OUR ANCESTORS City of London, London Metropolitan Archives are shown under way. With the construction of retaining walls, the river is much narrower today. area, especially to the City and its popula- tion.”29 Modern writer Bill Bryson, describing the Thames of the late 16th Century: “Un- constrained by artificial embankments, the river sprawled where it could. It was up to a thousand feet wide in some places – much wider than today. Despite all that was tipped into it, the river was remarkably full of life. Flounder, shrimp, bream, barbells, trout, dace, eels, and even occasionally swordfish, porpoises and other exotica were among the catches hauled out by bemused or startled fishermen. On one memorable oc- casion, a whale nearly got caught between the arches of London Bridge.”30 The Tideway By the 17th Century, during the time of Pepys Library, Magdalene, College, Cambridge A Thames Skiff “By water all the afternoon up as high as Moreclacke, with great pleasure, a fine day . . . we landed and walked at Barne Elmes.” 5 August 1666 - from a broadsheet ballad. 29 Crouch, p. 252 the diary of Samuel Pepys,31 there were more than ten thousand watermen working on the Thames “between Richmond and Gravesend”32 providing human and cargo transportation. This section of the Thames between the towns of Richmond at the up- stream end of the London environs and 30 Bill Bryson, Shakespeare, HarperPress, Ham- mersmith, 2007, p. 49 31 For Americans, pronounced “peeps.” 32 Cleaver, p. 22, Dodd, World Rowing, p. 60 21
