Thames Landscape Strategy - Hampton to Kew -

Arcadian Diary July 2006

It’s so often the simple things along the River Thames that we cherish the most. At this time of year for example, I love the flowering purple loosestrife and the swallows dipping over the water. It is a lazy time on the river, time for messing about on boats, long summer walks or simply sitting and watching the world go by. The Thames is such a colourful place with so much history and character. Alongside the wildlife there is also a variety of built features such as bollards, fences and railings that help to animate our riverside but all too often these important features often get overlooked or lost.

Signage also makes a big difference to the way we appreciate our environment. Bad signs or cluttered streets make for a much poorer place. One of the areas that the Thames Landscape Strategy is working with the council at the moment is to consolidate and re-position signs that are badly designed or in many cases simply not needed.

One of the worst offenders along the river are the large blue cycle network direction signs. Look out for them next time you out by the Thames – they are everywhere. Recently new signs have gone up in Ham Common to replace some of these monstrosities. The new signs carry the same information as the old yet look wonderful blending into the rural landscape – well done Richmond Council who carried out the work. Further up the river at the Half Mile Tree in Kingston a whole host of un-needed and bad signs are being replaced as part of the ‘Putting the Thames Back into Kingston’ initiative. On Richmond Hill signage has been made much less intrusive and consolidated onto one pole where possible and along the riverside un-needed panels are slowly being removed.

A recent audit of riverside signs highlighted another big problem. A staggering 90% began with the words ‘Warning’, ‘Danger’, ‘Do Not’ or simply ‘No’. This is not a way to welcome people to the river. A good sign can accommodate any warning information whilst at the same time invite people to enjoy the Thames. All of our new signs will be friendlier (if a sign can be friendly) and at Teddington Lock, the Environment Agency has agreed that the site will be their first in the country to have their new signs designed to greet people to the Thames rather than to just warn them of impending hazard and danger.

Another feature of the river that so often gets overlooked are the magnificent railings. One of the nicest sections of railing runs between Twickenham Bridge and Thistleworth along Isleworth Promenade. At the moment these are being restored by the London’s Arcadia project.

The railings were in a shocking state of repair and needed quite extensive works to bring them back to their former glory. Where the railings did not need to be replaced they are being restored (but not straitened) in situ. This involves sanding off successive layers of paint, priming and finally painting. Unfortunately many of the rails were so bad that they needed to be replaced completely. The money from the Heritage Lottery Fund, generous local donations and a grant from Octagon Developments for the Arcadia project has allowed us to take mouldings of these historic railings and replicate them to reinstate any broken sections. All materials have been chosen because of their historic authenticity. The replacement railings have been hand made in cast iron at a 200-year foundry that specialises in restorative work. Even the top coat of paint has been carefully selected and approved by English Heritage to match the historic colouring of the railings whilst blending with the colour of the original light columns and Twickenham Bridge.

The work along Isleworth Promenade started in May and should be finished by September. It is being carried out by community service workers referred to us by the probation service. Coming out a couple days a week, between 7 and 15 people work on each shift. The quality of the work has been excellent and every hour can be used to match fund the Heritage Lottery Grant that paid for the restoration work.

It is important for us to log all volunteer work that is carried out for the London’s Arcadia project. As with all Heritage Lottery Funded schemes we need to raise funds to match their contributions. Some of this can be ‘in kind’ such as volunteer labour. There are different rates that can be claimed. Unskilled for example is £50 per day, semi skilled £150 and skilled £300 per day. Volunteering is weaved into all of work and so far this year 7,000 hours have been logged. Anyone can help and volunteers range from families wanting to help out on the river to the Director of Environment at Richmond Council. Even local resident Bamber Gascoigne has been out to help us several times – it really is very good fun.

Another set of railings that have been restored this summer by the London’s Arcadia project are along the brow of Richmond Hill. Work started in May and has been carried out in partnership with the local community and HM Prison, Latchmere House in Ham. As part of their resettlement programme, the prison is providing help in conjunction with the Ham and Petersham Association. Several keen volunteers from the prison have been working hard sanding and painting the railings all summer long and they are now looking excellent.

A recent improvement to the appearance of the riverside has been the completion of works along Cholmondeley Walk with the re-surfacing of the towpath in sealed gravel. What a difference this has made and really finishes the job off. It is difficult to remember now just what a mess the area was in a few years ago. Burnt out bins and rotten benches, broken raised planters, ditches full of litter and large areas of concrete (now covered by grass). The bollards were broken and the lovely cobbles layered in tarmac.

On a site visit to this area a couple of weeks ago I took along a group of visiting historians from Holland and Germany. As we walked by the river I was so pleased with our work but they found it hard to understand what (if anything) we had done. This, I took as the greatest compliment to the work. To the casual visitor little has changed along the river – we hope it looks just as it should. One of the successes of good conservation is the principle of minimum intervention, i.e. only to do what is necessary. Arcadia is not about creating fancy new riverside parks rather to restore, connect and open up what is already there, building on the existing character. This does not mean that there is not change but change is kept to a minimum.

There will be more opportunities to volunteer over the summer. The next event is being organised by the Environment Trust for Richmond on August 11th between 6.00-8.00pm at Bridge House gardens by Richmond Bridge. The enhancement works here are now completed but there is still such a lot of watering and weeding to the new flowerbeds that needs to take place. The Environment Trust has also been working with Tower School in Barnes to repair the wooden fence along River Lane in Petersham and a recent £5k grant from Richmond Parish Lands will allow us to carry out more hedgerow work in Ham and installation of bird boxes in partnership with Positive Action for Young People and BTCV. If you would like to help just phone us up on 020 8891 7399 or alternately just enjoy the summer along the magical Arcadian Thames.

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