Middle Ages[edit]

A Romano-British settlement grew up north of the confluence, partly because the site was
naturally protected from attack on the east side by the River Cherwell and on the west by the
River Thames. This settlement dominated the pottery trade in what is now central southern
England, and pottery was distributed by boats on the Thames and its tributaries.
Competition for the use of the river created the centuries-old conflict between those who wanted
to dam the river to build millraces and fish traps and those who wanted to travel and carry goods
on it. Economic prosperity and the foundation of wealthy monasteries by the Anglo-
Saxons attracted unwelcome visitors and by around AD 870 the Vikings were sweeping up the
Thames on the tide and creating havoc as in their destruction of Chertsey Abbey.

A 1616 engraving by Claes Van Visscher showing the Old London Bridge, with St Mary's Overie (over-the-
river), now Southwark Cathedral in the foreground

Once King William had won total control of the strategically important Thames Valley, he went on
to invade the rest of England. He had many castles built, including those
at Wallingford, Rochester, Windsor and most importantly the Tower of London. Many details of
Thames activity are recorded in the Domesday Book. The following centuries saw the conflict
between king and barons coming to a head in AD 1215 when King John was forced to sign
the Magna Carta on an island in the Thames at Runnymede. Among a host of other things, this
granted the barons the right of Navigation under Clause 23.
Another major consequence of John's reign was the completion of the multi-piered London
Bridge, which acted as a barricade and barrage on the river, affecting the tidal flow upstream and
increasing the likelihood of the river freezing over. In Tudor and Stuart times, various kings and
queens built magnificent riverside palaces at Hampton Court, Kew, Richmond on
Thames, Whitehall and Greenwich.
As early as the 1300s, the Thames was used to dispose of waste matter produced in the city of
London, thus turning the river into an open sewer. In 1357, Edward III described the state of the
river in a proclamation: "... dung and other filth had accumulated in divers places upon the banks
of the river with ... fumes and other abominable stenches arising therefrom." [45]
The growth of the population of London greatly increased the amount of waste that entered the
river, including human excrement, animal waste from slaughter houses, and waste from
manufacturing processes. According to historian Peter Ackroyd, "a public lavatory on London
Bridge showered its contents directly onto the river below, and latrines were built over all the
tributaries that issued into the Thames."[45]

Early modern period[edit]

River Thames frost fair, circa 1685

During a series of cold winters the Thames froze over above London Bridge: in the first Frost
Fair in 1607, a tent city was set up on the river, along with a number of amusements, including
ice bowling.
In good conditions, barges travelled daily from Oxford to London carrying timber, wool, foodstuffs
and livestock. The stone from the Cotswolds used to rebuild St Paul's Cathedral after the Great
Fire in 1666 was brought all the way down from Radcot. The Thames provided the major route
between the City of London and Westminster in the 16th and 17th centuries; the clannish guild of
watermen ferried Londoners from landing to landing and tolerated no outside interference. In
1715, Thomas Doggett was so grateful to a local waterman for his efforts in ferrying him home,
pulling against the tide, that he set up a rowing race for professional watermen known as
"Doggett's Coat and Badge".

Michael Faraday giving his card to Father Thames, caricature commenting on a letter of Faraday's on the
state of the river in The Times in July 1855

By the 18th century, the Thames was one of the world's busiest waterways, as London became
the centre of the vast, mercantile British Empire, and progressively over the next century the
docks expanded in the Isle of Dogs and beyond. Efforts were made to resolve the navigation
conflicts upstream by building locks along the Thames. After temperatures began to rise again,
starting in 1814, the river stopped freezing over. [46] The building of a new London Bridge in 1825,
with fewer piers (pillars) than the old, allowed the river to flow more freely and prevented it from
freezing over in cold winters.[47]
Throughout early modern history the population of London and its industries discarded their
rubbish in the river.[48] This included the waste from slaughterhouses, fish mar