Public transport is a major challenge in any large town, and London has tried many different solutions over its long history. With your support, Thames Discovery Programme want to rediscover how the Thames was once used as a major transport artery by its inhabitants, before the age of trains, tubes, buses and cars. In the late 16th century, some 2,000 river taxis (‘wherries') plied for hire on the Thames: by 1725 that number had increased to 15,000. In this period it is recorded that there were at least 88 regulated landing places on the river bank in the London area, the equivalent of today’s busy bus stops and tube stations. But what did they look like? Most comprised a river stair or jetty, with a causeway laid out over the foreshore that allowed passengers to board the boats at any state of the tide, high or low.
A project in British Archaeology, in London, UNITED KINGDOM, by Thames Discovery Programme wants to document London’s famous waterway in an age before endless cars, bridges, buses and over-crowded trains, to rediscover a time when Londoners routinely took to the river to get around their great city.
https://crowdfunded.micropasts.org/projects/londons-lost-waterway