Launch Yourself Down The Thames

From Source to Sea.

1840s

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This map is available mounted and ready for framing, in two sizes:

•  112cm x 27.5cm (approx 44" x 11") at £25 plus p&p.

•  66cm x 20.5cm (approx 26" x 8") at £12.50 plus p&p.

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This great arterial waterway has formed an east-west backbone through the heart of this land for thousands of years, its salt water blending with fresh water near Teddington Lock. From the end of the last ice age it cut itself a meandering route eastward to the sea, presenting the local tribes with a waterborne gateway through the Thames valley and into the very heart of ancient Britain, and navigable up to the Cotswolds. Bridging and ferry points encouraged the formation of early settlements along its banks and it was from many of these that the villages and towns of today sprang up. One of these early settlements became the great 'Londinium', of the Roman period, (then on the Tamesis Fluvius) which in more recent centuries developed into the largest city in the world, a fitting tribute to the great river that spawned it, or was it perhaps this quietly flowing river that created a greater people then nestling along its banks!

London became the hub of a vast empire spread over much of the modern world, and this must have been greatly facilitated by the mercantile nourishment afforded to its heartland by this magnificent waterway, with its tributaries springing from the higher wolds of central England.

In the 1840s William Tombleson of London produced this impressive map. His skilful and artistic depiction captures a little of the mystery and the majesty of the Thames , from the various confluence sources in the Cotswolds, and ever downwards to the East Coast.