Well, would you? Probably not in its present, deleterious state, but what if it were safe? Now, perhaps?
For a month, the people of Paris, France, have been enjoying something akin to Highgate Ponds with a view of the Eiffel Tower, an experience made possible by a €1.4 billion clean-up initiated for last year’s Olympics. Although it may be tempting to picture rat-infested waters in the city that gave us Ratatouille, the project has not been half-hearted. Parisians are ecstatic. Londoners — and Britons — are jealous.
Demand for Thames swimming in urban areas is high. Freshwater bathing in the UK has exploded in popularity post-pandemic, despite the deterioration of our rivers through sewage spills and poor maintenance. Copenhagen in Denmark and Vienna in Austria, which regularly top the Economist Intelligence Unit’s index of the world’s most liveable cities, offer in the Harbour and the Danube waterways that are popular with citizens in search of a healthy, refreshing pastime.
People over here want the same. Last year, London Mayor Sadiq Khan pledged to ‘clean up our waterways too and build a plan to make rivers swimmable again within 10 years’. Yet the Port of London Authority insists that the tidal Thames, which flows from Teddington Lock out to the North Sea, will never be safe to swim in. Some have thrown caution to the wind (so-called ‘guerilla swimmers’ regularly team up for laps between Kew and Hammersmith Bridges), but goodwill alone won’t cut it. A clean-up is needed and will come at a heavy cost. The Thames is grislier than the Seine, which is quainter, narrower and easier to tame
The tidal Thames has welcomed lidos before: from 1875–85, people could take a dip in an indoor pool along Victoria Embankment. A 2021 study by architectural practice Studio Octopi showed how a Thames Baths pipedream could become reality, with modular pools opposite Old City Hall that could rise and fall with the tide and use reedbeds to filter out junk. Progress has been hampered by chronic under-investment and massive debt (Thames Water owes a staggering £19 billion). Many will write off the situation as Kafkaesque, but some in politics believe there’s a clear solution: bringing water companies back into public ownership. With such demand for swimming in the Thames, this is a landmark proposition.
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'I really believe they increase productivity': If you want to get ahead, bring your dog to the officeEnhancing employee morale and increasing productivity is no longer reliant on outdated management techniques. The solution is simple, and on four legs.
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The curious incident of the vanishing glasshouses: Country Life's photographs are all that remains of these awe-inspiring structuresThe ‘winter garden’ and the ‘terraced grounds of exquisite beauty’ were two of Cherkley Court’s featured attractions. They were advertised for sale in Country Life in 1910 — and then they vanished.
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'I really believe they increase productivity': If you want to get ahead, bring your dog to the office
Enhancing employee morale and increasing productivity is no longer reliant on outdated management techniques. The solution is simple, and on four legs.
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‘She’s absolutely everything to me. She’s my future, my hope, my light’: How Labrador retrievers went from catching fish to saving livesAs International Assistance Dog Awareness Week comes to an end, we celebrate the Labrador retriever, one of the most cherished and versatile dog breeds.
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Reading al fresco: The best places in London to get lost in the written word, according to the Country Life teamIn London, north, east, south and west, there's a public place suitable for all performative acts of reading.
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Marsh Harriers: The wetland-loving bird that defied the odds to reconquer British skiesMark Cocker's first ever sighting of the bird was at Minsmere, Suffolk, in 1976 — and he's never forgotten it.
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Louis Wain: The Edwardian artist who was 'perhaps the best PR cats have ever had'The artist's fascination with cats is the subject of a show at Chris Beetles Gallery which will feature 25 previously unseen works by Wain.
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Killer whales: The perilously rare and super-smart predator we risk loosing from British waters foreverThey’ve recently made headlines for interfering with boats, but intelligent, family-focused and remarkably long-lived orcas–better known as killer whales–contain multitudes.
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‘Though she be but little, she is fierce’: Everything you didn't know about sparrowhawksScourge of the bird feeder and a master of ‘shock and awe’ assassinations, the sparrowhawk pursues its quarry with such tenacity and unpredictability that it often blindsides its prey.
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An ode to Britain's wildflowers, from the London bloom which grew in the craters of the Blitz, to the weather-predicting scarlet pimpernelDecorating the land with their brilliant and varied hues, our native flora which operate as clocks, calendars and Nature’s medicine cabinet are blooming brilliant, says John Lewis-Stempel.
