Autumn Notes - London and the South

River Thames, Central London 07/11/15

My sketch on the South Bank last March

The weather forecast had been revised for the better since Friday, the rain in the morning / Friday night clearing by early afternoon. Still uncannily mild 17-18^oC in London. A fast ebbing tide beneath Hungerford Bridge as I sat eating my sandwiches, pleasantly surprised to do so in the dry, and minus the chilly Thames wind I’d usually expect at this time of year. The Thames vibe improved as the afternoon went on.

Thames vibe improved with weather. Unlike in the summer, now the huge tourist groups have gone, pleasantly busy instead of oppressive along the South Bank between Hungerford Bridge and Bankside. Children in wellies splashing in puddles. I dread to think what will happen when they start on the Garden Bridge, early next year, carrying on regardless. A piece in the Guardian about the silly, Orwellian restrictions, thirty of them (6th November online). 

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/nov/06/garden-bridge-mobile-phone-signals-tracking-london

I haven't seen anyone flying kites from Thames bridges, but essentially, Big Biz will be watching you to make sure your face fits.  Subsequently article about the high cost of it too: 

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/nov/14/work-on-london-garden-bridge-to-begin-despite-30m-shortfall-private-money

More than anything else, it's the disruption during the construction along what's already probably the busiest stretch of river in England I dread. The noise, cramming, restricted access, generally very oppressive. What effect will this have on the vibrant South Bank - National Theatre, Royal Festival Hall, bars, eateries etc while it's all going on? As the tide ebbed and people began wandering along the shore, I wondered if I ought to get down there again while I still could. 

Just as we left Bankside, around 3pm, the sky began clearing. The sun broke through. The colours came out along the Thames. Tide now well out, people wandering along the Thames shore, two brass band quartets playing on the more sandy bits beneath the South Bank. November, but al fresco lattes outside the Royal Festival Hall, with low sun on the South Bank architecture. 

Interesting ITV programme about canal trip in SE England, broadcast circa 1^st November

Missed when broadcast, but picked up and recorded by my mother. A journey - as much as possible inland in a 60ft narrowboat - from London to the English Channel via the Thames, Wey Navigation, restored / navigable stretches of the Wey and Arun canal and the lower Arun to Littlehampton. As well as visiting places I know well, it came across as a heart warming tale of two older people enjoying life while they still could, in a boat. Timothy West is an experienced canal hand, in his early 80s. Prunella Scales is now 83 and I understand she has dementia but for much of the way she was pretty lucid and agile physically for her age. Scenery wise, there was more in Surrey / along the Wey than West Sussex. They passed through many long loved places I know, particularly along the Wey. They joined the Wey and Arun canal just south Guildford, near Shalford.  Timothy at the tiller, both negotiating the locks. The Wey and Arun Canal is still very patchy, though improved since the 1980s. It’s in water and navigable to narrowboats just south of Shalford, and a short stretch at Loxwood which we visited in 2003. The Wey & Arun Canal Trust are now trying to restore a section a bit further south. A visit to the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre on the Wey at Guildford, a detour from the water to Abinger Hammer, visiting the house where Prunella Scales was born. There was nothing of the Arun above Arundel, so not clear how they got from Loxwood to Arundel. Because of the strong tidal currents, they did the last stretch in a passenger motorboat with a regular skipper. I recognised the boat as the one which does public trips from Arundel quay, just downstream of the bridge in the summer. 

Costing The Earth BBC Radio 4 podcasts - November 2015

  

50 years of coastal change - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06j1xzd

Featured John Whittow who, aided by geography undergrads invariably trudging through mud / getting soaked, mapped the UK coastline for the National Trust in the mid-1960s. Amid the post-war building boom, worries about the coast becoming urbanised through industrial and property development, including , caravan parks. The issue of caravan parks - views vs more affordable holidays controversial, but particularly along prominent, picturesque stretches of SW England, they could perhaps do more to blend them in, paint them green maybe?

They quoted GM Trevelyan, 1930s historian, on open spaces including the coastline: “ultimate injury” through development. “Happiness and the soul’s health is at stake. Without natural beauty people will perish in the spiritual sense. True for all time, developers please take note for the benefit of everyone as far as possible. 

River Quality - focus on River Itchen near Alresford

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06mfs7m

This pretty much confirmed what last year's report from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) on chalk streams said about the Itchen and chalk streams more generally.

The Environment Agency's claims that river quality (in England and Wales, for Scotland it's SEPA) is now the best it has been for the past twenty years seems to be at odds with the experiences of local river-goers, such as the Salmon & Trout UK along the Itchen near Alresford. Chalk streams throughout southern England have suffered diminishing flows during the past 60 years or so through water abstraction (certainly the Kennet and Salisbury Avon). Some encouraging news from  Southern Water about what they have been engineering/ been planning to do around Soton / the lower Itchen to reduce the amount of water taken out of the Itchen and make present levels of abstraction as efficient as possible. They now have plans for a pipeline to divert water from the Test to the Itchen. Southern Water say they would only use it during “droughts as bad as 1976”. There have been at least two other major, prolonged droughts impacting on chalk streams since then (late 1980s- early 1990s), 2011 – early 2012. It also assumes that in such situations the Test would have water to spare, too.

