Original subtitles

I've always been fascinated by the River Thames.

It runs right through the place where I was born.

London, where my family have lived for 300 years.

As a teenager I worked in the docks.

You wouldn't recognise it.

Not one of these buildings was here.

It's the river that built Britain.

Now I'm going to get to know it even more intimately,

to find out what makes this one of the greatest rivers in the world.

I'm following it from source to sea

along the Thames Path National Trail,

Europe's longest riverside walk.

Is that the water?

From its humble beginnings in Gloucestershire...

I can look at it for hours.

..to down river...

Would the boats come down on this? Yes!

..where I learn how we tamed the Thames...

It would've been chaos, wouldn't it? It would!

..for trade...

Wow, this is all sugar?

It's like the pyramids!

..and pleasure.

You can really imagine, can't you, being Victorian,

leaving work on Friday afternoon,

getting back after lunch on the Monday?

I'll meet people whose lives revolve around the Thames.

I'm a porter. A fish porter.

Man and boy.

I think we'll make a boat builder out of you yet, Tony. Yes, sure!

And, over the course of my 200 mile journey,

I'll witness an extraordinary transformation.

From a trickle in a field,

to the lifeblood of our capital.

Money, money, money. Money everywhere!

And finally, how it becomes a magnificent giant

as it merges with the sea.

Join me, Tony Robinson, walking the Thames.

I'm a little bit stymied here.

I think I'm in the right field.

Look, it says there, the source of the River Thames,

and underneath in brackets, "spring".

But I can't see anything, other than green grass and dandelions.

The source is not what I imagined.

I'm in the next field now.

There is something kind of grey and square there.

Can you see it?

That could be an inscription.

Oh, yes.

It's definitely something.

Almost impossible to read what it says.

"This stone was..." Something, something, something...

"Source of the River Thames". That's it, isn't it?

Here we are. Thames Barrier London 184 miles, 294km.

But it is a bit of an anti-climax

because look, source of the Thames,

no water whatsoever!

But I would like to find a sort of wet source of the Thames.

300 years ago, there was usually a stream here.

But, with a growing population, industry and agriculture,

all extracting water from the layers of limestone below,

it now only flows in the wettest winters.

But, about a mile away, there is a more reliable source.

Is that water?

Oh, yes, that's a bit more promising.

Look at this!

Lydwell. That's a proper source of a river, isn't it?

It's so satisfying. I could look at it for hours.

Certainly, the Anglo Saxons were aware of this place,

and the Bronze Age people, as well as the Romans.

In past centuries,

it was common to leave offerings in the river

because it was believed to have spiritual or mystical powers.

The Romans seem to have been particularly keen on the practice.

They take something that meant something to them.

A sword, or a badge, or a brooch, or something.

Break it and put it in.

So I thought I would do something similar,

asking for good luck on my journey.

This is a spoon that was among the things that I got

when my mum died, and I remember it vividly from when I was a kid.

Eating the odd boiled egg from it.

So, I'm sacrificing it.

I was thinking of chucking it in,

but it probably isn't very good form to clutter the river.

I'm going to bury it, but I'm not going to bury it right here,

cos someone will only come along and dig it up.

I'm not going to tell you where.

With the spoon sorted and water found, my walk can begin.

The first leg of my journey takes me from the source, close to Kemble

near Cirencester, through a little changed landscape

of Cotswold villages and historic trading towns

to the dreaming spires of Oxford, about 50 miles away.

I'm following the infant River Thames.

Right now, it's hard to believe it's had such an influence on Britain.

But, within a few miles, the trickle has already grown

to a fast flowing stream.

On its journey to London,

the River Thames travels at between 2.5mph and 3mph.

So, by my calculations, it should be going through the Thames Barrier...

There it goes!

..in just three days.

There's no way I can keep up with that stick.

It takes even seasoned walkers around 12 days to reach London.

The first village on the river is Ashton Keynes,

south of Cirencester.

It's best known for the 16 bridges that straddle the Thames

to access houses on the main street.

And it's got some reminders of a violent past.

It's a 14th century cross that had its head whipped off by Cromwell's

men during the English Civil War.

The puritanical Roundheads deplored symbols of Catholicism,

and four crosses in the village suffered at their hands.

I can see why they would have wanted to put a brick

through a stained glass window in a cathedral

because they hated Catholic iconography,

but just to take the top off that seems a bit rubbish really.

The Thames here was powerful enough to power a water mill.

The Doomsday Book records one in 1086 -

that made the village more important than average.

But it never grew into a town because the river is too shallow

for boats to trade here.

That's why the heart of Ashton Keynes has remained largely

unchanged for centuries.

These images were taken over 100 years ago.

I'm going around...

There we are.

It really hasn't changed. There's a phone box and a car,

that's about all the differences are!

Local historians believe postcards like these were sent to soldiers

fighting in the trenches of the First World War

to remind them of England and what they were fighting for.

This is the quintessential English village, isn't it?

You half expect a load of Disney peasant women to leap out

and start singing a song.

In these upper stretches of the Thames, you can clearly see

the river's flood plain in its original natural state.

In long periods of wet weather,

it's normal for the Thames to overflow its banks

and, because the surrounding meadows haven't been built on,

they can absorb the water, rather like a giant sponge.

When it's tipping down with rain, like it is now,

it's important to know how fast the river's flowing,

whether it's flooding, whether it's banks are being eroded,

in order to protect the villages and towns along the Thames.

So I'm about to meet a group of hydrologists

who know that sort of thing,

and are using the most modern tech in order to understand the river.

Down river, where many of the meadows like these

have been built on,

there's less capacity to absorb water that overflows the river banks

leaving homes and businesses at risk of flooding,

with potentially devastating effects.

Work to prevent that is the responsibility

of Environment Agency scientists, like Nick Everard.

Oh, terrible old weather today, isn't it?

Oh, yeah. Well, this is job security for us.

Without the rain we wouldn't have a job.

What are you doing? We're trying to understand the total flow rate

of the river so that we can understand how to balance

the flow of water down the river

for water supply, for agriculture, for the environment and ecology.

In times of high flow, we need to manage flooding

and understand where to put flood defences,

but also forecast and understand

the magnitude of future events we might have.

To help achieve all this,

the scientists use an acoustic radio controlled boat

with an onboard sensor to detect water depth and speed.

The agency also monitors water quality,

and Rachael Shacklady is testing for indicators of rural pollution...

..such as sewage, slurry and fertiliser.

We can measure the temperature of the water, the conductivity,

the PH, and also, the ammonium. That's the poo and the pee!

Exactly! That is, so human waste or agricultural waste.

It helps us to see the quality of the water. And it's taking

a reading right now? It is, would you like me to get some data up?

Yeah! So here, each line represents a different parameter.

What's that spike there?

This is turbidity. What? Turbidity.

If you have quite heavy rainfall, it can stir up lots of dissolved

organic material... Like what, mud?

Yeah, mud, whatever's being kicked up in the water.

The orange line here is the ammonium like you mentioned earlier.

The poo and the pee. Exactly.

And then you've got the blue line - this is the nice dissolved oxygen.

If you start to see levels dipping down quite low,

that can cause fish kills and you can see that's reading 97.3%.

We've got a healthy river. We do indeed.

