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London from the Thames

© Stuart Buchanan MacWatt

We Londoners take our great City too much for granted, distaining paths trodden by the thousands of tourists who flock to London each year. We are the poorer for our disinterest. I realised this when for the first time in my life I took a Thames riverboat downstream to the Tower of London with my Lady. This is a spectacular ride on a majestic and historic stretch of Thames waterway through the 2000 year old city of London.

We embarked at Westminster, immortalised in verse by William Wordworth in his poem Upon Westminster Bridge. The Thames here is dominated by Westminster Bridge, Big Ben, and the stunning Victorian Gothic Palace of Westminster, (the Houses of Parliament), Barry and Pugin's architectural masterpiece and legacy to London that miraculously survived Hitlers blitz of the 1940's.

It is from the river that the Palace of Westminster must be seen, as I am sure the architectural genius Sir Charles Barry Pugin intended when he designed it. In our modern London of subways and buses we forget that until late Victorian times the Thames was London's major artery. For centuries London was a riverside city, hugging the northern bank of the Thames. The view from the waterway was an important consideration for Pugin in his creation of a building fit for the 'Mother of Parliaments'.

The 20 minute jaunt downriver to the Tower, was enlivened by the boatman, who maintained a steady monologue of information on anything and everything that we passed; an informative repartee, enlivened by a colourful cockney wit worthy of a stand-up comic at a Thameside pub Saturday Night booze-up.

Like the Houses of Parliament both the 1000 year old Tower of London and the 100 year old Tower Bridge look best from the waterway. The Tower was built by William the Conqueror to dominate the river at this point and its massive structure is at its most impressive and daunting from the river.

We disembarked at the Tower, but we could have sailed further down river to Greenwich, and the Maritime Museum. Downriver Greenwich, like Hampton Court upriver is often overlooked by London visitors. Henry VII, (1485-1509), first of the Tudor monarchs, built his palace at Greenwich on the site of a manor first acquired by King Alfred the Great in 876. His son Henry VIII, (1509-1547), was born in the palace as were his daughter, Mary I, (1553-1558), and her half-sister Elizabeth I, (1558-1603), who used it as her London residence. As a young King, Henry VIII transformed the palace into a glittering social centre, building the last medieval jousting arena there and hunting with his court in the surrounding Royal Park.

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