squared” the equally drunken watchmen, and insulted women with impunity. ”

“ It was formed in 1864-1870, and is named the Victoria Embankment, though its popular title is “The Embankment” simply. Open gardens fringe it in part on the landward side, and it is lined with fine public and private buildings. The bold sweep of the Thames, here some 300 yds. wide, the towers of Westminster on the one hand and the dome of St Paul’s on the other, make up a fine prospect. Below London Bridge the river is embanked for a short distance in front of the Tower of London, and above Westminster Bridge the Albert Embankment extends for nearly 1 m. ”

“ As a member of the metropolitan board of works he was largely concerned in the construction of the Thames Embankment. He was a director of the London and Westminster Bank, and a member of the select committee appointed to report on the bank charter in 1856. ”

“ There is movement and colour everywhere, the trains rush along the embankment just below us, and amid all, scorning change, fronting, incurious of night-time or day, the centuries’ enormous weariness, stands the structure that was built in the dark ages. Dark ages! Can we equal this nobility of outline, this triumphant strength, nowadays? When all the rickety streets of modern London shall have sunk in decay, when perchance the great city is but a fading memory, the rugged Castle of Hadleigh will remain in disdainful steadfastness—a monument of human pride and skill, and alas! ”

“ Looking downstream from the bridge, we see on our left hand the Embankment, one of the biggest pieces of work that even London has ever done. Every day the river rises and falls with the tide, and sometimes when there has been much rain a great flood comes down from the country and makes it rise much higher still. Now, sometimes when the river rose very high it ran into houses and did a great deal of damage, so a great wall was built to keep Father Thames in his right place. ”

“ We must all rejoice that while the Embankment and the noble roadway, which I am happy this day to open in the name of Her Majesty, add largely to the beauty and convenience of the Metropolis, the works connected with them may be expected materially to diminish the sources of disease and suffering to the inhabitants of this bank of the Thames. In no public work of this vast capital has the liberal [Pg 106] and enterprising spirit of its citizens and the genius and resources of our civil engineers been more signally displayed. ”

“ As we stand once more on Westminster Bridge and see the two great places, one on each side, where our lawmakers sit—those of the Nation and those of the great City—our glance falls on the dirty water of old Father Thames slipping by; and we think to ourselves that great statesmen may spring to fame and then die and leave England the poorer, governments good and bad may rise and fall, changes of all sorts may happen within these two stately buildings, the very stones may crumble to dust, but still the River flows on—silent, irresistible. ”

“ One hears the grating of cranes and the shouts of men; the peculiar “dumb-barges” of the Thames cluster round the hulls of screw-colliers from Newcastle, and receive from them their separate loads of coal; and excitable little steamers are running in and out as if they had lost their way among the crowded shipping. In mid-stream the traffic is almost as busy and confusing as that of a London street. Vessels are coming up with the tide; barges are slowly floating onward, their brown sails spread, tacking to the wind, their decks washed now and again by some arrowy wave from a paddle-steamer. ”

“ The same spirit would tend to make of the Thames Valley in the Dark and Middle Ages a very different landscape from that which we see to-day. The floods were indeed more common and the passage of the river somewhat more difficult; cultivation did not everywhere approach the banks as it does now; and in two or three spots where there has been a great development of modern building, notably at Reading, and, of course, in London, the banks have been artificially strengthened. ”

“ It is clearly evident, from such a very imperfect and rapidly drawn list, what was the economic power of the great houses, and one may conclude, even from the basis of such imperfect evidence, that the directing force of economic effort throughout the Thames Valley was to be found, right up to the Dissolution, in the chapter houses of Reading, of Chertsey, and of Westminster, of Abingdon and of the lesser houses. ”

“ The Berkshire shore is lined with pleasant houses for half a mile or so below Abingdon Bridge. The towing-path is here upon the Oxford bank, and skirts rich meadows picturesquely studded with large shade-trees. Away to the left lie heavy masses of woodland, such as engirdle the whole of the Thames Valley; on the facing bank are the straggling environs of Abingdon, having, when seen from this point, somewhat of the foreign aspect so often worn by these little waterside towns. ”

“ The City is filled with despair.” As we can well imagine, the King and his courtiers fled from Whitehall and the Tower away into the country; the Law Courts were shifted up river to Oxford. Naturally all business stopped, and trade was at a standstill. Ships in hundreds lay idle in the Pool, waiting for the cargoes which came not, because the wharves and warehouses were deserted; laden ships that sailed up the Thames [185] speedily turned about and made for the Continental ports. ”

