50 Fun Facts About River Thames

How long is the River Thames?

That makes it the longest river entirely in England, though the Severn, which starts in Wales, is longer overall.

What is the Thames called as it passes through the city with the university boat clubs and Folly Bridge?

Victorian mapmakers insisted the whole river was the Isis down to Dorchester, where it meets the Thame; Ordnance Survey maps still label it 'River Thames or Isis' there.

The usually quoted source of the Thames, Thames Head, is in which county?

It lies near Kemble in the Cotswolds and is a winterbourne, flowing only seasonally.

The rival source at Seven Springs would add 14 miles to the Thames and make it longer than which river?

Measured from Seven Springs the Churn/Thames runs 229 miles against the Severn's 220.

Into which sea does the Thames flow?

It reaches the sea through the Thames Estuary near Southend-on-Sea, Tilbury and Gravesend.

The tidal stretch of the Thames is known by what name?

The tide runs up as far as Teddington Lock, with a rise and fall of about 7 metres.

Which lock marks the normal tidal limit of the Thames?

Before the lock was built in 1810-12, spring tides reached as far up as Staines.

How many navigation locks are there on the non-tidal Thames?

Each comes with a weir; the Environment Agency staffs them for most of the day and enforces an 8 km/h speed limit.

The Thames contains roughly how many islands?

They range from the marshy Isle of Sheppey and Canvey Island to tiny eyots; Parliament stands on the former Thorney Island.

What share of London's drinking water comes from the Thames itself?

The basin is among the driest parts of the UK, so the river's flow is low for its size and heavily abstracted.

The Brittonic root 'Tam' in the river's name is thought to have meant what?

The same root shows up in the Tamar, Tame, Tavy, Teme and Teviot.

Which politician coined the phrase 'The Thames is liquid history' in 1929?

The one-time MP for Battersea was answering an American who had compared it unfavourably with the Mississippi.

About 450,000 years ago, which ice age diverted the Thames onto its present course through London?

Before that the river ran north-east through Hertfordshire and East Anglia to reach the sea near Ipswich.

What is the sandbank at the mouth of the Thames Estuary that got the world's first lightship in 1732?

It marked the seaward limit of the Port of London until 1964 and is now marked by Sea Reach No. 1 Buoy.

The annual tradition of counting the Thames's swans is called what?

Mute swans are the familiar residents; escaped black swans are rarer.

Roughly how many grey and harbour seals live in the Thames Estuary?

Seals have been spotted as far upriver as Richmond, and dolphins and porpoises also visit.

In January 2006 a northern bottle-nosed whale swam up the Thames as far as which district?

It died on a barge during a rescue attempt; a beluga nicknamed Benny visited Gravesend in 2018.

Which Roman leader's account of his 54 BC expedition contains some of the earliest references to the Thames?

The river was a major obstacle, defended by the Belgic Catuvellauni and Atrebates.

Londinium grew up on the north bank around which stream in about AD 47?

Cornhill and Ludgate Hill offered a defensible site where the river was deep enough for ships yet narrow enough to bridge.

King John was forced to grant Magna Carta in 1215 beside the Thames at which meadow?

Clause 23 of the charter granted the barons the right of navigation on the river.

Which king described the Thames in 1357 as full of 'dung and other filth' and 'abominable stenches'?

The river had been used as London's open sewer since at least the 1300s; a public lavatory on London Bridge emptied straight into it.

The first Frost Fair, with a tent city and ice bowling on the frozen Thames, was held in which year?

The old multi-piered London Bridge slowed the flow and made freezing more likely; the last fair, in 1814, saw an elephant led across the ice.

What was led across the frozen Thames below Blackfriars during the last frost fair of 1814?

The fair lasted four days between Blackfriars and London Bridge; the new bridge of 1825 let the river flow freely and it never froze over again.

Doggett's Coat and Badge, one of the oldest sporting events in the world, is a rowing race for whom?

Thomas Doggett founded it in 1715 out of gratitude to a waterman who rowed him home against the tide.

Stone from which hills was floated down the Thames from Radcot to rebuild St Paul's Cathedral after 1666?

Barges from Oxford also carried timber, wool, food and livestock daily to London.

