Every year the Environment Agency tests the Thames Barrier and this year it was on Sunday 10th September. Along with other members of our camera club we decided to take advantage of the full closure to take some images of the barrier in action.
The Thames Barrier annual closure
The Environment Agency had widely publicised the event and had arranged for a variety of activities on the Thames Walk past the barrier.
Here are the approximate timings of this year’s event (from the agency)
- 10.20am: river closed to navigation
- 10.25am: barrier gates start to rise
- 11.15am: all gates now raised and closed into flood defence position
- 4.00pm to 5.30pm: barrier gates moved into underspill position
- 7.30pm: barrier gates reopen
- 8.20pm: river open to navigation
There were to be stalls and activities along the riverfront from 12 pm to 6 pm and the cafe would be open from 9 am to 8.30 pm.
Getting to the Barrier
I traveled up to London by train with a colleague and then onward from Waterloo by tube to North Greenwich station.
Leaving the tube station at North Greenwich the Millennium Dome (or should I say the O2) is just there.
We walked past the terminus for the Emirates Skyway and joined the Thames Path to walk South to the Thames Barrier.
Along the way we passed jetties, scrap metal heaps, yards full of sand and car parks filled with parked trucks.
I lost count of the number of shopping trolleys that had gone for a ‘swim’. Here are just two of them.
And the odd boat tied up at just past the sailing club’s buildings.
