St Paul's
Henry Dawson painted this view of St Paul's high above the Thames in 1877. The river is full of craft of various types. Behind the artist many large ships would be unloading, lighters would be transferring goods from ship to shore, and I suspect that even at that late date some 'taxi' boat still crossed the river in places, not all bridges having been built by then I guess. I say 'guess as I am to lazy busy to check for myself. Until the early sixties when the dockers lost out to cheaper, more profitable, and less likely to be pilfered container ships the Thames was a busy, dirty river. Today a few barges pass by, the tourist boats rip off the clients, and some private craft are seen. The warehouses are trendy flats, office blocks avoid taxpaying as much as possible and the view of St Paul's is still possible, if you find the few places where a gap in the building reaching for the sky allows this. Dawsons view is better than today's, but the lifestyle of the people, as well as their health thanks to the NHS must be considerably better!
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5 comments:
Yes, I was reading about "toshers" whose job was to slosh around the sewers where they discharged all their muck into the Thames. Lovely. I think I prefer the yuppies really. Have you noticed that in old pictures the dome of St. Pauls often appears taller and thinner than it does today. I wonder if that is just what they call artistic licence.
Lovely painting .... love the golden light. It feels romantic!
xxx
At least one bridge has been built since then and that's the Millennium Bridge. You remember, the wobbly bridge? It goes from the Globe Theatre over towards St Paul's. I walked over the bridge after the wobbles had been removed, carting behind me one of those cases on wheels. You have no idea the noise it made! I didn't know whether to walk faster and get it over with, or slower to try to reduce the noise. The only other thing I remember was that I couldn't see too much of St Paul's.
It's still a dirty river. Yesterday I was listening to a discussion on radio 4 about the state of the Thames. Sewerage spills into it at least once a week. OMG they tell us we can drink that water! I'll stick to bottled swiss water thanks.
Jenny, Artistic license is found in all paintings, but this one comes out well. There should be more shipping shown. 'Toshers' sounds very much a Victorian job. There must have been hundreds of such jobs around then.
RDG, It is good!
A, I'm sure no-one noticed....
Mo, I'm not sure you are meant to drink it straight from the river!
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