The main emphasis of this programme was on pollution. The situation along the Itchen sounds worse than I'd expect for a prized chalk stream and a protected site. The WWF report says much the same. 

During the past 20-30 years, there have been great strides in tackling the big pollution culprits: industrial pollution and large discharges of raw, untreated sewage. In northern England river water quality has improved dramatically since the 1980s. Most notably the Aire, the Mersey and the Tyne which used to be some of Britain's dirtiest rivers. The River Tyne  is now said to be the best salmon river in England.  The problems now are the cumulative effect of smaller scale sources: particularly of nitrate (N) and phosphate (P) pollution from agricultural run-off, use of fertilisers  and smaller scale but significant discharges of inadequately treated sewage, eg from septic tanks. These nutrients promote the growth of algae, especially when the double whammy of abstraction and drought has diminished the flow. This blocks out much of the light, meaning aquatic plants such as the water crowsfoot which should be abundant in chalk streams like the Itchen, die. The decomposing bacteria then starve the water of oxygen, so nothing can thrive, fish stocks included. They also say silt run-off into the Itchen and its tributaries such as the Alre at Alresford after heavy rain can prevent salmon from spawning.

Salmon & Trout UK said the diversity of plant life in the Itchen had diminished - describing it as more or less a lifeless desert. Though the water still looked clear, it was still more turbid than it should be (due to suspended silt / sediment) and pretty much devoid of plant life. Fish stocks have been declining, too. There should be water crowsfoot – the vivid green weed seen waving gently with the current in healthy chalk streams. Used to see plenty of it all around the Winchester area. They didn’t mention this, but now the dominant plant life in chalk streams and clear running waters seems to be the species with the long, straight spindly weeds. I don’t know the name of that, but there was lots of it in the Stour around Canterbury when I was there last year, and also in the Lavant when that’s running. Both are classed by the WWF as chalk streams, as well as the classic ones such as the Test and Itchen. At Canterbury, I overheard a boat tour commentary saying that kind of weed is down to fertiliser use and impedes navigation. It’s a pain to weed out.

The Great Stour, Canterbury, August 2014

 Research on the Thames at Wallingford by CEH indicates that, though phosphate levels in the Thames and its tributaries has declined by 90% during the past 20 years, algal growth is still rife. I can vouch for that from what I’ve seen along the north branch of the Wey. That is classed as a chalkstream as well, but I’ve never thought it has looked healthy or attractive through Farnham. The only time I’d say not is when the river is running fairly high (as in spring 2008 and last February). Then, it’s invariably turbid because of the increased suspended sediment in the faster current. CEH’s findings suggest that to make a real difference, phosphate levels would have to be reduced further to a third of their present level. Planting more trees along riverbanks to create dappled light rather than the strong relentless sunhine algae like would help, too. It would also give shade to sun sensitive river ramblers.

In 2000, as part of the EU Water Framework Directive, there was a target to improve water quality so that all Britain’s rivers could be classified as Good. Recall the ratings are Very Good, Good, Fair, Poor, Bad. I don’t know the quantitative criteria which decides these but they include nitrate and phosphate levels, biological oxygen demand and presumably biodiversity of aquatic flora and fauna. The target date was this year and we’ve missed them by miles. In England, just 17% of rivers are now classed as Good, 43% in Wales, 50% in Scotland. The government will soon publish new “River Basin Management Plans”, intended to improve thins.

What isn't helping is the Environment Agency's diminishing, strained resources. All things outdoor and environmental have taken a particularly big hit during government spending reviews during the 2010s. This means they unable to do as much as they’d need or like when it comes to monitoring and things which might improve water quality, such as working with farmers and landowners to reduce / better manage agricultural run off and improve sewage treatment.

World Wildlife Fund – State of Britain’s Chalk Streams report, published November 2014

http://www.wwf.org.uk/about_wwf/press_centre/?unewsid=7378

This from John Vidal in The Guardian, 2011

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2011/aug/30/rivers-spin-environment-agency

Even if EA funding was to improve, the combo of population growth and climate change would put extra pressure on rivers through increase demand for water and greater likelihood of drought. Already we seem to be seeing binary / either full-on-full- off rainfall patterns increasingly regularly. 

