Downstream

the Thames was so ‘clear and
pure’ that ‘noblemen’ swam
in it all the time. Jonathan
Swift took regular dips in the
early 1700s; Lord Byron
boasted of having swum three
miles from Lambeth to
London Bridge in 1807.
Soon the Thames was a
major trading route for ships
and, as a result, the river
became the haunt of pirates
and thieves. Yet even as
London became