Download - Access to the River Thames
“Rights of passage”: examining access to the River Thames
Nathalie CohenThames Discovery Programme
Paper presented at the Process and Practice Workshop 6th June 2011Society for Post Medieval Archaeology / Institute for Archaeologists
Watermans Stairs: how many?
• 1707: 120 public stairs in use • 1856: 70 public stairs in use• (
http://www.londononline.co.uk/history/c18/12/)
• 1883: 70 landing stairs – majority for Watermen
• http://www.victorianlondon.org/publications3/toilers-6.htm
• 181 features recorded as ‘access’ related by the TAS
The Steel Yard, Dowgate, Three Cranes, Queenhithe, Trig, Paul's Wharf, Common Stairs, or Puddle Dock, White Friars, Temple, Arundel, Surrey, Strand, Somerset, Savoy, Worcester, Salisbury, Ivybridge, Exchange, York, Black Lion, Whitehall, Privy Garden, Manchester, Horse Ferry, Old Church, Beaufort. Billingsgate, Custom House, Tower, Irongate, St. Catherine's, Ship, Brew House, Hermitage, Wapping Old, Wapping New, Execution Dock, King Edward's, New Crane, King James's, Shadwell, Bell Wharf, Ratcliff Cross, LimehousePepper Alley, St. Saviour's, Bank End, Horseshoe Alley, New Thames Street, Mold Strand, Falcon, Paris Garden, Marygold, Bull, Old Barge House, Morris's Causeway, Cupid's or Cuper's, King's Arms, Stangate, Lambeth Palace, Horse Ferry, Vauxhall.
Image by Carl Mydans
What can we learn?•Construction / Maintenance•Control of access routes•Low / high tide information •Associated with drainage•Property boundaries•Erosion studies
1996
Chiswick
2003
2006
2008
2009
Community involvement
Bermondsey Isleworth
Custom House
Trig Lane
Alderman Stairs
Stakeholders
Gabriel’s Wharf
1990s
2010A disappearing resource?