Thames Street, divided into Lower and Upper Thames Street, is a road in the

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London fr ...

, the historic and financial centre of

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

. It forms part of the busy A3211 route (prior to being rebuilt as a major thoroughfare in the late 1960s, it was the B132) from

Tower Hill Tower Hill is the area surrounding the Tower of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is infamous for the public execution of high status prisoners from the late 14th to the mid 18th century. The execution site on the higher grou ...

Westminster Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster. The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Bu ...

. The

London Bridge Several bridges named London Bridge have spanned the River Thames between the City of London and Southwark, in central London. The current crossing, which opened to traffic in 1973, is a box girder bridge built from concrete and steel. It r ...

underpass marks the divide between Upper and Lower Thames Street, with Lower to the east and Upper to the west.

History

Thames Street is mentioned in the diary of

Samuel Pepys Samuel Pepys (; 23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703) was an English diarist and naval administrator. He served as administrator of the Royal Navy and Member of Parliament and is most famous for the diary he kept for a decade. Pepys had no mariti ...

. The first mention of the road, however, is from 1013 when the Custom-house was founded on the street. During the reign of

King Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disag ...

, the street contained the London residences of many courtiers, including that of William Compton, where Henry VIII allegedly met his mistresses. In the culture of the twentieth-century, the street is probably best remembered for its place in T. S. Eliot's ''

The Waste Land ''The Waste Land'' is a poem by T. S. Eliot, widely regarded as one of the most important poems of the 20th century and a central work of modernist poetry. Published in 1922, the 434-line poem first appeared in the United Kingdom in the Octob ...

'': :O city city, I can sometimes hear :Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street, :The pleasant whining of a mandoline :And a clatter and a chatter from within :Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls :Of Magnus Martyr hold :Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold. At 101 Lower Thames Street, remains of a Roman bath were excavated. They are preserved in the cellar of the modern building on the site. Little evidence of the street's history remains, in a large part due to

the Blitz The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press and originated from the term , the German word meaning 'lightning war'. The Germa ...

and post-War redevelopment, and it now contains many office buildings, including the headquarters of the ''

Daily Express The ''Daily Express'' is a national daily United Kingdom middle-market newspaper printed in tabloid format. Published in London, it is the flagship of Express Newspapers, owned by publisher Reach plc. It was first published as a broadsheet i ...

'' newspaper. The

London Fire Brigade The London Fire Brigade (LFB) is the fire and rescue service for London, the capital of the United Kingdom. It was formed by the Metropolitan Fire Brigade Act 1865, under the leadership of superintendent Eyre Massey Shaw. It has 5,992staff, in ...

's fire investigation unit is based at Dowgate fire station on Upper Thames Street at the corner of Allhallows Lane; the station is the only one within the City of London. The most notable change is on the western end of the thoroughfare, which dramatically altered its course as part of major works of the 1960s, involving the reclaiming of

foreshore The intertidal zone, also known as the foreshore, is the area above water level at low tide and underwater at high tide (in other words, the area within the tidal range). This area can include several types of habitats with various species of ...

of the Thames at

Puddle Dock Puddle Dock is a street in Blackfriars in the City of London. It was once the site of one of London's docks, and was later the site of the Mermaid Theatre. The dock was filled in during redevelopment in the 1960s and 1970s. As a dock Berkele ...

. Lower Thames Street formed part of the marathon course of the 2012 Olympic and

Paralympic Games The Paralympic Games or Paralympics, also known as the ''Games of the Paralympiad'', is a periodic series of international multisport events involving athletes with a range of physical disabilities, including impaired muscle power and impaire ...

. The women's Olympic marathon took place on 5 August and the men's on 12 August. The Paralympic marathons were held on 9 September.

History

See also

References

Further reading