Just along the bank, the sensor on the boat

has now relayed its data back to Nick.

We've finished the measurement,

and we can see how much water is going down the river.

It's 15,000 litres a second.

Cor! Put another way, it's 15 tonnes of water every second.

In the summer, this can get as low as one, but in a flood

it can get up to about 80.

So essentially, everything's under control. Everything's under control.

The river's behaving exactly as we'd like it to, so everything's good.

It's good news today,

but the Thames has the most densely populated river basin in the UK

with 13 million residents,

so continued monitoring is vital.

That boat is a real asset.

Is it particularly complex to operate?

It's so simple that dare I say you can have a go yourself?

It would have to be very simple!

It is, believe me.

All right. I haven't done one of these before.

This one is power, so "forward" makes the boat go forward,

"backwards" makes it go backwards,

and this one is steering with rudders,

and you get the idea - it's easy to drive,

and that's a beautiful circle you've just driven on the Thames

to prove the point!

As you've just discovered, the boat can go quite fast!

It can, can't it?! Do you want to give it a top speed run? Yeah!

So get it pointed straight upriver and then push that one all the way.

Whoa! Go, my son!

Go, my son! Just steer it a little way away from the bank!

I love your nervous laugh! Yeah.

You know, it's not that cheap, the boat that's out there.

How much did it cost? The boat is about £15,000,

and the sensor on it is rather more than that.

It turns out I'm driving 40 grand's worth of kit.

Let's come back towards...

It's a push to get it back!

My laugh is getting more nervous by the minute, isn't it?

But... Shall I bring it back, and then you can... I can do this!

Ah, you're turning.

Yup... It looks as though you knew exactly what you were doing.

I did.

Oh, that was great! It actually made a rainy day very fun.

Oh, good. Thank you.

The rain's even stopped and the sun's trying to come out.

Look at that! What a joy.

It'll go back in, any moment.

I'm following the mighty Thames from its source,

right down to the sea.

I'm now about 23 miles down river,

near the town of Lechlade, a significant point on my journey.

This is the Thames, of course, but over there,

beyond that weeping willow, is its tributary, the Coln.

It's one of 38 main tributaries along the length of the river.

And where the Coln joins it,

suddenly the river gets much bigger.

In fact, this is the official start of motorised navigation

on the Thames, and what that means is that, for the last few hours,

I've seen virtually nobody, but up ahead, there'll be loads of people.

This now bigger Thames makes Lechlade the furthest

large boats can travel upriver.

So it's a busy spot.

In the past, it helped the town grow through trade

as a gateway for goods moving between the Cotswolds and London.

So the plan is I'll meet up with a bloke called Bob,

and blag a lift down the next stretch of the river.

Bob Ring is one of a handful of licensed crayfish trappers.

We're meeting at St John's Lock,

the first of 45 between here and London.

Excuse me? Are you Bob? Yes, I am.

Hi, I'm Tony. Hi, Tony.

Is it OK if I do the next leg of my journey with you?

Yeah, of course. Hop on.

I think old Father Thames is rooting for me.

He was originally commissioned for the Crystal Palace,

but he's been here since 1974.

In return for catching a lift with Bob...

Going down.

..I'm expected to do a little grafting.

Get off. There we go.

The original lock on this site was built in 1790.

Part of a series of works that allowed larger boats to navigate

up the Thames, making the river the trade superhighway of its time.

Used to be incredibly busy years and years ago -

from Lechlade, you could go all the way down to London,

but in the late 18th century they built the Thames and Severn canal,

which came through into here.

And once you'd got that, then you could also go east-west,

right down as far as Bristol,

which meant there was loads of traffic coming here. You'd got...

Oh, excuse me.

You got cheese, and you got wool,

and you got stone...

Well, the stone that actually built St Paul's Cathedral came down here.

Hugely busy - you'd never think it now, would you?

From the mid 1800s, the coming of the railways

made boat transport of cargo ever less financially viable.

That's not to say no-one makes a living from the river any more.

Bob does it by catching American signal crayfish.

The species was introduced to the UK in the 1970s to be farmed

for food, but many escaped into the wild.

Only later was it discovered they're carriers of a plague

fatal to native crayfish.

Well, there they are wandering around,

completely immune to the thing they carry, but all are native ones

are falling over.

On the Thames, the problem is currently so severe

it's thought native crayfish have declined by over 95%.

And these you've pulled out from the river? Yup.

And these are American. These are American signals.

What does the signal mean? It refers to the sort of white knuckles.

When you see them, they're sort of almost signalling to each other.

So when that one's waving its little claw now... Yeah.

..he's showing us the little white flag.

He is, or he's making some sort of gesture anyway some.

Some sort of gesture indeed!

Bob does crayfish removal to try to keep the pests under control.

And, he's developed a niche market,

selling some of the catch to restaurants,

and making dishes such as Louisiana gumbo

for events and festivals.

I do the gumbo at Glastonbury.

Do you? It's a big seller.

I was the Sustainable Trader of the Year in 2014. Yay!

The Glastonbury Sustainable Trader of the Year. That's right.

Something's been bugging me.

And, as we set off to check the traps set last night,

the penny drops.

I didn't realise this, but this is absolutely true.

I didn't recognise Bob,

but we had known each other 30 years ago.

He used to be a publicity photographer.

I worked on a very rude show called Who Dares Wins,

and Bob has actually taken photographs of me in the nude.

I have, I'm afraid. I think the ad might have originally been

Pure Genius. That's right.

Yeah. Yeah. It was a parody of that ad.

Well, I'm glad I've shared that with you!

Anyway, back to business.

Underneath the water there will be crayfish?

There will be crayfish.

It is a little early season, so not all of them are out and about.

Bob's baited his pots with mackerel, so fingers crossed.

No, not a thing.

Nothing here.

Typical. There must be millions of little blighters,

but they're camera shy.

Ah! Right, at last.

Yay, result! So many times over the years I've done this -

"Let's go out and see if we can catch something", and you never do!

But, triumph!

Champion! Champion!

Back on the boat we cook up Bob's signature dish of crayfish gumbo,

a mix of crayfish, spicy sausage, spuds, and corn on the cob.

With butter, extra spice,

and a jolly good mixing in the slightly unorthodox serving bowl,

our haute cuisine is ready.

It doesn't look incredibly appetising... Does it not?

It looks like what's left over at the end of a tsunami.

I think you find it's pretty tasty.

I'll be the judge of that.

Nice, isn't it? Mm. Yes.

Unexpected free meal from the Thames.

Not that the sweet corn and potatoes grew in the Thames,

but you know what I mean.

It's quite blowy now, isn't it? It's picked up a bit.

Cheers, mate. It's been an absolute pleasure, Tony. Lovely to see you.

Yeah, lovely to see you after 30 years!

See you later.

As I head east along the path, it's increasingly clear

crayfish are the only invaders to cause worry along the Thames.

Ever since leaving Lechlade,

I've been seeing these fortified guard posts,

evidence of the river's strategic importance.

I've got to the part of the Thames where there are a lot of pillboxes

around - in fact along here, there's one every half mile,

and that is because, in the Second World War,

if the Germans had invaded by land,

then the Thames was going to be the line of defence to stop them

getting to the Midlands and the North.

