The Thames Path may seem like a smooth, continuous ribbon today, but hidden behind its bends and boardwalks are stories of lost ferries, stubborn landowners, engineering mishaps, and centuries‑old quirks that still shape the way we walk the river.

The Forgotten Ferry Crossings

Few walkers realise that the Thames was once dotted with more than 15 active ferries, each providing essential crossings long before bridges spanned the river (sources such as factsnippet.com and Wikipedia list many of these). When these ferries gradually disappeared in the 19th and 20th centuries, the Thames Path had to snake around the absence of these links.
Some now‑quiet banks were once lively ferry points:

  • The Bablock Hythe Ferry, once one of the oldest crossings on the upper Thames, operated for centuries and is still remembered locally for its slow pull‑across raft.
  • Hampton Ferry, dating back to Tudor times, carried everything from livestock to London day‑trippers and still runs today—one of the few to survive.
  • In other places, like Shiplake or Medmenham, the path diverts inland because the ferries vanished long before the national trail existed. Walkers unknowingly tread routes shaped by long‑lost boatmen.

The Towpath That Never Came Back

At Whitchurch Lock, a curious Victorian dispute created a legacy still felt today. In 1888, part of the towpath became inaccessible because tolls and river engineering works blocked the traditional route. Rather than restore it, authorities simply… left it.
To this day, walkers and boat‑towers take a detour around this stubborn gap—a small but charming reminder of how bureaucracy from 140 years ago can still redirect modern footsteps (as noted by factsnippet.com).

The Bridge That Wasn’t There Yet

Long before the elegant Millennium Footbridge linked St Paul’s to Tate Modern, walkers had to make a surprisingly long inland diversion. When the Thames Path was mapped out in the 1990s, the bridge didn’t exist, so the official route zig‑zagged through the City streets between Blackfriars and Southwark. Its opening in 2000 instantly reshaped the trail—once the bridge stopped wobbling, of course.

The Meadows That Moved

Floodplain walking is part of the Thames Path’s charm, but it once caused an unusual problem at Iffley Meadows near Oxford. In unusually wet years, the meadows swelled so drastically that temporary boardwalks floated out of position and had to be retrieved downstream by volunteers. One particularly spirited boardwalk was found nearly a quarter‑mile away, perfectly intact but resting like a stranded raft on higher ground.

The Pub with a Path Through It

At Streatley, an early Thames Path proposal briefly considered routing walkers through the riverside hotel’s ancient ale-house passageway, following a historic right of way. Locals loved the idea; the hotel, understandably, did not. The right of way was rerouted, but the tale lives on in local walking groups—proof that the Thames Path very nearly included a pub doorway as an official part of the national trail.