The Scouring of the River Lavant

 22^nd November – on our way up to the Trundle, South Downs near Chichester, on Sunday morning, we saw that, not only was the stream still dry, but it also now more closely resembled a flood relief channel or reservoir outlet than a rural downland chalk stream. Last week (18^th November), I’d seen people working here, including a guy in orange hi-vis standing in the streambed. I could tell from the far side of the village green, then it was still dry. They had a digger, though I thought it was all heavy duty gardening, clearing leaves and cutting back trees, rather the stream itself. Through East Lavant, the channel and banks are now completely scoured of anything natural, beyond autumn leaves which have fallen during the past few days.

  

As noted previously, this is a winterbourne. The water table in the chalk is obviously too low for it to run at the moment. Given what I’ve said elsewhere about autumnal drought, I’m not surprised if recharge is a bit late last year. Hopefully rain during November help. 

Recent features in The Guardian  etc on Rivers / Water / Weather – UK

Why are river names so repetitive? 

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/jul/22/why-river-names-repetitive-avon-don-derwent

Grim Long Read about drought and other pressures on Britain’s rivers, focusing on the Sussex Ouse

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/08/are-we-killing-our-rivers

WWF claim UK government failing to protect rivers from farm pollution

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/aug/27/government-accused-of-failing-to-protect-waterways-from-farm-pollution

Britain 'must abandon Churchillian rhetoric' in face of rising seas

http://gu.com/p/4e59v?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Drive

River Wey, Woodbridge Meadow Guildford

Revisited 20th November, en route to the Farnham area. Woodbridge Meadow is to the north of  the town centre and Dapdune Wharf. In recent years, the area has seen a makeover by local tree sculptors. Now a giant buried in the grass, two feet and a hand sticking in the air. Nearer the road, a nose and lips. A couple of troll-like face carvings in growing trees. Recently, too, the adding of a flinty structure with seating and wooden seed sculptures. These are some of my photos.

Figures sillouetted in shadows under railway bridge

Autumn notes from the Severn and Wye

10th - 17th October 2015 - a week in the Wye Valley area near Monmouth. Long time favourite landmarks along the Wye - Symonds Yat and the valley between Tintern and Llandogo revisited. We also went walking in the Brecon Beacons / Black Mountains - the Llanthony Priory area and Pen y Fan. We were very lucky to have settled weather, though after so much brightness on the south coast in September, the cloudier weather and shortening days hit me for the first time this year. My sketches from the week will be on my Water and Art blog shortly. The autumn colours - particularly strong this year - were just beginning, adding colour to the cloudier, mistier days, especially on our first day, at Symonds Yat. 

We also visited family in the area. En route to one lot on the Thursday, we stopped at Upton-on-Severn. The Map Shop there has most extensive stock of any map shop outside London (Stanfords). Strolling along the Severn afterwards, we chanced upon a Severn swimmer, accompanied by a few paddle boarders, and a barge laden with bicycles, packs and camping gear bringing up the rear. A tall man with a big dog came across the meadow to the river bank and told us all about it: the swimmer was Kev Brady, swimming the 220 mile length of the Severn source-to-sea, in aid of the Superheroes Foundation. This is the charity he co-founded in Gloucester to raise money to enable children to have treatment abroad which is not available in the UK. Previously, he has canoed solo along the Mississippi River, during the intensely cold winter hitting much of the US 2013 /14.

Link to Kev Brady's Facebook page and blogs from his journey:

https://www.facebook.com/kevbradyadventures/?fref=ts

He started the challenge on 23rd September, at the Source of the Severn, on Plynlimon in the Welsh hills. Strictly the first bit, as far as Welshpool (day 4), was brisk walking, the Severn here being just a fledgling river, not deep enough for swimming. He finished at Severn Beach a month later, in the evening darkness on 23rd October, after passing under the two Severn motorway crossings. By the end he'd raised £18,000 for his charity, smashing his targets which had been progressively revised upwards as the swim progressed. Along the way he had endured bitterly cold water and "river belly", most severely just before he got to Upton. There were concerns too, from the Severn Area Rescue Service and others as to how he'd fare in the Severn estuary, especially the most dangerous stretch, The Noose above Sharpness. I've seen for myself how strong the tidal currents are there. This is why no one had attempted to swim the entire length of the river, with the estuary until now. Thankfully, he hit the estuary during a period of neap tides which would have been moderate. Even so, he had to time his swims carefully according to the tides, so not be dragged back upstream. This was why he had to swim in the dark towards the end. 

For most of the way, however, lack of current was more of a problem than too much of a good flow. According to the Environment Agency and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford, the flow along the Severn, was Exceptionally Low - red dots on the River Flow maps in their monthly hydrological reports for the UK / England for October. At Bewdley, the mean monthly flow was just under a quarter of the longterm average for October in a record going back to 1921. The Wye (Redbrook) was little better at 29%. The flows subsequently recovered, at least in the short term with rainfall during the first half of November, but I wasn't surprised. Both rivers looked low when we'd seen them. At Tintern (16th October) there were the usual strong tidal currents along the Wye. We'd caught the tide on the turn while we were looking around Stella Books whose shop window looks out onto the Wye at Tintern Parva, views towards the Abbey. Further upriver at Brockweir, another ominous Careful-Where-You-Park sign. The tide was now ebbing and still running fast at the bridge here, but above it towards Llandogo on the opposite bank, it was barely noticeable. When I'd been here in 2004, when the fluvial (pluvial) flow coming downstream was much higher and healthier, the currents here had been very strong. Now it was very languid, the water looking dark, almost inky black in places, the shortening autumn days particularly noticeable in incised valleys such as this one. 

