Britain gallery: St Pauls and the Thames

Where my wife and I lived in London was about 10 miles from the river, but now, after 10

years of living in Suffolk, it's one of my few regrets about leaving London that we didn't

get to know the river better. It has a fantastic history, from earliest times (without the

river there would probably be no London, as the Roman trading capital was established

there where the first bridge across it was built) through 2000 years of the city's riverside

deveolpment, to today, when - and this is very recent - it is again an important transport

route. But strictly speaking, it's not a river at this point, as it's tidal all the way inland as

far as Twickenham, so theoretically it's a tidal estuary. From the Roman settlement, the

city grew rapidly on the northern bank, while the south bank was given over to pleasure

gardens, theatres and dens of iniquity, and wasn't materially developed much until the

rapid spread of 'commuter' housing in the 19th century.

Christopher Wren's St Paul's Cathedral, replacing the earlier one destroyed in the Great

Fire of 1666, is still one of the iconic 'registers' of London, and the great survivor of the

destruction of the city in the Blitz of WW2.

Where my wife and I lived in London was about 10 miles from the river, but now, after 10 years

of living in Suffolk, it's one of my few regrets about leaving London that we didn't get to know

the river better. It has a fantastic history, from earliest times (without the river there would

probably be no London, as the Roman trading capital was established there where the first

bridge across it was built) through 2000 years of the city's riverside deveolpment, to today,

when - and this is very recent - it is again an important transport route. But strictly speaking, it's

not a river at this point, as it's tidal all the way inland as far as Twickenham, so theoretically it's

a tidal estuary. From the Roman settlement, the city grew rapidly on the northern bank, while

the south bank was given over to pleasure gardens, theatres and dens of iniquity, and wasn't

materially developed much until the rapid spread of 'commuter' housing in the 19th century.

Christopher Wren's St Paul's Cathedral, replacing the earlier one destroyed in the Great Fire of

1666, is still one of the iconic 'registers' of London, and the great survivor of the destruction of

the city in the Blitz of WW2.

Evening on the Thames