In the summer of 1940, after the evacuation from Dunkirk,

the threat of a German invasion became very real.

If Britain's coastal defences failed,

Stop Line Red, following the Thames,

was to be part of a series of defensive stop lines

that would at least prevent Rommel's Panzer divisions

advancing into our industrial heartland to the North.

I've got a rendezvous with a bunch of people who know quite a lot

about those defences, although they're not here yet, which is odd,

because I was supposed to see them at 1600 hours and it's now...

Good Lord!

Bill King and his re-enactors honour the memory of the men who defended

this area with displays each summer.

I'm a friend! I'm a friend!

Oh, Bill, you saved me from a terrible fate!

Can we go and have a look at these guys? Who were they?

Who would they have been?

We're now looking at members of the Oxfordshire Home Guard.

Dad's Army poked fun at the Home Guard,

but in reality, they had a deadly serious mission,

to hinder a German invasion.

Men with crucial civilian jobs,

or those too young or old for the regular forces, could volunteer.

And, by July 1940, 1.5 million had done so.

These two have got different coloured hats.

These two are Upper Thames Patrol.

The patrol was formed prior to the Home Guard.

So these two have got seniority over the others

from that point of view.

What was their job? To look after the river, to make sure

that the locks and the weirs are protected and not sabotaged.

If the Germans had invaded, what would they have had to do?

Oh, literally, this was going to be the last ditch defence,

and so the pillboxes would have been hard points,

but their task literally would have been to blow the bridges.

The enemy are coming from the south.

Their job is to prevent them from crossing the river.

As well as blowing up the bridges,

the brief was to open the weirs and locks so the surrounding land

would flood and bog down a mechanised invasion.

Who would have built the pillboxes? Would it have been guys like this?

Oh, no. These were all done by either civilian contractors,

or by Royal Pioneer Corps. It was done in about six to eight weeks.

How many did they make in six or eight weeks?

About 5,000.

Wow! It must have been frantic!

It was. But they were never used because the Germans didn't invade.

The Battle of Britain took place. The enemy never got air superiority,

and as a consequence they were never able to cross the Channel.

But these guys would have stopped them. Oh, absolutely.

Fine body of men.

Shall we put them through their paces? Oh, definitely. I think so.

Upper Thames, stand fast. Oxfordshire Home Guard.

Fit bayonets!

Attention!

There's a couple a bit slow behind you, but by and large,

they were pretty impressive.

I do notice one thing, Corporal.

One of your Home Guard has an earring.

Forgot to take it out this morning.

Well, thank you ever so much for coming out.

And Bill, thanks for all that information.

How far is Radcot? Two miles straight downstream. Right.

Well, that's where I'm going now. Good luck! Cheers! See you!

In my journey along the length of the Thames,

I'm looking at a river that's dramatically different

from the one I grew up with.

Here on the upper reaches of the Thames,

it's peaceful, undisturbed.

River looks lovely.

In fact, the Thames is cleaner now

than it has been at any time in the last 500 years.

When I was a kid in London in the 1950s,

the lower reaches of the river were polluted by industry

and wartime damage to the sewers.

Bacteria in sewage used the oxygen in water,

leaving little for other life forms.

By 1957, the water quality was so bad

the Natural History Museum declared London's river biologically dead.

Today, I'm back with the Environment Agency

which has achieved a massive turnaround,

cleaning up the whole length of the river.

Hi! Ah, morning! What are you doing, guys?

Rab's come from our fish farm at Calverton

to stock some fish in the Thames for us.

Stuart Mannering is releasing 1,200 Chub and Barbel

to boost the fish population,

and ensure there are enough for anglers,

whose license fees helped pay for this work.

You want to hop up and have a look? Yes, sure.

We'll fish a few out for you, see what we've got.

Oh, wow! Loads of them! So, these are the Chub. How old are they?

These are a year old,

and then round the other side, we've got some Barbel.

These are a little bigger, they might splash.

They're big boys, aren't they?

With so many fish to release, I'm gonna get togged up to lend a hand.

As an actor, I'm used to costume changes

but this is way more strenuous...

Come on. Come on.

..worrying...

Hope I don't need a pee.

..and deeply unflattering.

Tweedledum.

Off I go!

First up for release are some chub.

They're just part of around 20,000 fish the agency releases

each year into the Thames.

The key is finding a nice easy spot to get down to the river...

Oh, yeah. ..nice, gentle banks. Easy access here. Yeah.

Peak time for release is winter and spring when the water temperature

in the Thames roughly matches the cool temperatures of the farm

where the fish were raised.

Right, you ready? Yep.

We gently drop them in.

Freedom. There we go.

Do they seem to adapt pretty well to the wild?

Or do you find loads of them belly-up in a couple of days?

Oh, they're gone and they're shooting off

to find the niches to live in.

Stuart and his colleagues work with farmers, landowners and

fishing clubs to improve river habitats so the fish population

can become more self-sustaining.

Blimey!

It's all right, don't panic.

You're going in the water.

The chubs should start reproducing once they're about

four or five years old, and these barbel at three or four.

So with any luck, these guys will be 600mm long in ten years,

weighing 10, 12 pounds.

Those actually are called barbels, aren't they?

Those things sticking from its mouth? Yeah, that's what it's using

to rummage around in all the sediment and the sand,

looking for invertebrates, and these are sensitive feelers.

Beautiful fish, aren't they? Yeah.

You're not out of the water any more. Go on, my son.

Oh! Hey-hey, he's gone.

There were barbel in this river in medieval times, weren't they?

You see them written about in the documents. Absolutely, yes.

Yeah. The Thames was very different back then.

Happily, things seem to be coming full circle...

..there are around 125 species of fish along the Thames now.

And a healthier river has drawn back other wildlife, such as otters...

..and even seals in the lower reaches.

It's so unlike that vision of the Thames that I used to have

as a child as a place where the river was virtually black.

The chronic pollution in the Thames, hopefully, those days are done now.

Fingers crossed. Yeah.

Old Father Thames keeps rolling along. It does.

Oh, my feet are stuck!

Having extracted myself from the mud,

there's a peaceful 16 miles to my next stop.

Walking along a river mile after mile,

you tend not see anything particularly dramatic.

So when you're confronted with something like that...

..you go, "Oh, wow, look at that engineering.

"See the light bouncing off the stone?"

And in fact that bridge, Swinford,

is very interesting because it's one of only two toll bridges

on the whole of the River Thames.

I suppose there's the Dartford Crossing,

but I'm not sure that counts.

Before the bridge was built, there was just a ferry.

The story goes that King George III received a right royal dunking

after his carriage slipped off the ferry and into the river.

He was not amused,

and got the Earl of Abingdon to foot the bill for a bridge.

In return, the Earl got the right to collect tolls,

entirely tax-free, forever.

Sounds like something I should try.

Thank you.

Hello.

Thank you.

Tax-free for life! That's not bad, is it? Ta.

No wonder that, when the bridge was sold in 2009...

Thank you. ..it went for a million quid.

I mean, think about it. 5p for a car, 20p for a bus... Ta.

I reckon I must have made £1.40 in

the time it's taken to tell you that.

It may roll in fast, but I've got to hand it over.

The bridge has a toll house, and in it lives the manager, Paul Batty.