Letterpressing at Red Hot Press - done with the Severn especially in mind, at the end of October

The prevailing weather during our week away had been dry "courtesy" of a blocking anticyclone stretching all across northern Europe. The jet stream was splitting in two, with the northern track to the north of the British Isles, and a southern one bringing storms and flash flooding to the normally drier Mediterranean area. During summer autumn the jet stream has moved around. Rainfall around the UK during the summer and autumn has been geographically variable, the south apparently doing better than the Severn basin which according to the EA / rainfall data from the Met. Office, has had below average rainfall for the past twelve months. The predominant weather over the UK and NW Europe has been very very mild. Though we didn't have quite Halloween heatwave we'd had last year, highs in London were still exceeding 15C in London through to the middle of November. In France, the highs were in the low 20s celcius, worthy of September, according to Meteo France. It went on like this until the weather pattern shifted temporarily, allowing cold air to plunge down from the north, bringing an Offensive Hivernale, as Meteo France called it. Here a strong, biting north wind on Saturday 21st November. Even that, though was shortlived, with milder weather returning again during the middle of the following week. 

Early, warm, usually dry springs and certainly warm, late invariably dry autumns seem to have become more and more the norm during about the past twenty years. I blame global warming, or rather global heating as I prefer to call it. Global warming sounds too cushy in view of the potentially far reaching impacts global, human induced climate change will / is already having on weather patterns / rainfall, increasing incidence of extreme weather, including flood and drought. Taken together with the projected UK population increase of nearly 10 million in the next 25 years (Office of National Statistics, 29th October) and water demand rising accordingly, the prospects for our rivers is worrying. The Severn is a source of public water supply and already has to be augmented artificially in its middle reaches from groundwater and reservoir discharges during the summer. 

The low water levels on the Severn reminded me of another notably dry autumn, in 2003. Then, the Severn reached its lowest October flow at Bewdley since 1947. This year's has probably come close, too. 2003 was also notable for the European heatwave in the summer, with thousands dying in France in August. The UK got off relatively lightly but a serious hydrological deficit built from February onwards. Around the time I saw the low levels along the Severn at Bewdley (October), I had a postcard from folk holidaying in Germany - The Rhine is very low, our cruise is not possible. They told me there had been a riot on board when the holiday reps aboard broke the news. Well, it's happened again. I was shocked to read (The Guardian online app 12th November) that the Rhine has again been running very low, even lower than in 2003 and possibly 1976. Reveling in the Loire ("Severn's Big Sister", as I've noticed quite a few parallels) running so abundantly in May, I switched off to weather news from Europe over the summer, not wanting a flow-by-flow account of falling water levels. As summer in the UK was not unrelentingly hot and dry (August wet again), too, I was more surprised this year. However, on all the weather charts I've seen, the track of the north Atlantic low pressures (guided by the jet stream) has been missing much of continental Europe. Invariably, too, there have been anticyclones in the area which would prevent convectively generated rainfall (ie thunderstorms). It was much hotter there in continental Europe during the summer, and for longer (highs at or near 40C in Paris in north central France in early July).  The bad news is that this kind of drought is in line with climate change predictions for northern and central Europe. Rivers like the Rhine, running off the Alps, owe much of their flow to the melting winter snow pack and glaciers. Both of which are diminishing. 

Links

Environment Agency - Monthly and Weekly reports on water resources, including river flows, in 

England and Wales: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/water-situation-reports-for-england

River and Sea Levels - http://apps.environment-agency.gov.uk/river-and-sea-levels/

Centre for Ecology and Hydrology Monthly Hydrological Summaries

http://nrfa.ceh.ac.uk/monthly-hydrological-summary-uk

Flood Warnings

http://apps.environment-agency.gov.uk/flood/31618.aspx

Met. Office

Met. Office News

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news

Met Office News blog, with rainfall data

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/blog

Weather and Water Links - France / Europe

Guardian - 12/11/15 - Shrinking Rhine: shipping scrapes by as river stays at lowest level for 40 years

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/12/shrinking-rhine-shipping-scrapes-by-as-river-stays-at-lowest-level-for-40-years

Guardian - 27/08/15 - European ‘extreme weather belt’ linked to worst drought since 2003

http://gu.com/p/4bq2m?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Drive

European Weather warnings (though seemingly not drought

http://www.meteoalarm.eu/

Deutscher Wetterdienst – German Met. Office

http://www.dwd.de/DE/Home/home_node.html

Propluvia – map of water restrictions in France by Department

http://propluvia.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/propluvia/faces/index.jsp

Météo France weather forecasts

http://www.meteofrance.com/previsions-meteo-france/metropole

Météo France – Vigilance Métérologique (weather warnings)

http://vigilance.meteofrance.com/

France - Vigicrues (flood alerts)

http://www.vigicrues.gouv.fr/

Supermoon Makes Waves

Littlehampton - Monday 28th September 2015

See my Water and Art blog for the series of sketches I did in the area around the East Pier.

