Oliver's Island
| Oliver's Island | ||
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| Waters | Thames | |
| Geographical location | 51 ° 29 ′ N , 0 ° 17 ′ W | |
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| Residents | uninhabited | |
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Oliver's Island is a small, heavily forested island, or Werder , in the tidal section of the Thames in England. It is located in the London Borough of Hounslow near Kew across from Strand-on-the-Green in Chiswick .
history
The name of the island is based on the story that Oliver Cromwell is said to have sought refuge there. But there is almost certainly no basis for this story. It was called Strand Ayt until a century after the English Civil War . Then the legend had developed that Cromwell had set up a makeshift headquarters in the Bull's Head (Strand-on-the-Green) pub . The story was backed up by the claim that a secret tunnel connected the island to the pub. However, no reference to this tunnel could ever be found.
In 1777 the City of London Shipping Committee built a customs house on Oliver's Island to collect a fee from passing ships to finance the navigability of the river. It was a wooden building in the shape of a castle. A barge was on the island from which the fees were collected. The “City Barge” gave its name to an inn in Strand-on-the-Green. Boats were stationed here until a quay was built on the Surrey side of the river. In 1865 there was a forge on the island and it became a place where barges were built and repaired. In 1857 the Thames Conservancy took over shipping responsibility from the City of London and in 1909 transferred Oliver's Island to the Port of London Authority (PLA). The PLA used the island as a warehouse and dock for boats that were no longer in use. When the PLA tried to sell the island in 1971, the Strand-on-the-Green Association, representing local residents, led the protest and the plan was quickly abandoned. In 1990 the forge was demolished.
The densely forested island is now a habitat for herons , cormorants and Canada geese .
See also
literature
Individual evidence
- ↑ Oliver's Island . Hidden London. Retrieved January 5, 2009.
- ^ The City Barge Pub, Chiswick, London . In: h2g2 . BBC . April 10, 2012. Retrieved September 6, 2015.
- ^ TFT Baker, University of London, Institute of Historical Research: A History of the county of Middlesex . tape 7 . Oxford University Press, Oxford 1982, OCLC 59178433 , Chiswick: Growth, pp. 54-68 ( online ).