Don't shake my hand, take my money. OK! Well done.

The house comes complete with this idyllic garden.

Which side you going to sit?

Just get the...

How much did we do? ..money! That's not bad, is it?

Ten minutes' work.

How long do you reckon they've been tolling here?

The bridge opened August 1769,

and they've been collecting tolls ever since.

Under the original Act of Parliament,

which I've got a copy of here... Yeah? ..for the Earl of Abingdon.

And it was tax-free?

There was very clever wording that was put into the original Act

that said, "Forever".

The Act details the price for anything to cross the bridge.

"Any carriage with four wheels, the sum of four pence.

"With less than four wheels, the sum of two pence.

"For every horse, mare, gelding, mule, or ass laden or unladen,

"drawing or not drawing, the sum of one penny.

"For every ox..." blah, blah "every sheep, every lamb..."

I mean, it's really detailed, isn't it? It is, yeah.

Charges could only be raised by Act of Parliament,

which they were, in 1994, to help cover the cost of maintenance.

But if you don't want to cough up...

..there's an alternative.

We close at 9pm at night.

Ah! So it's all free at night.

Do you ever get people waiting at 8:55?

On a Wednesday, my friend, he waits till nine o'clock before he comes.

So far, my journey following the Thames from source to sea

has covered 47 miles to Swinford Bridge.

From here, it's only about six miles to Oxford.

Before the hurly-burly of the city,

there's a haven for wildlife in the ancient woodland at Wytham Woods

which borders the path.

It belongs to Oxford University,

and the habitats here have been studied since the 1920s,

giving real insights into conservation in a changing world.

Further on, just to the west of the city centre,

there's another project that's all about

creating a more sustainable future.

I love the way the bits of our natural environment are used

for, virtually, the same function for hundreds of years.

So...an Iron Age hill fort becomes a Norman castle,

a Roman temple becomes a church.

And 850 years ago, right here,

the monks of Osney Abbey built a water wheel,

and they're still harnessing the power of the river here today.

The Osney Lock Hydro generates hydroelectric power from the Thames,

supplying green energy to the national grid.

Hi, Saskia. Hi!

Can I get in? Yeah, absolutely.

Saskia Huggins is one of the team which runs it.

Welcome to Osney Lock Hydro! Thank you.

Come and have a look. This is basically a pretty small building

with a great big screw running through it, isn't it?

That pretty much sums it up, yeah.

If we get closer, we can see what's going on.

I wasn't wrong, was I? It really is a big screw in a small box.

Absolutely massive.

This giant 11-tonne hunk of metal

is being turned by the force of the river to create electricity.

It has four blades, and it's over four metres long.

It's actually a really ancient technology. Archimedean screw, yeah.

Yep, it's exactly the same technology.

The Archimedes' screw,

supposedly invented by the ancient Greek scientist,

is a method to lift water up, for example, to pump out a ship's hold.

It uses a source of energy, such as men or oxen, to turn a screw.

The screw forces the water up to where it's needed.

At the hydro, that principle is used in reverse to create energy.

Instead of us putting power in to turn the water up,

we're using the power of the water to turn the screw,

which we're then turning into electricity.

At this point on the Thames,

tributary rivers such as the Churn and the Windrush, as well as

the Colne, have all joined, boosting the volume of water.

There can be up to 50,000 litres per second flowing through,

but it varies dramatically.

So, here you really get to appreciate the force of the water

as it's flowing over this point of the river.

It's a real gush, isn't it?

This is a community project.

The lion's share of the start-up costs was funded by local people.

Yet, in an average year, it generates the equivalent

of enough electricity for 55 homes.

Osney Island resident, Doctor Barbara Hammond,

has been heavily involved.

You were actually there at the start of this project, weren't you?

Yeah. Way back in 2001.

We asked the community on Osney Island

whether they wanted local renewables,

and they all came back and said, "Well, we want hydro at the weir."

Will it actually generate more money than it cost? Yeah. Yeah.

This project is a 40-year project.

But over its lifetime, it should raise well over £1 million.

For a local environmental project.

The hydro's been running since 2015, and it could be a blueprint

for similar projects elsewhere on the Thames.

This one relies on daily maintenance by volunteers.

We have a trash screen to stop big things going into the screw

and breaking the screw.

And we have to keep that trash screen clear in order to

keep the power output at its optimum with the river conditions.

I'm getting a funny feeling where this is heading...

We haven't cleared the trash screen yet so we were wondering

if you might like to help. Thought so...

The great thing about being in show business is the exotic jobs

you get asked to do.

I'm going to clear the trash screen.

There's some rather fetching safety gear to don...

..and a choice of tools.

Which would you like?

I rather like this because it's more medieval.

I've no idea why I need a yoga mat...

Yep, really good.

..but the ladies seem suspiciously cheerful.

Ow! It's quite sharp, isn't it?

It's all designed to be non-slip.

Yeah. Not great for your knees.

Typical male reaction.

I thought, I don't need a mat, that's a bit girlie,

but it's like torture.

It's like being a bit of cheese on a grater.

While they watch in comfort,

I have the joyous task of hooking debris away from the screen

so it's harmlessly swept clear of the screw.

It's a great workout.

Do you ever get really big things caught in this?

We had a really disgusting thing last week.

It was a dead sheep.

Oh, you're joking. Nope.

There we go. Hooray!

Oh, it's come back in again. Get away.

I really admire this thoroughness.

Aarrggrrrr...

Oh, great! Fantastic!

I feel you're patronising me slightly!

What we're trying to do is keep the water level across the trash screen.

It's beautifully level now so thank you.

Don't call me if there's another sheep, will you?

Twigs, I can handle,

but before anything nasty floats my way... Lovely to meet you both.

..I'm going to bid farewell.

Thanks so much for your help. Power to the people.

THEY LAUGH

I'm walking the Thames from source to sea.

At the end of this first leg I've reached Central Oxford.

The abbots of St Frideswide founded a monastery here close to the river.

The origins of the university are hard to pinpoint

but by the 12th century the presence of several monastic houses

in and around Oxford made it a gathering place for learned men.

Oxford is built on a lot of little islands where the Cherwell

meets the Thames.

That's why you've got all these waterways winding

their way throughout it.

The Thames helped the city grow.

Stone to create some of its finest buildings came down river

from the Cotswolds and paper came upriver from London to supply

the Oxford University Press.

But where you've got waterways you need a means to get round them,

hence the punt.

These flat bottom boats were just the thing for workaday jobs

such as carrying small cargoes, ferrying people or fishing.

But what in previous centuries was the utilitarian white van

that everybody used, by the end of the 19th century

it was the craft of choice for the leisure classes.

Like one of them, I fancy enjoying the views.

My guide is Simon Wenham.

Hi, Simon. Hello, good to meet you. And you.

He's got a doctorate in the history of Oxford boating.

If I stay in the middle will I be all right? Yes, absolutely.

This is all right, isn't it?

Thank you very much.

From the mid 19th century the city's relationship with its river shifted

from business to leisure.

The Salter Brothers boat company became influential

in popularising pleasure boating.

There was steamer trips along the Thames and punts built as leisure

craft rather than working boats.

How long do you reckon there have been punts on this river?

The punt itself is an ancient boat.