A combo of astronomical events meant that the suite of spring tides at the end of September could  be particularly high: 

Spring tide – full moon with the Sun, Earth and Moon in line

Supermoon – i.e. full moon at its closest point to Earth in its elliptical orbit (perigee)

Full moon a few days after the autumnal equinox.

The Sunday night was clear, the full moon indeed very bright. This so-called supermoon, a bit bigger and brighter than an average full moon, was the first full moon after the autumnal equinox , and a Blood Moon, with a total lunar eclipse coinciding with the supermoon (perigee). Full moon  02:52 GMT 28/09/15.

The timings of supermoons, lunar eclipses and predicted tide heights follow a roughly nineteen year (18.6y) cycle governed by the elliptical orbit of the Moon around the Earth and its position in the plane of the ecliptic, the Earth's orbit around the Sun. This goes some way to explaining the run of high spring tides during the past two years which have made for some good Severn Bores and high tidal ranges around the UK coast. However, the weather makes a big difference. This two year period has included some storms and tidal surges leading to widespread coastal flooding. Most notably: December 5th 2013 (North Sea), early January and February 2014 (both mainly affecting western coasts facing towards the Atlantic. All these episodes involved deep low pressure systems with less air pressing down on the sea making for a higher tide and strong winds. This time, the EA had a few precautionary flood alerts out for low lying and exposed areas of coast around England and Wales, along with the tidal  Severn, Wye and Thames. The potential for tidal trouble, however, was very much moderated by high pressure over the UK and Scandinavia, a steady 1035 millibars on Sunday and Monday where we were in south Hampshire. Higher atmospheric pressure pressing down on the sea would reduce the tide height from that predicted, 20cm for 1035 millibars (Port of Southampton tide tables). Anticyclones, too make for light winds or still conditions. 

Given the calm weather / high pressure, I'd expected a calm day like the one I'd had along our local coast the day before. I came then,  with a 40cm x 30cm folder-cum-board of loose watercolour papers prepared over the weekend with loose collage, along with  watercolour, some acrylic ink, pens / pencils. Also a new A5 lightweight paperback sketchbook for quick drawings.   When I was here last month (17^th August) I mentioned bringing right materials for the conditions, especially when I go my more regular painting / sketching spots with a view to tackling a particularly subject, invariably, too assuming particular weather. 

As it was an equinoctial spring tide,  I expected it to be rough at the Arun mouth when I arrived at Littlehampton East Beach around 11:00am, about an hour before high tide (12:04h BST), with the flood tide and currents running at full pelt. However, I hadn't expected the large breaking waves and swells, all amplified in the narrow harbour entrance making it look even rougher than usual. A red Fire and rescue motorboat, thankfully as far as I knew, not needed. No yachts attempting to sail in or out of the harbour. I've often seen yachtsmen rising to the challenge of the fast flowing choppy water between the piers on the rising tide. 

I’d say the waves in narrow harbour entrance were well over 1m crest-trough. Some were nearer 2m and splashing over pier wall, splashing gawpers on the East Pier, of which there were quite a few. 

 Apart from having to watch my folder of papers in case it blew away, I wished I’d brought the proper camera. Though the camera on my new phone is relatively good as mobile cameras go, it was designed for much gentler conditions than those before now. The case got in the way, I couldn’t see the screen in polarising sunglasses and I was nervous about it getting splashed and dropping it over the side of the pier.  With the sun shining in a virtually clear sky and south facing coast during the middle of the day, the light was dazzling. Hence the wonky horizons in the photos here, and video shoot panning down to my feet and a stray finger. (Link to YouTube).

For drawing I made do with quick pencil scribbles my lightweight sketchbook. I coloured them later in the beach shelter behind the coastguard tower as I ate my sandwiches. I sheltered there as much from the dazzling sun as the northeasterly.

Another drawing on the East Pier around 2pm, the tide by then ebbing. Now things had calmed down and the splash hazard had abated, it was easier. I was no longer straight into sun.  The harbour entrance between the piers was still full of waves, with the strong ebbing large waves, standing waves.   An interesting interplay of wave forms and subtle patterns on water as it caught light, the strong currents now running against them. 

