Streets of London : Water, water everywhere

Today we took a bus to complete the second half of a walk through history along part of the Thames embankment that we had started on Sunday: Chiswick House and gardens was where we left off, so we started there, in its grounds. This is a gorgeous building, not huge by aristocratic standards, but elegant in its highly lauded neo-Paladian structure. It is considered to be one of the finest of its kind in all of England. Its gardens, too, were legendary for their natural style: a watercourse was built running through the bottom of the garden with water tumbling from high rocks as it does in nature.

So it is a peaceful setting, today occupied by a BBC4 production company, filming a costume drama. Amazing expense and crew all over the garden. Hundreds of folk. Then, outside in the parking lot, a massive hospitality crew, working out of many trucks, laden with hot cauldrons, were setting up for lunch. A big production. Rather like some of the garden parties organised by one of Chiswick House's early owners, the Duke of Devonshire, who on having Nicholas 1, tsar of Russia, to lunch along with Prince Albert, organised four giraffe from the London Zoo to stroll nonchalantly around his glorious garden, just to amuse his guests. The giraffes joined the Dukes menagerie of elephants, llamas, monkeys and, of all things, kangaroos, reputed to be 'very violent'. The beautiful house and luxurious grounds dotted with temples and arched bridges lend themselves to a touch of extravagance.

From here, we walked through Chiswick suburbia, admiring the homes and the magnolia bursting out all over, down to the Thames. Two hundred years ago, this stretch along the waterway was home to fisherman, artists, the occasional summer home on the riverbank for the occasional member of the 'ton', and pubs: picturesque little pubs still around today with their tales of ghosts and smugglers. We ate in one where the beams are so ancient they are wizened dry and cracked, leached of all moisture. And chatted to the locals, who were there, in-house, with their dogs, which has been the pattern in pubs throughout London this trip. We are not used to it: it is always a shock to find dogs indoors, delightful though they are.

The tidal Thames used to flood here regularly, and still does occasionally, so some homes still have old methods for keeping the water at bay: steps rising high above the road, and low front doors at the top, then, as their entrance. Many would have to bend deep just to enter. Others have installed solid steel flood gates to protect their homes from water ingress. Again, many of these waterfront homes have been occupied by folk in the news. One was once owned by Carla Lane, one of my favourite TV comedy writers. I was a fangirl of her series, 'Butterflies'.

We passed an interesting old fountain whose sponsors just happened to catch our fancy: the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough association who, we later discovered at the Kew steam museum we visited, actually installed fountains all over the city. These serviced cattle, dogs, horses, and humans, in the days when a well-watered horse was essential for movement to and from the city. We passed a modern inclusion, too: our first auto-electricity hub: a station especially for electric cars to park, to recharge.

Our final stop was the Kew Bridge Steam Museum, which taught us, and a load of school children along for a visit, heaps about the London water supply, and any pollution thereof. The museum is filled with old steam machines, and volunteers, keeping everything oiled and in immaculate working order for display and demonstration. There are excellent illustrated information boards and effective display models everywhere for clarification.

Of all the world's water we were informed 97% is salt. Of the remaining 3% that is fresh, some 70% is frozen, in the Antarctic and Arctic zones. So, humans on earth have available to them just 1% of the fresh water on the planet. Which has to do everything: run our factories, grow our rice and potatoes, feed and bathe us. And when you consider our consumption, that thought is a little frightening. A chart, showing the relative consumption of water for the growth of just a selection of our everyday foods, is an eye-opener. We really do need to be much more water-conscious.

Epidemics coming from our water source seem to be caused mostly by thoughtlessness. In 1854, an incident caused 500 deaths in just ten days within a quarter of a mile of a well that had provided drinking water. A baby had been sick for three weeks. Sewage from the baby's nappies leaked into the well. Bacteria multiplied exponentially, and soon all those people died from the ensuing cholera epidemic, called the 'blue death', as their skin turned bluish-grey as they failed.

The man who hypothesised the link between contaminated water and cholera was a physician, John Snow. Before that, many believed such disease travelled in the air, while others thought it might come from a germ, yet to be identified.

A terrible typhoid outbreak that ended up killing 43 people in 1937 occurred in Croydon when a serviceman, charged with repairing a well that stored the district's water needed to go to the loo, but rather than climb out and find a toilet outside, he did his business in the well. Killing all those people. What a thing to have to live with.

In a nutshell, London water comes from the Thames. It is sucked up by pumps similar to ones we saw today in this museum, and stored in lakes and filter beds, purifying it. From these it is pumped into a reticulated system of interconnecting pipes some 40 metres underground, flowing around and about London, then fed up to toilets, taps and sinks as needed. With our heads laden with facts, and our conscience given a timely warning to care more for our precious water, we headed home on another bus after another busy walking day.