Julius Caesar referred to the Latin ponto which is where we get

the word punt from.

They've been on the River Thames certainly since Saxon times

and probably before, given that they were there in Roman times in Gaul.

In terms of pleasure boats that's a fairly recent innovation.

Just over 100 years they've been very popular for leisure.

Two design changes were important.

One is the narrowing of the craft

which makes it a lot more manoeuvrable,

and the other was the introduction of the saloon seating

which you are sitting in in the middle,

and that allowed for people to sit in the centre and that actually made

the pursuit a lot more of a sort of sociable pastime.

Punting was considered a suitable pastime for young ladies including

those from the university's women's colleges.

By the Edwardian era it was so popular

there were a thousand punts in Oxford.

They're not that easy to manoeuvre, really, are they?

If you're a beginner they can be quite difficult.

What's the trick? I would say there's a couple of things.

One is, when you drop the pole firstly to feel if it's muddy.

It can be difficult to pull out and you can lose your balance.

And the other one is, once you've pushed off to use the pole

as a rudder behind you.

So, if you want to steer to the left you just push it in the water

that way and if you do it to the right you steer to the right.

Can I have a go? You can indeed. Absolutely.

Before I even get to the punting bit there's the challenge of swapping

ends, which seems one high and one low is the way to avoid a ducking.

Have you punted before? Never punted before.

Oh, wow. I know I look like a natural... Absolutely!

We're going down the river very efficiently, although sideways!

There's actually such a thing as punt racing.

It evolved in the late 1800s from gentlemen betting on races

between professional boatmen.

To compete seriously I'd need to work on techniques like body swing,

arm drive and back shove.

I've got mixed feelings about my ability as a punter.

On the one hand, we seem to be going fairly straight... Absolutely.

..or at least following the course of the river.

Whoa! On the other hand I got stuck in the tree!

There you are, that explicitly demonstrated

why I'm not the greatest punter in the world!

Still, it's a wonderful way to wind up my tranquil journey

through the upper Thames,

but from here on it's all change.

You've caught me about a third of the way through

my Thames path journey.

Abingdon is just up ahead.

Now, I'm going to be looking at the midsection of the Thames

which for the last hundred years or so has been most famous

for boating and messing about in the river.

From here I'll follow the river as it winds its way

through the beautiful Thames Valley,

stopping off at Henley on Thames,

and then on towards the palace at Hampton Court,

a distance of around 100 miles.

I'm just approaching Abingdon Lock and you see how still and flat

and essentially deep the Thames appears to be.

Well, what I hadn't fully realised was that locks

like this don't just help the boats go to and fro but they also manage

the level of the water all the way along the length of the Thames.

Before there were locks and weirs to partially dam the river,

the Thames hundreds of years ago would have been far too shallow

for all but the smallest of boats.

Today, managing water levels falls to the Environment Agency.

This morning I've got an appointment with lock keeper Richard Hawkins...

Hello, nice to see you.

..to learn the ropes.

You got it, mate. Lovely job.

Morning, folks. If you want to grab a back rope off this gentleman here.

I'm grabbing your back rope.

Does that go round there?

Yeah, we'll just take half a turn round there and pass it back to him.

So how does this work, do I turn this handle?

No, unfortunately not. It's a bit too warm for that.

We're going to cheat and use the buttons instead.

Oh! It's controlled electronically! Yeah. So just push that one in.

Now? Yeah. Go for it. Hold him in nice and tight.

Here we go. Open the gates!

Keep your thumb on it. Oh, all right.

That's it. Not closing the gates...

Closing the gates now. Now we're closing the gates.

Consummate professional, see.

We'll just go all the way until you see them close, bang together,

and that'll make them mitre together nicely.

Once the gates are closed at each end of the chamber, or pound

as it's known, it can be filled or emptied to match the water level

in the direction the boat wants to travel.

OK, Frank, open them up, mate.

OK, my love.

There you go.

And you've got locks like this all the way down the Thames?

Yep, yep. There's 45 locks on the Thames,

plus one extra one on the tidal Thames.

Essentially what they do is, if you imagine before all the locks

were built, the river ran its own course.

It was almost like a slippery slope.

Putting locks in just turns it into a nice gentle staircase.

We've sort of gentrified in a way and made it slightly less dangerous.

Come and see us again.

Bye-bye now.

How many boats do you get going through here on a busy day?

If we said, you know, August would be our busiest month.

We get about 3,000 boats in August alone.

So, on a weekday about 100.

Weekend, 150, maybe a little bit more, so it's nonstop, really,

and we wouldn't just be putting one boat in the lock like that one.

We'd be packing four or five in, all different shapes and sizes,

and that's part of the sort of diplomacy of being a lock keeper,

keeping all the different river users happy.

So, we try our best.

Before modern pound locks like this one were introduced,

travelling up and down the river was far more risky and involved

the use of flash locks.

There was one here at Abingdon in the 17th century which was simply

a series of wooden boards that held the water back

but which could be removed quickly,

allowing boats to ride the resulting flash or cascade of water.

This Victorian weir which is still in use today uses large panels

to hold water back and gives us at least some idea of what it must

have been like for those early and very brave river voyagers.

So, these are like the old boards, only these are made of metal.

Exactly the same principle, yeah.

All we're doing is we've got a removable section.

At the moment it's raised,

so if you can imagine that this was an old style flash lock,

the opening will be slightly bigger because it might be

a bigger boat through here,

but it's the very same idea.

They'd be pulled up on the opposite side, ready to come down.

I'd lift this up... And then this would happen.

They would go down through there.

So, when these boards were lifted you'd get all this wild water,

wouldn't you? Exactly.

As you can see there's a lot of turbulence, a lot of noise,

it's all quite disconcerting.

Would the boats come down on this? Yes, they would.

They'd come through on what we call the flash of water.

They'd come down through. It would have been chaos.

It would, it would.

At Goring flash, weir in the 16th century,

a passenger boat sunk and there was nearly 60 people killed.

To demonstrate the power of the river,

Richard has winched open one of the heavy iron boards but damming

the river again is a lot cruder, a lot more fun,

and involves a large mallet.

One, two, three...

Oh!

I did it! Nicely done.

Listen, listen, listen...

It's silence, isn't it? It's eerily silent, isn't it?

That is so effective.

I bet you're glad you had me here!

Controlling the water level at weirs is part of the job description

for lock keepers like Richard,

and now I've dammed the river, water needs to be released elsewhere

to stop it flooding.

Go and make some tea during this bit.

A little bit more, keep going.

Perfect. Lovely stuff.

And that's it.

Only another eight to go!

And with that I make my excuses and a hasty retreat...

Just passed the lock,

the town of Abington is certainly worth a detour off the river.

It claims to be the oldest continuously occupied town

in Britain.

In the backstreets you can find the remains of an abbey

that was built by Benedictine monks 1,300 years ago.

Once upon a time this was the sixth most powerful abbey

in the whole country.

A massive enterprise.

Now, all that's left is this rather elegant looking building here.

It looks like someone's fairly posh house, doesn't it?

The building was most probably used to accommodate visiting dignitaries.

The most vivid evidence of how glorious this place would once

have been is this...

It's called the Long Gallery now and was built around about 1450.