After a coffee in town, I returned to the East Beach around 4pm. The tide was now well out, well clear of shingle and breakwaters, revealing a broad, flat beach of mainly sand and the low wall along the river downstream of the East Pier. People were walking out onto beach. The wind now light, it felt reasonably warm.

I finally made use of one of my pieces of prepared paper: on the East Pier for about an hour as the tide continued to recede. Because of train timings (I had to head home by 6pm / not so many after that) I had to leave the shore about half an hour before low water (18:00h BST). Even by then,  the water had receded almost out to beacon on the east side of the harbour entrance. A lone figure at far end of sandbank.

Links - Supermoons

Supermoon and eclipse photos - The Guardian 28/09/15
BBC News- Supermoon and lunar eclipse, 28/09/15
Wikipedia - Supermoon

The Four Horsemen of the Thames

Viewing and Sketching the Four Horsemen of the Thames

22nd September

The four horsemen here being Jason Decaires Taylor’s Rising Tide – sculpture along the Thames shore just downstream of Vauxhall Bridge / near MI6, pertaining to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, climate change and humans’ carry-on-regardless use of fossil fuels. They're there until the end of this month as part of the Totally Thames festival. This is the latest in a series of underwater / sometimes underwater sculptures he’s created around the world, among them the world's first underwater sculpture park off Grenada in the West Indies. This one is high and dry for a few hours around low tide, though it's vital to know tide times and pick your time. Photos on the Totally Thames website show the horsemen amid varying degrees of submersion by the tide. I needed the tide to be out during the afternoon. Today low tide was around 14:15h BST. A neap tide (coefficient  minus 5%).

Life’s a Beach, someone had chalked on the rusty cover of a pipe coming out in the grey brick wall of the embankment just downstream of the "Duck Boats" slipway.

I got there at about low tide and stayed for nearly two hours sketching beneath the wall of the embankment. I worked in pens, in my lightweight A4 London sketchbook. The middle two riders were young boys; two aloof looking suited men either side of them. In place of the horses’ heads were petrol pumps (the middle two on concrete platforms); the other two nodding donkey oil pumps. All now well high and dry on the largely shingle shore of flint, brick. I picked up a few bits of broken pottery. Figures and animals have never been my strong point. Struggled with the proportions, but easier than usual in that they weren’t going anywhere. I left the shore at 4pm, as the tide was beginning to rise visibly, though still someway to go before it wetted the horses' hooves. By now it was getting chilly. I still had the National Original Print Exhibition to visit downriver at Bankside Gallery. 

Affluents and Effluents

Affluents here being French for tributaries. Near Vauxhall Bridge and MI6, too is the outflow of the River Effra.  Not so much a tributary as a drain - the River Effra Storm Relief Channel. This is one of the Lost Rivers of London, culveted,  and relegated to a drain. It's  all got to go somewhere, yet it’s always a shame when rivers are banished like this. As now, just the last fraction of the stream now seeing daylight, flowing across the Thames shore at low tide. 

Until this evening's sunset behind Chelsea and Albert Bridges glimpsed from the train, the Thames didn't look that inviting either, a sullen grey-brown colour. This turbidity is natural, due to the sediment load and tidal currents. Even knowing that, it didn't look clean. The potential for sewage-polluted storm effluent after the heavy rain is well documented. Bazelgette's Victorian sewerage system is now creeking under the strain of a growing modern city, with the urgent need for expensive upgrade (Costing the Earth - Tunnel Beneath the Thames - BBC Radio 4, 22/02/12)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01c7pqq

These are some notes about London's Lost Rivers I made during the summer:

Amid a prolonged, infernally frustrating at times connectivity drought, I’ve been turning again to CDs, live radio and offline digital files, including those quietly recorded on the Bug, mostly 2005 to about 2009 or 2010. Among them, a couple of recordings I made of BBC Radio 3’s Words and Music. One being The South Country. Nothing in there saying who the poets were, Edward Thomas may well have been in there, the focus of many of my Bibliophile's recent readings, on Hampshire. Lots of mention of familiar places, following the line of the South Downs and Oh to be in Hampshire now…Felt quite emotional and a yearning to go back there, though preferably when we’ve had the hard light of midsummer. What with going to France and my post-hols reveries, the Downs have somewhat taken a back seat. Much more pleasant walking on them than pavement pounding along the A27 corridor. I could do with getting my fitness back and losing some flab, too.

Then there was the one on Rivers. They repeated at least a shortened version of this last Christmas Eve, but being Christmas Eve, amid everything going on , I didn’t give it my full attention. It was about all sizes of rivers up to the Mississippi (blues lamenting New Orleans flooding). What struck me most was a reading of UA Fanthorpe’s - Rising Damp , “Beneath our feet they lie low...”. The names of the lost rivers read as a role call of the dead:

Effra, Graveney, Falcon, Quaggy,

Wandle, Walbrook, Tyburn, Fleet

Then at the end, the mythical rivers of the underworld.

