Thames Landscape Strategy - Hampton to Kew -

Arcadian Diary May 2004

Weather permitting, the May Bank Holiday is traditionally one of the busiest times of the year for visiting the riverside. In my opinion, May is also the month of the year when the Thames is at its most beautiful. After the long winter the riverside suddenly springs into life. The wakening trees, carpets of bluebells, meadows full of wild flowers and the return of the cows on Petersham Meadows all add to the scene. The walker along Ham Avenues or up Richmond Hill is rewarded with one of nature’s most special displays – the cow parsley. Great swathes of white flowers line the paths heralding the onset of summer. If I were to recommend one thing to do over the Bank Holiday it would be to walk down by the Thames or along the magnificent avenues at Ham and enjoy this show.

I have written in previous diaries about the management of the riverside and the way in which we use nature as our guide in determining the timing of everything from the hay cut to the litter picks. This is normal practice in gardening but quite new along the river. The cow parsley is one of these natural indicators. The first hay cut takes place only once the cow parsley has finished flowering and in the autumn the last mow of the year follows the final flowering of the wonderful purple loosestrife that grows along the margins of the river.

Not all the flora is as welcome as the cow parsley however (and even the cow parsley has to be kept under control). One of the biggest problems we have along the riverside are what are called ‘invasive species’. These are non-native plants that have found the Thames a perfect environment in which to flourish. Of these Himalayan Balsam and Japanese Knotweed quite literally stand head and shoulders above the rest. Introduced to domestic gardens during the Victorian age they soon ‘escaped’ into the wild and although colourful, have colonised huge areas wiping out almost all native flora as they march relentlessly down the towpath. To make matters worse, the only long-term solution is to pull each and every plant up by the roots. When one considers that the estimated cost to remove the Japanese knotweed on Ham Lands alone is a staggering £700,000 the sheer scale of the problem becomes apparent.

Much of thinking behind the Thames Landscape Strategy has been to develop long-term solutions to just this sort of problem. Excitingly, we are now ready to consult on the concept designs for the ‘London’s Arcadia’ Heritage Lottery Funded proposals. This process will take place over May and last just under a month. Following this, more detailed designs will be drawn up and consulted over once again. From this a final series of drawings will be presented to the Heritage Lottery Fund in July and then we can all relax a little.

The Arcadian proposals have been designed in a similar way to the management regime for the riverside in that it is the existing character of the landscape and the ideas presented by local people that have guided the process. On the whole there are no great surprises – it’s much more a case of refinement, repair and enhancement of what is already there.

It’s not too late to have your say about the plans. If you would like to find out what is proposed you can join us at one of the many consultation events. The first is at the Thames Landscape Strategy stand at the Richmond May Fair on Saturday May 8th followed by the Teddington River Festival on Sunday 6th June. The public consultation for the detailed designs will take place on the 8th June at Tide Tables Café (below Richmond Bridge) between 4pm-8pm and on the 9th June at Orleans House Gallery in Twickenham between 4pm and 8.00pm. Further consultation will take place at the Ham Fair on June 12th, the Radnor Gardens Music Festival on 19th June and at the St. Margaret’s Fair on 17th July.

Once the Heritage Lottery Fund agrees the final designs, work on the ground is due to start in January 2005. All lottery funded projects take a long time to put in place and Arcadia has been no exception. But what this has enabled us to do is to plan the project in a way that much more than we originally anticipated can be achieved. When there is so much to do with such little money to it this has been quite a task.
In the meantime though I hope to spend a bit of time over the bank holiday on the river enjoying the springtime display.

RIVERFACT

Horace Walpole, one of the most influential people in the history of gardening and a famous enthusiast of the river lived at Strawberry Hill by the Thames in Twickenham. His surviving house is one of the greatest treasures of the Arcadian Thames and is soon to be the subject of much national attention. Follow the progress yourself and support this Thameside jewel so it is not lost for others in the future to enjoy.

> Read other Arcadian Diary entries
> Back to the homepage