The people who scavenged in the Thames mud for a living in the 18th and 19th centuries were called what?

Household cesspools overflowed into the streets and sewers and ended up in the river.

What was the 'Great Stink' of 1858?

Chlorine-soaked drapes were hung in the Commons' windows to no effect.

Which engineer built the massive embankment sewers that cleaned up the Victorian Thames?

Four cholera outbreaks had killed tens of thousands between 1832 and 1865, and Prince Albert's 1861 death is often blamed on typhoid from the river at Windsor.

The 1878 collision of the pleasure boat Princess Alice with the Bywell Castle killed how many people?

It remains one of the worst river disasters in England.

Marc Brunel's 1843 passage beneath the Thames was the world's earliest of what kind?

It now carries the East London Line; the Tower Subway was the first railway under the river.

Tower Bridge is the only bridge of which type on the Thames?

Its central leaves lift to let ocean-going ships pass; it opened in 1894 and was designed by Horace Jones.

Counting bridges to the far bank or a connected island, how many bridges cross the Thames?

A single channel from source to mouth can be traced with 138 bridges, plus 17 tunnels where the river is wide.

The 1928 flood that drowned fourteen people in London eventually led to which flood defence?

Part of the Chelsea Embankment collapsed; the North Sea flood of 1953 added urgency and the barrier opened in the early 1980s.

The great flood gates at Woolwich, opened in the 1980s, protect London chiefly from what?

It is closed to tides several times a year to shield low-lying areas upstream.

The 1989 Marchioness disaster, which killed 51 people, led to what being set up on the tidal Thames?

The RNLI now runs stations at Teddington, Chiswick, Tower and Gravesend.

The Thames super-sewer tunnel completed in February 2025 cost roughly how much?

Its 25 km tunnel is meant to cut sewage overflows into the tidal river by 90%.

In 2010 the Thames won which environmental award, then the world's largest?

The $350,000 award recognised decades of restoration since the river's 'dead' stretches of the 1950s.

The University Boat Race is rowed on the Championship Course between which two points?

Chiswick Eyot is a landmark along the course; the race takes place in late March or early April.

Which five-day July rowing event ranks with Ascot and Wimbledon on the English social calendar?

The Thames is home to more than 200 rowing clubs and over 40% of British Rowing's members.

The Thames hosted rowing at which two Summer Olympic Games?

The 1948 Games also held canoeing on the river.

Who in 2006 became the first person to swim the full length of the Thames?

Drought had dried the headwaters, so he had to run the first 26 miles; the 202-mile swim took 21 days.

Handel's Water Music premiered on the Thames in 1717 for which king?

He enjoyed it so much he made the 50 exhausted musicians play the suites three times.

Three Men in a Boat describes a Thames boating holiday from Kingston to which city?

It was meant to be a serious travel guide before the jokes took over, and it has never been out of print since 1889.

Which Dickens novel opens with a scavenger and his daughter pulling a corpse from the Thames?

Written in 1864-65, it ends with the villains drowned in Plashwater Lock upstream.

Which Kinks song about Terry and Julie meeting by the river opens by addressing the 'dirty old river'?

The Sex Pistols, meanwhile, played a Thames riverboat gig during the 1977 Silver Jubilee.

Which of these artists is NOT one of the four major painters named for their Thames works?

The fourth is James McNeill Whistler; Stanley Spencer painted the river at Cookham.

Which flood-relief channel between Maidenhead and Windsor, completed in 2002, is the Thames's longest artificial cut?

Penton Hook and Desborough islands were created by earlier lock cuts and navigation channels.

Which body manages the tidal Thames below Teddington Lock and publishes its tide tables?

The non-tidal river upstream is managed by the Environment Agency, which adjusts sluices at each weir to control flow.

Which Thames eyot at Twickenham was the birthplace of south-east England's R&B scene?

Nearby Platts Eyot built motor torpedo boats and Tagg's Island was linked to the impresario Fred Karno.

Which Arctic whale was spotted off Gravesend in September 2018, over 1,000 miles from home?

It was last seen near Cliffe, east of Gravesend, and is believed to have left the Thames the following January.