Boating on the River Thames with Captain Bob - Weybridge to Hampton Court - London Travel Guide

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] beautiful [Music] wow this is fantastic [Music] [Applause] [Music] hello and welcome to another one of my videos i'm alex and i am the wandering englishman have you ever wondered what it's like to go on a boating trip on the river thames well wonder no more because this is exactly what i did and i made a video just for you first of all a big thank you to my friend bob bob is the captain behind this boat without bob this video would not exist so you can thank him or blame him for the fact that this video now exists bob graham and mark and myself we began our journey in a little town called waybridge waybridge is a town by the riverway hence the name way bridge in the elm bridge district of surrey there's a lot of bridges in this part of the world not quite venice very picturesque nonetheless certainly a place that people who've made it like to live it is bounded to the north by the river thames at the north of the way and that's the river that we are literally entering now so i believe this part is the river way when we get to the next dock it becomes the river thames however bob will probably be able to correct me on that one and tell me i've been on the thames the whole time waybridge is about 16 miles southwest of central london if you're a fan of h.g wells which i am you'll remember from his incredibly famous novel the war of the worlds published in 1897 waybridge was the location of the battle in which the martian fighting machine was destroyed basically waybridge gave us hope the title of chapter 12 of the book was titled what i saw of the destruction of waybridge and shefferton shepparton being a little bit further away from waybridge and famous for shepparton studios the battle also featured in the track the artillery men and the fighting machine from jeff wayne's musical version of the war of the worlds very 1970s music because it did come out in 1978 waybridge was popular with two of the former beatles john lennon and ringo starr both lived in waybridge for short periods of time over their lifetimes so you can understand it it's a nice area to live but this video isn't about waybridge this video is about boating on the thames by european standards the river is seemingly insignificant at only 215 miles that's 346 kilometers to our european friends who think in kilometers from source to mouth it is not only dwarfed by the major waterways of the continent but it's not even the longest river in the united kingdom the river seven is actually the longest river in the united kingdom covering a distance of 220 miles so that's five miles longer than the river thames if you really care nevertheless its location has ensured that it has held unparalleled importance to the country as it flows through key places of national influence such as the university city of oxford to the west past the royal castle of windsor past waveridge which we are now past hampton court which we will go to later in this video and then on to the capsule in london before getting to the title section in the east where you get to the thames estuary and and then effectively the sea so here we are we're on the lock this is our first lock of the day and uh we're in bob's boat bob's very happy about his boat this is fantastic this is uh i highly recommend this you've got a makeover it's got a boat get yourself on the thames because this is yeah see right now we're going lower and um we're gonna set forth that way it is not without reason it has been dubbed the shortest famous river in the world effectively it's an open-air museum of english culture and even liquid history okay out of the lock yeah right thank you jeff appreciate it this definitely is the river the water on the river thames has been utilized by settlers since the paralympic times and there is an ongoing discussion about how the complex processes of silting geomorphological change and human intervention impacted its use although widespread canal building mainly in coastal areas occurred in britain during the roman times [Music] quiet part of the things that we're making very noisy like teenage boys and uh in reality we are only going five miles per hour um and this is a little bit of stretch of the river where there's no one living until we get to the bit here and then we [Music] by the 11th century the thames was an important transport artery as is shown by the network of landing places what the english referred to as hives and salt ways that punctuated it as well as artificial channels that were built for trade on or by it most notably the section by abington dug in the 1050s to bypass a section of the river that was difficult to navigate great clouds but it's a really warm day it's quite nice got beers out over the years boats would have been used for local and long distance transportation and it's through that the medieval heyday of the latter which would have been much cheaper than traveling by road was between 1100 and 1300 certain carrying goods like grain wool cloth and minerals were transported to london presumably not just goods but also passengers it's strange this little part of the thames is but just maybe 200 meters back that way houses are about 1.2 1.5 million head up this way of course and then we start getting into the multi-millions in this part here back in the day when the english land was a little unruly the thames was actually a contested resource mill owners boat operators and fishermen all wanted to use the water for different purposes local populations also needed to be able to cross the waterways on fjords ferries and bridges indeed from 1100 onwards the buildings of new bridges and causeways also altered the physical appearance of the thames furthermore these human activities could be affected by natural processes like drought and flooding the latter could have had a damaging effect on property but it could also protect the river from development thereby helping to maintain the river's appearance a symbiotic relationship developed between the different groups using the river traveling by boat on the river was a slow process as craft not only had to be towed by horses that had to evade any obstacles on land but passing through the logs could be very dangerous the boats had to wait for the miller to come draw with his paddles for a fee of course which produced a rapid release of water which enabled the boat to pass through either by shooting through with a flow or being hauled up against the stream once water levels are close enough to one another the release of water could be so great that sometimes a boat operator traveling upstream had to wait a significant amount of time for the water levels to have built up again and they would sometimes face charges from the surrounding landowners that effectively felt the river was robbing the land of their valuable water although the weirs are believed to have initially helped the passage of boats they could also have potentially caused difficulties because one they could obstruct the river two they could adversely affect