This was an apt quote on the Caught By the River site, caughtbytheriver.net (not UA Fanthorpe, ‘A river can sometimes be diverted but is a very hard thing to lose altogether.’

(J.G. Head: paper read to the Auctioneers’ Institute in 1907)

http://www.caughtbytheriver.net/2014/01/rising-damp-peterloo-poets/

I haven’t found the date the poem was written yet, though UA Fanthorpe was 1929-2009.

After more searching I came across this radio clip from last October: BBC World Service radio clip, 24/10/14 - London's Lost Rivers. London's Lost Rivers: A Walker's Guide Paperback – 8 Sep 2011

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p029b5tg

The programme was primarily about the most famous lost river, the Fleet, probably the one least likely to be “daylighted”, given it’s been banished beneath a railway line around Kings Cross, busy roads beneath the Holborn Viaduct, not to mention it being a sewer since Victorian times. It featured Tim Bolton, author of the book London’s Lost Rivers

In the broadcast he said, “As the city grew, rivers tended to get in the way [of development]…a problem that had to be solved.”.

It didn’t help their cases either that prior to Bazelgette’s C19th sewerage system, the Fleet in particular, was an open sewer.

Mention of poems about London by Tom Chivers, too – Jacob’s Island (the Neckinger).

Notes on the Severn

Worcester 4th September 2015

It had been a while (more than eight years) since I'd last visited Worcester, high time, then to check up on the tally of floodmarks at the Watergate along the east side of the river near the Cathedral. They only mark the higher ones - otherwise they'd quickly run out of wall - of which there are now about twenty. As I've done elsewhere, I got my Cycling Man-cum-Bibliophile to stand under some of them for scale.

Since I’d last looked, there had at least two new additions – July 2007 and February 2014. Both were well above his head, 2007 was the higher of the two. February 2014 was not far below it, and just above November 2000. All three floods topped everything else noted for the twentieth century, but for 1947. March 20^th 1947 was itself not far below the all-times highs recorded on the brass plaque, 1770 and 1672.

According to BBC News Hereford & Worcester ( River Severn at “record” level, 13/02/14), the flood February 2014 flood peaked at 5.67m at Barbourne, just north of the city centre.

The July 2007 flood was one of only two summer floods recorded here, the other being in June 1924.

My reading around since our French holiday about floods on both sides of the English Channel goes to show that high waters and extreme weather are nothing new, though some years have been more notorious than others. Invariably when mentions at date, my thought is a flood somewhere or other. 1910, one of them. There are two floodmarks here for the December. The Loire was high around this time as well (from November) and, the previous winter (from 21^st January) was the Great Paris Flood. I have just been reading Jeffrey H. Jackson’s historical appraisal of that, Paris Under Water: How the City of Light Survived the Great Flood of 1910 (NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). It was protracted and came after another of those persistently wet winters, saturated ground compounding the problem. 1947 was a particularly cruel time, coming during the aftermath of WWII and straight after an especially cold winter. There were floods all around the UK and on many rivers it still is the record high for the last century. The autumn and winter of 1960 sounded very like that of 2000, the jetstream most likely stuck in a similar blocking pattern bringing in one low pressure system after another. Again flooding over large parts of the country.

University of Gloucester – Insight –Worcester – Your community and its flood history | 09/09/15

http://insight.glos.ac.uk/tli/activities/co-fast/severnfloods/lowersevern/pages/worcester.aspx

From the Watergate we continued along the towpath to Diglis Lock, where the Worcester & Birmingham Canal enters the Severn. The fifty-eight locks are numbered in ascending order starting with no.1 at Diglis.

During a series of visits to Worcester during the 2000s, I regularly walked and sketched in the area around Diglis Lock and Diglis Basin, attracted by the colourful narrowboats moored in the basin above the lock and the lock keeper’s cottage. I’d known the makeover was coming in February 2004, when a local bemoaned it to me, along with the mess that would be left behind once the winter floods had receded. By our last visit in spring 2007, it the big development near the lock –  luxury apartments, the usual same old stuff – was more or less complete, though at that point not all occupied. There’s since been similar so-called gentrification around the basin, with brick warehouses either being converted into Property or pulled down to make way for it. I’d rather that than paving over the countryside, but it all looked very samey. The basin itself now looked too prim, proper and over-controlled, complete with petty Private Moorings notices, hadn’t been there before and probably weren’t necessary.

We walked around to the far side of the basin and the adjoining one, then along the Canal. Near the Commandery it passed under the main road. Sidbury lock. Civil War swords and helmets on the wall of the road bridge. We carried on to the next bridge and turned left along George Street, near Asda and Staples. This brought us into the main shopping area / high street.

