‘The foulest nuisance that ever disgraced the annals of a nation,’ the condition of the Thames in the summer of 1858 had reached a crisis point. Bloated with sewage and other effluence from the world’s second largest city, the Thames had become a ‘pestilential stream,’ emitting a putrid odour that was dubbed the ‘Great Stink.’ Westminster Bridge | Illustrated London News | 21 October 1843 In this special blog, we shall uncover the true state of the Thames, as it was in the …
river thames
Historical newspaper reports describing the big freeze in London in the winter of 1814 With the predicted snow and ice all set to turn much of the UK into a ‘retreat from Moscow’ landscape, we thought we’d post some old newspaper stories about the freezing of the River Thames, back in January 1814. There are certainly some striking and surreal images described in these stories – not least of which is the poor pig, stuck on an ice floe and …