“ The spring was at its loveliest. The bright fresh green of the trees was delightful. I shall never forget the pleasure with which I beheld, for the first time, the beautiful banks of the Thames. There was at that time a noble avenue of elm trees extending along the southern bank of the river, from Westminster Bridge to Lambeth Palace; while, on the northern side, many equally fine trees added picturesque grace to the then Houses of Parliament, while behind them were seen the great roof of Westminster Hall and the noble towers of Westminster Abbey. ”

“ Katharine’s Docks, which lie just below the Tower, hemmed in by what was once fashionable London, now fashionable no more, but famous the world over as the accustomed haunt of the seaman on shore. Before docks were constructed along Thames-side, vessels were unloaded into barges and wherries, and river-robbery was a thriving trade. Numbers of men lived, and grew rich, on what they had contrived to steal from cargoes that were waiting to be discharged at the wharves about London Bridge. ”

“ The estuary has, of course, always formed a division, and in the barbarian period it separated the higher civilisation of Kent from that of the East Saxons, who were possibly of a different race, and certainly of a different culture. But the Thames above London Bridge was not a true boundary until the civilisation of England began to form, towards the close of the Dark Ages. It is perpetually crossed and recrossed by contending armies, and the first result of a success is to cause the conqueror to annex a belt from the farther bank to his own territories. ”

“ The deeper pool across the river, near the flour-mill at Marsh Lock, used to be a favourite resort of those anglers who pursued their sport from a boat; and the bank from the paper-mill towards Henley witnesses many an exercise of patience from the youthful Waltonian. The utilitarian spirit which has rendered necessary the hideous iron weir above the mill, and which is step by step destroying so many of the gems of Thames scenery, has, however, built a black barricade from the miller’s boat-house to the head of the eyot, completely cutting off the communication by water with the further bank. ”

“ The buildings grow thicker and more unsightly as you advance; the black sides of the enormous warehouses seem to be bulging out over the edge of the wharves on which they stand; far off, beyond the reach of the tides, you see the forests of masts that indicate the site of the docks. The bright green water of the Channel has been exchanged for the filthy, drain-like current of the Thames. Hundreds of monstrous chimneys belch forth the smoke that constitutes the legitimate atmosphere of London. ”

“ The opening up of the waterways and the great improvement of the highroads, and the building of bridges, and the expansion of wealth at the end of the eighteenth century had indeed some considerable effect in increasing the population of England as a whole, but the smaller country towns, in the south at least, and in the Thames Valley, seem to have benefited fairly equally from the general change. The new canals, entering at Oxford and at Reading, gave a certain lead to both those centres, and even the Severn Canal, entering at Lechlade, did a little for that up-river town. ”

“ The last census (that of 1901) is still more significant: Abingdon positively declines, and the last ratio is twelve.
It is through the Railway, and even then long after its first effect might have been expected, that the Valley of the Thames, later than any other wealthy district in England, loses, as all at last are doomed to lose, its historic tradition, and suffers the social revolution which has made modern England the unique and perilous thing it is among the nations of the world.
INDEX Abbots. See under separate monasteries. ”

“ Such an institution as Reading, for example, or as Abingdon, went on perpetually receiving its immense revenues for generation after generation, and were under no temptation or rather had no capacity for spending it elsewhere than in the situation where their actual buildings were to be found.
In this way the great monastic houses founded a tradition of local wealth which has profoundly affected the history of the Thames Valley. ”

“ At Clifton Hampden, in the season, there is usually a house-boat or two moored among the masses of water-lilies which profusely strew the stream near the bridge, and a more charming spot, away from such “fashionable” places as Goring, Henley, or Maidenhead, could hardly be selected as the anchorage of these leviathans of the upper Thames. The neighbourhood abounds in rural walks, and in subjects both for the pencil of the artist and the pen of the man of letters. ”

“ A matchless stream for its congregated wealth. Miles of warehouses, miles of stone docks, miles of shipping, and thousands of seamen. And yet a dirty and turbid and ungrateful river at times, when it overflows the fish-stalls, when it overflows the high street in Wapping and drowns myriads of rats in Upper and Lower Thames street.
VAGRANCY AND PAUPERISM.
We went down the "London Stairs." Every bridge that spans the Thames has four stairs or flights of stone-steps running down to the water's edge. ”

“ When we returned to Kingston there was a lonely but lovely walk along Thames side, seeking a bridge to give us a turning on the left, with sun and wind and rain, and ducks falling through the air with a ssh, and cunning swans sailing forward expecting food, and crying gulls. It was the towing path toward Teddington Lock. The riverside houses came down to the water with lawns and landing stages, terraces, gardens, formal beauties. The Thames is a fair stream; we have made it fair. Once it was otherwise, and England also—unnamed, unloved, wild, woody, marshy. Man has made it dear unto himself. ”