Although initially it wouldn't have been one long room,

it would have been divided into three.

Look underneath this beam,

you can see the slots where one of the partition walls

would have been and there's loads of slots all the way along here

because this would have been a corridor along which people could

ambulate and look out at that amazing view.

Probably the best indicator of how fantastic the place

would have originally looked is that nobody seems to know quite

how old that wall painting is,

but it does look medieval, doesn't it?

Imagine if this whole room was covered in paintings

which originally would have looked like that.

Pretty stunning.

On a day like today Abingdon is such a beautiful, quiet, tranquil place

but 300 years ago it would have been very different round here.

The wharves were all along here.

This was a place about buying, selling, commerce, industry,

the boats would have been coming in and out all the time, the noise

would have been incredible.

The stink would have been awful from the manufacture of candles,

from the leather tanning, from the brewing.

Talking of which, there were about 50 pubs around here at that time.

So, in order to reflect on what the people of Abingdon used to do

I'm going to go in for a quick one.

I'll see you back on the river.

My Thames path walk has brought me to the almost picture perfect

village of Clifton Hampden in the heart of Oxfordshire.

It's long been renowned for its chocolate box charm

that almost demands that you linger for a while on the river.

It's great just sitting on the bank watching the fish jump up

to catch the flies.

This is the exact opposite of how this place

would have been when the Thames was the main commercial route

out of London.

There were 2,500 of those working the Thames in those days,

a steady stream of them coming up towards Lechlade then turning

on to the canal towards Bristol.

Then, boof, almost overnight the railways came

and the river ceased to be the most viable way

of transporting goods.

And what filled that gap?

Leisure boating.

The Victorians loved it.

By the 19th century,

for middle class Victorians going upriver became the thing to do.

They put on their finest clothes,

dresses and hats for the ladies,

blazers and flannels for the men,

and take to the water.

The more adventurous would think nothing of rowing two or three days

upstream for a little break,

particularly if they had one of those - a skiff.

I might just give it a go myself.

I'd arranged to get on the river with Tom Balm in his antique skiff.

Hi, Tom. Hello. Hi, Tony.

He's something of a classic Thames enthusiast and rents out skiffs

like this to people who want to sample the life

of a Victorian boater.

How long have there been skiffs around for?

I would say the 15th century, 16th century.

There's been skiffs around...

What were they used for then?

They would have been commercial craft for the purposes

of ferrying their customers,

due to the lack of bridges that had been built back then.

You wouldn't have been able to dump much on them.

They wouldn't have been good vessels would they?

They wouldn't have been heavy goods, no. People passaging.

Yeah. Yeah.

It was the versatility of the skiff that led to its popularity

during the leisure boom of the 1880s.

Thousands were built as rental boats.

They came in one or two oar versions.

And there was an option of adding a sail so you could make good

headway on an escape from London.

So are you going to put the sail up?

Yeah. Let's hope we get the wind.

We've got the sculls here to... Get us back.

Reasonable progress. Whoa!

Well saved!

And it's pulled up,

right the way to the top.

Reminds me of a little Thames barge.

And we're making gentle progress there, I believe.

Pull on that rope.

Yeah. A good pull.

You can feel the power in your hands,

the power of the wind.

Oh, yeah, you can really feel the wind kicking, can't you?

Yeah, that's it.

A nice bit of pace.

I love that solitary buzzard up there.

Yeah, you can really imagine, can't you, being Victorian,

taking three days off, leaving work on Friday afternoon, getting back

after lunch on a Monday possibly?

It became popular to camp on trips upriver.

There was even a version of a skiff that came complete with its own tent

and which Tom is keen to demonstrate as a viable option

for accommodation this evening.

So four iron hoops for the complete tent.

People really would sleep overnight in one?

Yeah. Absolutely, yep.

Entire families would sleep on here.

That's ridiculous!

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, you don't really need anything else - you've got your boat.

OK, that's it.

And then it's just draped over the top.

You could say that in a way this was the VW camper van of its day.

Some savvy skiff rental companies even offered a collection service

so when you'd had enough you could simply dump the boat

and make your way back to London by train.

Wahey!

Oh, actually, that took a remarkably short time, didn't it?

I beg your pardon?

SHOUTING: I said...

It took a remarkably short time, actually, didn't it?

They are quick. Yeah.

Where did they sleep? They were a pleasure.

They would have slept underneath the canvas.

And, then, there we have here a bed.

So that's how they would've slept?

That's how they would've slept, yeah.

Just over there?

Absolutely.

Well, that looks that looks really comfortable, Tom.

Let me demonstrate what else they might have done.

Sometimes they depart the skiff like that,

and picked up their bag, and gone to the pub for the night!

Cheers, mate. Right, mate. OK, Tony.

Thanks a lot!

Night-night!

The Thames has long been an important water source,

supplying Oxford, Swindon and 80% of tap water in London.

Every day, five million tonnes of water move along the Thames

as it approaches London.

Of course it's treated before we drink it,

and treated it after we drink it -

which is why I'm taking a short detour off the river at Reading

to find out what goes on at Thames Water's most advanced

sewage plant.

Now, I know this kind of detour might seem a bit weird for

a Thames walker but when I heard that before water from the

upper Thames reaches London it's been recycled eight times,

I had to find out the dirty facts for myself.

Less than 200 years ago the answer for dealing with sewage for many

riverside towns was simply to deposit it in the river -

with disastrous consequences.

In London by the 1850s, as these satirical depictions

of the day show, the Thames was a filthy place,

indeed so full of raw sewage it was quite literally poison,

and outbreaks of cholera and typhoid weren't uncommon.

These days, modern processing plants like this one that services Reading

can recycle raw sewage and return clean water to the environment

in less than 24 hours.

Cheers, mate.

The reason I'm getting all suited and booted up is because Barry here

is going to chuck me in at the deep end in a minute.

I certainly am.

Do you want to come this way, Tony, and I'll show you where it

all comes in? Yeah, yeah.

This is the start of the process.

So that is raw sewage?

That is raw sewage.

An astounding 175 million litres pass through here every day.

It doesn't actually stink as bad as you'd think it would, does it?

It doesn't. Water, it very rarely smells.

But there are still some dirty jobs that need manual handling,

which is where I come in,

removing foreign objects from the inlet screens.

And you can see that's all your rags and plastics...

That's just stuff that's come through the sewer but you can't

process any other way?

There's no way that will dissolve, and we want to get as much rag and

fat and paper and grit out of it as humanly possible.

I can see a few wet wipes there.

Yeah.

I believe this is yours.

Oh, God.

It's part of your training. Just hook it off.

OK, here we go. Lovely stuff!

Blimey, they eat a lot of sweetcorn in Reading, don't they?

They certainly do.

We like to be healthy. Yeah.

Picking through the private deposits of 220,000 Reading residents isn't

exactly the best job in the world.

Just turn the handle and turn it on.

But it needs doing twice a week across eight screens.

It's a bit salty.

The next stage is automated.

The sewage is separated into number ones and number twos.

Liquids are filtered in the settlement ponds, where bacteria

naturally neutralise impurities.

The solids are dealt with by other means.

Right, if you want to know what happens to the poo,

in here it's mixed up with a thickener,

and then it's taken along here,

where it's ploughed and a lot of the water is taken out of it,

so that by the time it gets to here...

