Joan Tucker presents a profusely illustrated history of the Thames ferries.

500,000 years in the life of a river.

This book provides a pathway for the New Coastal History. Our littorals are all too often the setting for climate change and the political, refugee and migration crises that blight our age. Yet historians have continued, in large part, to ignore the space between the sea and the land. Through a range of conceptual and thematic chapters, this book remedies that. Scotland, a country where one is never more than fifty miles from saltwater, provides a platform as regards the majority of chapters, in accounting for and supporting the clusters of scholarship that have begun to gather around the coast. The book presents a new approach that is distinct from both terrestrial and maritime history, and which helps bring environmental history to the shore. Its cross-disciplinary perspectives will be of appeal to scholars and students in those fields, as well as in the environmental humanities, coastal archaeology, human geography and anthropology.

This vintage book contains a comprehensive guide to course fish, with notes on taxidermy, fishing in the lower Thames, and more. Although old, the information contained within this book is timeless and will be of considerable utility the modern fisherman and taxidermist. "Coarse Fish" would make for a fantastic addition to collections of angling literature, and is not to be missed by collectors. Contents include: "Barbel", "Bleak", "Bream", "Carp", "Chub", "Dace", "Eel", "Flounder", "Gudgeon", "Perch", "Pike", "Roach", "Rudd", "Tench", "Thames Trout", "Notes", "Minnow, Ruffe and Miller's Thumb", "Setting-up Fish", "Specimen Fish", "Gentles", "Fishing with Two Rods", "Bag fr Carrying Fish", et cetera. Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern edition complete with a specially commissioned new introduction on taxidermy.

In this landmark study, an amateur historian tackles the unanswered questions surrounding Julius Caesar’s time in Britain. Two thousand years ago, Julius Caesar came, saw, and conquered southern Britain, but exactly where he landed and the precise routes his army marched through the south of the country have never been firmly established. Numerous sites have been suggested for the Roman landings of 55 B.C. and 54 B.C., yet remarkably, the exact locations of the first major events in recorded British history remain undiscovered—until now. After years of careful analysis, Roger Nolan has painstakingly traced not only the places where the Romans landed, but he has also discovered four temporary marching camps Caesar’s army built as it drove up from the south coast in pursuit of the British tribal leader, Cassivellaunus. This advance took Caesar across the Thames to Cassivellaunus’s stronghold at Wheathampstead in present-day Hertfordshire. These marching camps are placed almost equidistant from each other and, most importantly, are in a straight line between the coast and Wheathampstead. Roger Nolan’s research has also enabled him to identify the place mentioned in Caesar’s Commentaries, where the Roman legions were ambushed by the British while foraging and where a large battle then ensued—the first known land battle in Britain. Without doubt, this groundbreaking study is certain to prompt much discussion and reappraisal of this fascinating subject.

The book looks at London’s maritime history from the establishment of Roman Londinium to the present day. It discusses many different aspects of life on the Thames and its connecting waterways and canals. There was a time when the River Thames was the main highway for the city, when watermen plied their trade carrying passengers and goods in a wide variety of craft, ranging from rowing boats to sailing barges. The Thames was also, for many centuries, a major ship building centre, and the story includes the construction of some iconic vessels from Henry VIII’s flagship Henri Grace á Dieu to Isambard Brunel’s great steamship the SS Great Eastern. London was also until recently the country’s most important port. In the days of sail, the Port of London was crowded with vessels and it was not until the nineteenth century that major enclosed docks were built, a process that continued into the early years of the twentieth century. The early nineteenth century also saw London connected to the rest of England through a network of canals. Other topics covered include the lifeboat service, river fire fighting forces and the river police. The result is a colorful pageant that highlights the vital role that London’s waterways played in the life of the capital.

The book traces the history of the various craft that have been used for transport on Britain’s rivers and canals from the earliest times to the present day. The first section deals with the long history of the development of river craft, from prehistoric log boats to the whole range of sailing barges, such as the Humber keel and the Thames barge. By the middle of the 18th century, canal construction brought in a new generation of craft, not just the familiar narrow boats, but the wide boats such as the Leeds & Liverpool short boats, maintenance craft and even passenger boats. Steam power was introduced in the 19th century for a variety of crafts from tugs to pleasure steamers, while the 20th century brought in the diesel motors for boats and barges of all kinds. Today, there is still some commercial traffic, but an ever-increasing demand for boats for pleasure. Much of this story is told in terms of preserved craft and is also based on the author’s own experience aboard many of these craft, whether crewing a Thames barge or working in the engine room of a Clyde puffer.