London's Strangest: The Thames

First staged back in the early 18th century, the Doggett’s Coat and Badge was the brainchild of Thomas Doggett, an Irish actor and comedian who decamped to London in search of fame, fortune and his Equity card. One version of the race’s story goes that Thomas fell into the water while crossing the Thames but was rescued by a waterman and subsequently established the event in gratitude for his escape from a watery grave. The second (probably more accurate) version of events is that Doggett founded the race to commemorate the first anniversary of George I’s ascension to the English throne.
Whatever the truth, the Doggett’s Coat and Badge was born in 1715 and followed a four miles and five furlongs (7,400m) course from London Bridge to Cadogan Pier, Chelsea. The race was open to young watermen in the first year of their professional careers on the Thames and, somewhat masochistically, was run against the tide. The prize for the fastest and fittest oarsman was a traditional red waterman’s coat boasting a silver badge.
Our Thomas organised and managed the race until he popped his clogs in 1721 but the event did not die with him. He left strict instructions (plus some hard cash) in his will to ensure the Doggett’s Coat and Badge could continue, and in 1722 the Fishmonger’s Company took charge. They are still organising the annual race today.
There have been changes to the event over the years. Since 1873, the madness that was rowing nearly five miles against

One of the most famed pubs by the Thames must be The Trout Inn, just north of Oxford, a Grade II listed building that boasts an intriguing history and may be familiar to you even if you haven’t sampled its hospitality in person. Built in the late 17th century, the pub was constructed on the site of a hospice that belonged to Godstow Nunnery, the remains of which still stand on the opposite side of the river, and the frugal builders even purloined some of the stones from the building to finish the Trout.
Since it first opened its doors, the pub has become a firm favourite with Oxford’s undergraduates and it was in the 1920s that a young Evelyn Waugh popped in for a pint. The place made such an impression on him that Waugh mentioned the Trout 20 years later in his seminal work Brideshead Revisited when the characters Charles Ryder and Sebastian Flyte quench their thirst. The pub is also the scene for a fatal rendezvous in D. L. Murray’s 1945 novel Folly Bridge: A Romantic Tale.

It was in 1987 that weatherman Michael Fish infamously took to the airwaves to reassure viewers that the country was not about to be battered into submission by a huge storm. ‘Earlier on today, apparently, a woman rang the BBC and said she heard there was a hurricane on the way,’ he said. ‘Well, if you’re watching, don’t worry, there isn’t.’ A few short hours later, the Southeast was hit by the worst storm since 1703, leaving 18 dead and Fish’s reputation in tatters.
Nearly 900 years earlier contemporary meteorologists fared no better with their predictions when London was devastated by a tornado. In fairness, we can’t blame Fish for that one, but it does go to prove it’s dangerous to put too much trust in weathermen.
The tornado hit on the morning of 17 October 1091. Modern experts have estimated the winds could have reached speeds in excess of 230mph (370kmph) and the capital’s many flimsy wooden structures offered little resistance to the onslaught.
‘At the hour of six a dreadful whirlwind from the south east coming from Africa blew upon the City and overthrew upwards of six hundred houses,’ recounts The Chronicles of London Bridge, published in 1825. ‘Several Churches greatly damaged the Tower and tore away the roof and part of the wall of the Church of St Mary-le-Bow in Cheapside. The roof was carried to a considerable distance and fell with such force that several of the rafters being about twenty eight feet [8.5m] in length pierced upwards of twenty feet [6m] into the ground and remained in the same position as when they stood in the Chapel.’
The tornado also had quite a destructive effect on the Thames. ‘During the same storm too the water in the Thames rushed along with such rapidity and increased so violently that London Bridge was entirely swept away,’ reports the Chronicles, ‘whilst the lands on each side were overflowed for a considerable distance.’
The sight of the bridge being washed away by the river must have been as spectacular as it was terrifying for Londoners and a poor reflection of the craftsmen who had erected it just 25 years earlier on the orders of William the Conqueror. King William II had it rebuilt but the latest incarnation of London Bridge lasted little longer than its predecessor, burning down in 1136.
It would be another 600 years before the traditional nursery rhyme ‘London Bridge Is Falling Down’ was first recorded in England but it’s not hard to guess where its anonymous creator drew inspiration from.