..it's really quite dry.

I'll bet you're glad I shared that with you.

And the resulting sludge is then pasteurised inside giant

digesters where the methane it produces is used to generate 45%

of the plant's electricity needs.

The final residue is recycled for use in agriculture.

And the water?

Well, after just 18 hours those former household flushes

are released into the River Kennett, a nearby tributary of the Thames.

That looks pretty clean, doesn't it?

It does. Shall we go and take the sample and see how clean it is?

Yeah.

At this stage it's not safe to drink.

It'll be treated again before it comes through your tap,

but it's definitely clear.

So there you are, then.

That'll go into the River Kennett and on into the Thames,

where it will continue to be treated naturally by the sun and microbes

and water plants, until eventually one day it'll be used to clean

the car or someone will drink it,

and it will find its way back here again.

And as for the human waste, well, that has been turned

into sludge cake which the farmer will use.

I'm walking the Thames from source to sea following the Thames Path,

Europe's longest riverside walk.

I'm now about halfway along the river's 200-mile length,

in the town of Henley-on-Thames.

This Oxfordshire town has long been important as a trading hub

on the route to London by river.

Records show a bridge here nearly 800 years ago.

But in 1857 the arrival of the train line transformed this place

virtually overnight into a leisure resort.

In the late 19th century if you were a Londoner you could get

the train all the way upriver to here, to potter around

on the river.

And it became really popular.

In fact, one summer's day in 1888 nearly 7,000 people arrived

here from Paddington.

It was like Benidorm on sea - but a bit posher.

And central to the town's popularity as the place to be seen in Victorian

times was the annual Henley Regatta.

It got incredibly popular and so many boats lined the river.

You could virtually walk from one side to the other.

Local newspapers complained the Thames was being invaded

by roughnecks and working class savages.

Today it's still a major sporting and social event held in the

first week of July.

They're setting up for the regatta now.

It takes about eight weeks to put in all the pontoons and grandstands

and corporate hospitality tents.

And the thing has become so popular that it can cost up to two grand

for the full five-day experience.

Central to the regatta is the head-to-head rowing races,

and there's no team more successful than the Leander Rowing Club.

Their clubhouse is right next to the bridge.

Inside, you're left in no doubt you're in the home of greatness.

They are Britain's most historic and most successful sports team,

with 124 Olympic medals to prove it.

Cor, look at all these Leander Olympic gold medal winners.

Redgrave, Redgrave, Redgrave,

Pinsent, Pinsent, Pinsent, Cracknell.

Here's one.

WGRM Laurie.

That's Hugh's dad.

Can't see mine anywhere.

So what's the key to producing champions?

Hard work and dedication, obviously.

But could it be the breakfasts?

After all, it's 9am and this lot have already been out

training on the river.

Now they're on their second breakfast of the day.

Cor, look at this diet.

First breakfast - cereal, banana, milk, juice, toast, bread, honey.

Then a litre of sports drink.

Second breakfast - three slices of toast, two poached eggs,

portion of mushrooms, 200g of baked beans,

blah, blah, blah.

Afternoon snack - blimey!

Fish, meat, potatoes.

Oh! I can't get through it.

6,230 calories.

God, that'd make you fart!

Well, when in Rome...

Why do you only get that?

What?

Why did you only get that?

Because that's my toast.

That would explain it.

Do you want butter?.

But what's the point in taking all this on board?

It's just the volume of training that we do, you know?

So it's obviously an endurance sport, and you're burning such

a large number of calories anyway.

Yeah. Thank you.

That's more like it. Yeah, yeah.

So, I mean, we'll do another session in about an hour and a half,

so I don't want to have... I wouldn't eat that, necessarily,

because...I'd probably see it again.

Do you do jobs outside of this training facility?

Yeah. So what do you do?

So I am a nanny for a family. Yeah.

And then I also coach as well.

Rowing coaching, and do a little bit of swimming teaching.

So I essentially have three jobs alongside this.

I'm going out on a training session with chief coach Mark Banks.

Cheers, mate.

If anyone can give me an insight into what it's like to be part

of a top team, he can.

The success what Steve Redgrave and Katherine Grainger,

and all those other superstars who you see getting

Olympic gold medals,

they make it look easy, but it isn't.

He's been coaching for 30 consecutive years at Olympic

and World Championship level.

As they're rowing, what are you looking at?

The blade is in the water for three quarters of a second, and

we're looking, A, that the blades are going in at the same time,

that the legs are propelling the boat,

the legs are pushing before we start using the upper body.

And then of course we're looking to see that they've got

a really good rhythm which is sustainable, and it's really quite

simple - it's doing the common uncommonly well.

As they skim across the river it looks so easy, so elegant.

The cox keeping the boat as straight as an arrow.

Having witnessed how it's done,

it's now my time to shine as part of an elite team,

and for once in my life my size is a major asset.

Are you about ready for a winner?

Yeah. Cheers.

Looking forward to it.

I've managed to blag my way into the boat as cox.

Who's taller, you or me?

Erm... I think just about me, just.

No! Anyway, anyway, whoever. So, yeah. I'm the right size?

You're the right size for it, yeah, definitely.

Sam Royston, their usual cox, gives me some tips on how to steer.

This is the fin - this is how to keep the boat straight.

Oh, that's not the rudder?

No, that's not - the rudder is just this little thing back here.

This tiny thing here? This tiny little metal thing, yeah.

I'd always thought the rudder was the whole of the wide thing.

No, no. So you're controlling something that's about that big...

Yeah.

..and you're wiggling a little bit of string that's about that tiny?

And it's about 30 foot long or something like that.

Well, that doesn't sound too bad.

Bring it on.

Up to heads - go!

OK, let's go.

With a good briefing, I'm ready.

You have to take me seriously, you know?

Pushing off. Three, two, one.

Off we go.

I mean, how hard can it be to steer a 50,000 pound, very fragile

carbon fibre boat?

And...

What was it?

Right off. Right off.

Go!

Race pace.

Well, they say fake it till you make it.

In three...

In my case, that's not very long.

When you get in that situation, you just stop rowing.

I think I over-ruddered there!

OK, take two...

Backstops!

Going off.

Row!

Easy now, Tony!

Easy!

Not that I'm making excuses, but under full power

it's incredibly difficult to keep it straight.

Oh, God, I'm going in the side again.

One thing I hadn't realised is the rudder doesn't give you

the effect that you think it's going to give you straight away.

It's a few beats, and so you try and compensate even more.

And then when it does kick in, you find yourself way over that side.

OK.

One final go.

Yeah, I think I've got it.

OK, that's good.

And then, just for the briefest of moments, I get a taste

of what it's like to fly across the water.

Just like that - well done.

In a race, these guys would be covering at least a mile.

I only managed to keep it straight for about 200 yards.

Well, they say it's not winning that counts, it's taking part.

All good there, then.

Thank you very much.

I'll tell you what, that heavy breakfast didn't do me any favours.

From Henley, I set off along a very boaty bit of the river,

heading for the next village at Hurley.

Hiya, hi!

Everybody waves at each other.

It's a communal place, isn't it?

It's somewhere where we can share our traditions and our history,

even our etiquette.

