Contents Title Page Dedication List of Illustrations List of Maps I. The Mirror of History 1. The River as Fact 2. The River as Metaphor 3. The Time of the River II. Father Thames 4. Baptism 5. The River of Stone 6. Birth III. Issuing Forth 7. The Tributes IV. Beginnings 8. In the Beginning 9. The Sacred Lines 10. The Battle of the Thames Photo Insert One V. The Sacred River 11. Holy River 12. Saints of the River 13. Hail Holy River, Mother of Grace 14. The Ruins 15. Liquid History VI. Elemental and Equal 16. The Waters of Life 17. The Leveller VII. The Working River 18. River Boat 19. The Bridges of Contentment and the Tunnels of Darkness 20. River Law 21. The Criminal Element 22. The Workers of the River Photo Insert Two 23. The Natives VIII. The River of Trade 24. The Trade of the World 25. The River of Immensity 26. Steam and Speed IX. The Natural River 27. “Hey Ho, the Wind and the Rain” 28. The Ancient Trees Photo Insert Three 29. “And After Many a Summer Dies the Swan” X. A Stream of Pleasure 30. Drink Your Fill 31. Going Up the River 32. Gardens of Delight 33. Filthy River 34. “All Alive! Alive! Alive, O!” XI. The Healing Spring 35. The Healing Water 36. The Light of the Thames XII. The River of Art 37. Thames Art 38. The Words of the River Photo Insert Four 39. The Song of the River XIII. Shadows and Depths 40. River Dreams 41. Legends of the River XIV. The River of Death 42. The Offerings 43. Head of the River 44. The River of Death XV. The River’s End 45. Downriver An Alternative Topography, from Source to Sea Bibliography Author’s Acknowledgements Illustration Credits A Note About the Author Also by Peter Ackroyd Copyright For Penelope Hoare List of Illustrations SECTION ONE The source of the Thames at Trewsbury Mead. Objects found in the Thames: the tooth of a mammoth; dagger and scabbard, 550–450 BC bronze bust of the Emperor Hadrian, c.AD 122. Medieval pilgrim badges thrown in the Thames. Ducking a Scold, 1812, etching by Thomas Rowlandson (1756–1827). Angler on the riverbank, woodcut of 1663. The Oarsman’s and Angler’s Map, 1893. Radcot Bridge, the oldest bridge across the Thames, photographed in the 1900s. Nets for catching eels near London, photographed in the 1890s. An old fisherman and weir-keeper called Harper, Oxfordshire. Photographed by Henry Taunt, 1900. Mapledurham mill, photographed in the 1900s. A traveller waiting to be ferried across the Thames, woodcut of 1684. A ferryman taking two men and a boy across the Thames at Cliveden. Photographed by Henry Taunt, 1885. SECTION TWO Fifteenth-century map of Chertsey Abbey, Surrey, and its surrounding land and farms. Dorchester Abbey, Near Wallingford, Autumn Evening, watercolour by Newton Bennett (1854–1914). The Tower of London (vellum), French school, fifteenth century. Lambeth Palace. Coloured engraving by Johannes Kip (c.1652–1722) after Leonard Knyff (1650–1721). Windsor Castle, from the river meadow on the Thames, c.1827–30. Colour litho, from The Views of Windsor, Eton and Virginia Water by William Daniell (1769– 1837). Westminster with ceremonial barge of the Ironmongers’ Company, c.1745. Oil painting by Samuel Scott (c.1702–72). Old London Bridge, c.1630. Oil painting by Claude de Jongh (c.1610–63). New London Bridge, 1 August 1831, the day it was first opened. Pen, ink and watercolour on paper, English school, nineteenth century. The Greenwich Railway Viaduct at Deptford, 1836. Colour litho, nineteenth century. By G. F. Bragg. The millennium footbridge of the year 2000. St. Paul’s, London. Photographed by Marc Atkins. Doggett’s Coat and Badge Rowing Race, c.1820. One of the plates from Fashion and Folly. Henley Regatta, photographed in the 1900s. Pleasure boats on the Thames below Whitchurch Lock, Pangbourne. From a postcard of 1907.