the level of the water they could be both slow and costly to pass through indeed we know the former was a persistent problem as there were recurring legal attempts to try and keep the waterway clear of obstructions from the 12th century onwards such as the magna carta's injunction to clear fish from weirs from the waterway although control of the river was sold by the crown to the city of london in 1197 there was no effective management of the river above stains where the new jurisdiction extended to that's allie jesus hood just in case you're curious furthermore the number of weirs on the river above henley grew to such a number that it became increasingly time consuming and less cost effective to travel on it this led of course to a spiral of decay and eventually led to the section between oxford and burkhart becoming unnavigable for larger craft by the end of the 16th century fast forward 400 years and on this reasonably sunny day i found myself on this very nice speedboat although it must be noted that you can only go up to five miles per hour on the thames so the ruthless boat should really be defined as a leisure boat see the strange thing is it's very easy to cycle along the terms but to go down the thames like this is a little bit more complicated and then you get to appreciate these these boats these house faces the boats and our house boats to the left here are home to people all year round in fact some people only live on them during the summer months but some people actually stay on this little island all year round it can get a little bit chilly in the winter but as you'll see from that man it's a popular place to do a water sport like that the next stage along the river is hampton court now the beautiful hampton court palace is a grade one listed royal palace in the london borough of richmond upon thames 12 miles southwest and upstream from central london on the river thames the building of the palace began in 1515 for the cardinal thomas wolzey a favorite of king henry viii although in 1529 as wolseley fell from favor the cardinal gave the palace back to the king to avoid his head being chopped off the palace went on to become one of henry's most favored residences soon after acquiring the property he arranged for it to be enlarged so that it might more easily accommodate his sizeable gang of quarter years along with st james's palace it is one of the only two surviving palaces out of the mainly the king owned the palace is currently in the possession of the wonderful queen elizabeth ii god save our queen that's good so uh right behind the phantom port palace we head in that direction he gets to sort of hampton court maze palace interesting just bumps into an old friend going the other way bill neil and ian good to see you guys today the palace is open to the public and a major tourist attraction and if you don't have bob to park your boat up by the side of the thames you can reach the palace via train from waterloo uh moored station next to hampton court had a lovely lunch on the boats this boat this is a fantastic little boat and uh what a marvelous day out if you get the chance and you got a friend like bob to take you down the thames um i can't recommend it enough very very nice or of course you could drive but i recommend taking the train from central london it's far quicker i must say the palace is a wonderful place to visit as a child as an adult and maybe one day i'll make a video about it but if you haven't experienced the palace i urge you to because it really is a wonder so obviously some of these uh locks are self-service so the key is you've got to head up to the lock and then push pull the right levers back in there it was push full now it's a little bit more complicated i think it's less complicated now but let's go have a look it could take a while so we're gonna have to wait for the next phase some more boats will come this way and then we're going to go they're going to get dropped down then we're going to be out here wait for our boats there we go i mean i listened to technology uh anything to say groom uh yeah any insights to share to the world any insights no nothing that can be published i'll keep it within the circles i choose not to reveal a lot of things as well you know what you're a foot soldier definitely not a foot soldier i'm a lone gamer without the foot soldiers so yeah when you do it you do one two three three and then you split the rope in half like that so you're holding onto that one side and you throw it then it will go straight over as we head back to waybridge i was reminded on the journey back that hampton court is home to the world's largest vine the huge grapevine located in on the palace grounds is apparently the world's largest grapevine and the hampton court maze is possibly one of the most celebrated english mazes in all of england and possibly in the world i remember having a lot of fun there as a child running around the maze trying to find my way to the center and try to get out eventually almost similar but less scary to the maze in the shining classic film by stanley kubrick they really don't make movies like that anymore that has to be said possibly one of the scariest horror movies ever neck and neck with that one would probably be alien the original but what an amazing film as we're coming to the end of this video i want to thank you for watching this video if you're interested in going on a boat tour similar to this there are multiple boat tours that you can find up and down the thames i'll put links in my blog my blog can be found at thewanderingenglishman.com go check that out if you're curious about what boat tours you might be able to arrange for yourself obviously you won't have the pleasure of having captain bob with you he's a busy man and he's not a full-time captain on this river two and then you throw it like holding onto this one three like that and it just goes over the middle that makes sense next time spot we got we go there in the end but if you do see him make sure you wave to him and shout captain bob other than that i can't recommend it enough if you like this content there's plenty more content like this on the channel so far i've made over 300 videos some of them uh are slightly different to this some are very similar to this but no matter where i go i will try to always make a video something along these lines also if you're not a fan of the recent history lessons i've started to include in my videos do tell me i'm always trying to change things up in these videos so your feedback is greatly appreciated do click that subscribe button and the bell notification because a lot of people simply don't get notified in my videos and also if you have the urge to share these videos that would really help because the youtube algorithm does not like my channel at all the video that i did on the word that shall not be named but it was a on a protest recently was shadow banned i think because of the content of the protest well that was the um day on the boat going up and down the thames incredible what did you guys think good times thank you bob welcome amazing day thank you very much you