Hurley is the home of the oldest family of boat builders in Britain,

who specialise in making these handcrafted wooden boats.

Richard Freebody and his three sisters have history on the Thames

that goes back to the 13th century.

Richard, never mind that this is going to become a boat.

It's just such a gorgeous piece of carpentry.

Aw, thanks, Tony.

No, it's good fun.

It's a very elegant shape, isn't it?

It really is. Like a racing car. Very stylish.

Yeah, yeah.

It is quite exquisite.

What's the wood?

So this is Canadian cedar.

And this is mahogany.

So quite a contrasting...

How long would this take you, just this one boat, to make?

About two years, in all honesty.

Yeah.

Do you never make boats made out of fibreglass or plastic?

Never ever, Tony, no.

That's a terrible word to even mention round here, but...

And it's a family business, right?

Yeah, very much so.

So over 300 years, so... 300 years?

Yeah, so we can actually trace ourselves as fishermen and ferrymen

from 1257.

Oh, you're kidding.

Undoubtedly built around boats to carry out the work.

But where are the documents from that allowed you to go

that far back?

Literally, old documentation relating to the Thames.

We are officially the earliest family boat-builders in England,

which is a lovely, lovely accolade to have.

Richard and his sisters are the 11th generation of boat-builders.

Soon there may even be a 12th.

Can we have a look at who's here?

Hiya, Kirsty.

Hello.

So these are your son and your daughters?

Yeah, this is George, Jessica and Daisy.

Hands up, any of you who might like to build boats when they're a bit...

Ah!

Well, that's good.

Would you like to build a boat when you're a big boy?

What do you think, George?

Yeah! Three hands up. Fantastic.

That would be lovely, wouldn't it?

Another generation of boat-builders here. That'd be amazing.

It's lovely. It's a way of life really, rather than a business.

Today nine skilled craftsmen work alongside Richard building

and restoring traditional boats.

So, Tony, I don't know whether you could give me a hand, could you?

"Give me a hand".

His television speak for "muck things up".

Well, let's give it a go, let's give it a go.

So we're going to just try and replicate this bead here

on the bottom edge.

And all that is done by hand, is it?

Everything done by hand. Wow! Yeah, absolutely.

And it's very primitive.

This is a screw that's been cut off and sharpened up.

Oh, you're joking! Look at that.

You said you were integrating technology into your boat-building.

Only when necessary.

And, basically, it's a case of pushing this up to the edge,

and just working the scratch along, and gradually pushing slightly

harder and harder, and getting it deeper and deeper.

So why don't you give that a go?

Okey doke.

I'm so nervous about messing it up.

Oh, I can do it a bit. That's it, just gradually.

Just inch it forward.

I think we'll make a boat-builder out of you yet, Tony.

Yeah, sure.

How long do you reckon it would take you to get this to that state?

It would take me probably about an hour to get that

to that stage there.

Yeah. Is that all? Yeah, yeah.

It looks like a huge amount of work.

Each boat receives at least 20 coats of a special varnish,

the details of which remain a closely guarded family secret.

Of course, you never know when a potential buyer may drop in,

looking for something rather special for the weekend.

So, Tony, come and have a look at the showroom.

Oh, look at this!

That is so gorgeous.

So this is this is basically the finished version

of what you've been helping to build.

This 30-foot Freebody Slipper Launch is the top of the range...

It's so quiet.

Yeah, they're lovely.

..with an almost silent electric engine.

Would you like to have a go?

Oh, mate! I would.

Come on, let's do it.

Oh, this is beautiful.

This isn't a sales pitch, Tony, but that suits you.

Thank you.

Well, that's a well-rehearsed line.

But at £180,000 for a basic model, I best enjoy this while I can.

It's lovely, isn't it?

It's so luxurious.

I've already got the elbow out the window, one-handed driving!

I've only been driving it for 30 seconds.

Do you know, I think Richard might be right.

Gosh, she turns easily.

Oh, my little darling, yeah.

It does suit me.

This is the modern version of Edwardian life on the Thames.

Gently cruising along, getting towards the end of the day.

Lovely warm temperature.

I could get used to this.

I'm walking the Thames from source to sea,

and for the last 70 miles have been following the Middle Thames,

the bit of the river that's gentle and best known

for boating and leisure.

Soon, as I approach London, the river will become tidal

and much more industrial.

But before then there's one last stop I want to make.

Over there you can just see the chimney pots of Hampton Court Palace

where Henry VIII lived with his six wives and surrounded

himself with lavish art and threw lavish dinner parties

for ambassadors and bishops and various cronies.

Hampton Court was one of Henry's favourite palaces.

It was opulent, impressive and suited his character.

He was loud, brash and charismatic.

And being on the river,

Hampton Court gave him easy access to London.

Because the river becomes tidal just downstream from here,

in the year 1540 Henry installed this clock,

which not only told you the time - it also gave you the time

of the tides, a sort of Tudor supercomputer.

Having a clock that told the tides was essential to Henry

because before there were locks on the Thames riding high water

was the only way to make the trip to and from London.

Today there's an annual pageant going on at Hampton Court.

A similar spectacle to the ones Henry liked to create when

he travelled on the river.

I've been invited to join them on this gilded barge, which is known

as the Gloriana and is a very important boat.

The Gloriana is our present queen's Royal Barge,

and I've managed to blag a lift on it.

It was built for the Diamond Jubilee celebrations and led a flotilla

of 1,000 boats down the Thames.

This boat was launched in 2012 but it's a replica of the kind of

barge that was working the Thames.

From the 16th century the river became a place for royal pomp.

Gilded barges were draped with banners,

boats carried musicians.

This was the river of theatre.

The current keeper of the Queen's barge is Malcolm Knight.

This event has got a veneer of the ancient,

but it's actually quite modern, isn't it?

It is, it's totally modern.

But obviously, yeah, we've made it to look like

a traditional Tudor event.

But that's what the Royal Waterman used to do in Henry VIII's time.

He used to row their king.

So we're now going to row to the tower to celebrate the importance

of Her Majesty's Royal Highway through the Thames.

Back in Tudor times, would all of the royals have had their own barge?

Yes, they did.

That's how they got around because the roads in London

were thick mud and everything else.

In those days the boat was the car of London?

That's right. It was the way to get around.

The shiny stuff all over it can't really be gold?

It is. It's 22 carat gold leaf, all hand-applied by a team

from Hare and Humphries.

It's a special formulation that they put together over the years

which weathers very well.

So fortunately we don't have to polish the gold.

We just have to polish the brass.

Just like in the old-fashioned high status barges, the insides are much

more muted compared with all the gold on the outside.

This is where the Queen sat when she was taking her tea here.

And up here all of these paintings on the roof are hand painted,

and they're birds, going from the estuary right up to

the start of the river.

Swan, plover... Lovely, aren't they?

After an hour, we reach Teddington Lock, the official end

of the non-tidal river.

You're going ashore?

I am indeed, yes.

Welcome to terra firma. Thank you very much.

It's been a pleasure to meet you. And you. Thank you very much.

Enjoy the rest of your time on the river. See you!

Well, that's the end of my jaunt on the Gloriana,

and indeed it's the end of my walk along the Middle Thames.

This is the final lock, Teddington, and after that London.

But that's for next time.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media