Thames Street

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Upper Thames Street (2010)

Thames Street , today divided into Upper Thames Street and Lower Thames Street, is a street in London . It runs north of the banks of the Thames from Blackfriars through the City of London and turns into Byward Street just before the Tower of London . It is mentioned for the first time in 1013 , and Samuel Pepys also speaks of it in his diary. Since an expansion in the 1960s, which runs on its European Road A3211. The border between Upper and Lower Thames Street passes under the crossing under the London Bridge . The street is the longest in the City of London. Thames Street is closely linked to London's maritime trade (e.g. Stalhof ). Port facilities and department stores have been located here since Roman times .

history

Old Billingsgate Market with Thames Street in the 18th century

Due to its central location on the Thames, there are still many testimonies to English history. On Thames Street was the one Roman house that was known to have been in continuous use until the 5th century. In the 19th and 20th centuries, its vaults were still accessible through the London Coal Exchange until it was destroyed in 1962. In the 4th century the street was home to the largest collection of Christian churches in the city.

In the 17th century, there were numerous warehouses on Thames Street, which contained oil, hemp, flax, pitch, and tar, among other things. When the fire that had started during the Great Fire of London in 1666 spread to Thames Street and its warehouses, it developed into a large fire that was no longer controllable.

Important buildings

St Magnus the Martyr

reception

As the central thoroughfare in central London, Thames Street appears repeatedly in British literature. Kate Nickleby from the Charles Dickens novel Nicholas Nickleby goes to work on Thames Street. The stories of Sherlock Holmes take place repeatedly in the maze of streets on Thames Street or on it itself. In TS Eliot's poem The Desert Land , several lines apply to Thames Street and the church of St Magnus the Martyr on it:

Beside a public bar on Lower Thames Street,
The pleasant whining of a mandolin
And a clatter and a chatter from within
Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls
Of Magnus Martyr kind
Inexplicable splendor of Ionian white and gold.

At the time Eliot wrote the poem, Billingsgate Market was still active, and Lower Thames Street was mostly populated by fishermen and fishmongers. Since its expansion in the 1960s, the street has been known primarily for its constant car traffic and the associated noise.

Remarks

  1. ^ John Wittich: Discovering London Street Names Osprey Publishing, 2008 ISBN 0747803099 p. 121
  2. ^ Ralph Merrifield: London, city of the Romans University of California Press, 1983 ISBN 0520049225 p. 247
  3. ^ Walter Besant: A History of London
  4. ^ Roy Porter: London: A Social History Harvard University Press, 1998 ISBN 0674538390 p. 85
  5. ^ Roy Porter: London: A Social History Harvard University Press, 1998 ISBN 0674538390 p. 90
  6. ^ The annotated waste land with Eliot's contemporary prose Yale University Press, 2006 ISBN 0300119941 p. 110
  7. ^ Rob Humphreys, Judith Bamber: The Rough Guide to London Rough Guides, 2003 ISBN 1843530937 p. 211

Web links

Commons : Upper Thames Street  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 51 ° 30 ′ 35 ″  N , 0 ° 5 ′ 15 ″  W.