A mural along the canal above the Sidbury Lock - a refreshing antidote to the prim-proper vibe downstream.

In due course, we made our way through there back to the Severn and wandered towards the racecourse. 

Bridgnorth 6th September 2015

My sketch of the bridge and Ridley's Seeds

On a fine sunny Sunday morning, we headed north to Bridgnorth. Glimpses of Brown Clee Hill along the road into Bridgnorth from the south. I noted the satnav error signs at the turning down to the Hampton Loade ferry were still there. Particularly after finding ourselves inadvertently boarding the Purbeck ferry - thanks to blindly following the satnav about a month ago - I was keeping an eye on the map. Hampton Loade is now the only remaining ferry crossing on the Severn, walk-on ferry only. There are no road bridges between the Bridgnorth bypass bridge and Bewdley.

Arriving in Bridgnorth, we parked in the large car park at the top. A French / Italian market in the high street. We made our way from there, turning left at The Shakespeare, with its old style road signs, to the Mary Magdalene Parish Church: the one above the cliff, overlooking the river, built out of lighter sandstone (not the local red sandstone), tall clear glass windows and green copper domed clock tower. From there, we followed the path to the Cartway, the steep street going down to the bridge.

As I’d expected at this time of the year, the Severn was fairly low, though there were still some strong currents in the deeper stretches we saw along our walk. At the bridge, I watched the vortices – a gentler version of what we’d seen on the Loire at Gennes back in May. The opposing currents ensuing as the water flows around the obstruction of the bridge pillar were particularly clear here with the peaty brown, water displaying some froth like peaty brown ale.

Staying on the west side of the river, we began following the Severn Way south, heading under the higher bypass bridge a bit further on. We got as far as Lower Forge / Haye’s house before turning back. We’d rather wished we’d taken the Severn Valley Railway to Arley or Hampton Loade and walked from there. Compared to the stretch of river between Arley and Bewdley, the stretch we saw today was disappointing. I’d hoped to get a bit further, but we both felt the heat walking into the sun. Easier on the way back when it wasn’t in our eyes. There were short stretches through wooded areas (path narrow, sometimes steep and a bit muddy so had to watch our footing) with glimpses of the river through the trees / undergrowth. For much of the way, though, it was open fields with trees and hedges growing along the steep banks hiding the view. Creeping development spoiled it most of all. I didn’t mind the large factory like agricultural building further up the hill so much. More the proliferation of mobile home / chalet parks along the river, one of them crawling all the way up the hillside. Closer to Bridgnorth, bland cloney anywhere appartments spoiled the view back to the hill where the High Town was built. Near Daniel’s Mill, we had to divert up a road around a new private development. It didn’t go on long, but it’s the sort of thing I fear creeping in insidiously in the future, depriving us of the precious little publicly accessible riverside we have now. As we hadn’t been this way for 10+ years, I can’t remember what it was like before: I’ve a feeling the new house may have been a pub, subsequently renovated or torn down and replaced with the residence here now. Further along, near Hayes House, Lower Forge, the riverside path looked narrow and a bit overgrown. Not clear which way to go around the houses here. A path marked behind them on the OS map. We’d hoped we could rejoin the Severn Way further on from the B’road at the top, but when we got to it, a steady stream of traffic, no footway. As we didn’t fancy walking along it, even for a short distance, we turned round at this point. Deliberate or otherwise, the signposting of PRW around here wasn’t as through as it is closer to home. 

Walking back was more pleasurable. It helped that we weren’t walking into the sun and it didn’t feel so hot. I don’t know whether there really was more of the river in view this way or whether it just felt like it.

Stopped first in one of the anglers’ recesses to quickly sketch the red sandstone outcrop across the river. This was Permian, the Bridgnorth Sandstone on which the High Town is built, formed in a dessert, hence cross bedding formed by wind blown sand dunes. Ducks beneath it. Glimpses of a kingfisher.

Further along an open, shallow stretch of water around an islet. Lots of Canada geese, some of them drifting with the current in the deeper water around the islet.

Back in Bridgnorth, we had iced lattes very refreshing. We then split up for an hour to look a bit more around the town, and me cross the bridge to the green area to sketch the view looking back across the river to Ridley’s Seeds. Tricky against the light, the sun looking lower down with the hill behind the town. The river near here divides into two channels around an islet. The channel on the nearside was shallow, often dries up in summer. Children paddling in the shallow water in front of the green sloping down to the river. Heard people commenting on the improvement in weather, come September, compared to August.

Around the old town, various historical signs and frontages of shops, pubs, particularly in the Cartway area. Among them High Town, with pointing hand; This cave was occupied as a dwelling until the year 1856. I also spotted a couple of plaques taking the piss: a small brass shield shaped sign near the front doorway to a terrace cottage – On this spot in 1832 nothing happened. A larger squarish plaque with white letters on turquoise – On this site 5^th September 1792 nothing happened.