that inspired Wordsworth’s
1790 poem, where ‘in thy
waters may be seen/The
image of a poet’s heart’.
It’s a sunny day and people
are already lining up for boat
rides near Richmond Bridge,
completed in 1777 and once
an ancient ferry site. Horace
Walpole, writing to a friend a
few years before the bridge
was finished, complained, ‘It
has rained this whole month
. . . the Thames is as broad as