Waders and sketchbook

On the days I go to the river, its usually sunny and everything glitters. It feels like a haven, a piece of wilderness in the middle of urban London. Visiting it reminds me of a book by Rob Cowen, Common Ground, in which the author explores some waste ground near his home, only to discover endless plants and animals living a parallel life. The Crane is a well kept wilderness, thanks to the incredible work of a number of dedicated environmental groups, such as Friends of the River Crane, and the local residents, who devote weekends to maintaining and improving it as a natural habitat. But known only really to locals, it stays a well kept secret and walks along some sections of the river can be completely without another soul in sight.

Alongside my plant drawings, in my studio I have been doing some painting of the river from where I have stood in the water, trying to capture the sense of being away from the hubbub of town life: the steep banks holding it back and the verdant, overhanging plants and twinkling water creating a miniature world of escape.

Wanderings on river, oil on canvas

Where kingfishers go, oil on canvas         Down here up there, oil on canvas

I have been reading about Turner’s connections with Brentford, Isleworth and Twickenham, and came across an etching, from 1819. It’s a view of the Thames at low tide, where the River Crane feeds into it. Isleworth Ait can be seen to the right of the picture. It is called Water Cress Gatherers, Rails Head Ferry Bridge. I have yet to come across any water cress along the river but it was identified (with some surprise) in a survey by The Crane Wildflower Explorers, some of whom I have now met as their gardens back onto the river.

Water Cress Gatherers, Rails Head Rerry Bridge, Twickenham 1819 Etched by J.M.W. Turner and engraved by Thomas Lupton

In May I took plants from next to the river to print their pigment onto paper. It has rained a lot this spring and the water in the river has been deep with strong currents so, together with timing my visits around low tide, I have had fewer opportunities to visit the river than I would have hoped. But I collected these plants from the slipway down to the river.

Following some videos on Instagram, I interleaved the plants with strong Khadi paper, tied them up and boiled them in water from the river for half an hour. The results were fairly good, though not as good as the ones on Instagram. Perhaps certain plants release their pigment more readily than others. When dry I drew other plants from the river in ink that I had made with river water and local oak galls – see my September 23 post.

I have since learned that it is necessary to use a mordant to fix the natural pigments and improve their lightfastness. The oak gall ink is fairly permanent so I was able to soak the paper in the mordant at this stage. The mordant I used is called Fatakdi and is a type of salt (potassium sulphate) available from Indian groceries. You use one tablespoon for about 500ml water and soak for half an hour. The soaking did however wash away some of natural pigment (back to step 1!!) and so I followed another technique of steaming the papers with more interleaving of plants to try and get new plant prints over the top of my drawings.

After all this I would say overall I had limited success. The pigment from the first printing had almost washed away and the steaming method did not produce very good results. However, I felt the drawings had taken on a real sense of the river – its random patterns and watermarks. I am researching the medicinal use for annotating each of the plants that I drew (there are 12) and this will make a single work mounted on locally sourced recycled plywood.

There is a hand coloured satirical engraving by William Heath (1828) at The British Museum entitled Monster soup commonly called Thames water, being a correct representation of that precious stuff doled out to us!!! A title above the design reads: Microcosm dedicated to the London Water Companies. Brought forth all monstrous, all prodigious things, hydras and organs, and chimeras dire. It shows a lady discovering the quality of Thames river water, reflecting public concern at the time about increasing pollution in the water supply from the River Thames. [link] It seems sewage in our rivers has been an issue for many years!

I have been meaning to write this post for a while. With Mogden Sewage Works next to the Crane, and knowing Thames Water’s track record on sewage spills, thoughts of river health occasionally flit through my mind while tramping up the river and burying things under the water. There is very little plant life on the river bed, and whilst I see the occasional fish, the river seems far from teeming with aquatic life.

So I have been looking into whether sewage ever gets discharged into the Crane…

There were two major incidents (one a faulty sewage valve at Heathrow and one a damaged sewage pipe near Mogden) that caused devastating sewage discharges in 2011 and 2013 and killed nearly all downstream river life. The Environment Agency has worked to restock the river with thousands of fish, but each incident adds to the stress and demands placed on the whole ecosystem of the river.

But I wonder whether Thames Water regularly dispel ‘storm sewage’ into the River Crane? There’s a lot in the news about the water companies’ appalling practice of storm sewage discharge. This happens when there is prolonged rain or a storm and the rainwater enters the sewers and floods the sewage storage tanks at the treatment plant. This ‘soup’ of rainwater and raw sewage is then discharged by the water companies into our rivers and seas.

Here is a fascinating real time interactive map of Thames Water Storm Discharges – [link]. I have to say I have become a bit obsessed with reading it – and am shocked and heartbroken to see how often and how many places are discharging across the Thames Valley even when we have not had appreciable rainfall. In the meantime water company bosses have been enjoying massive bonuses, dividends and profits.

EDM Map, Storm Discharges Data, 23 February

The good news for the Crane is that Thames Water does not discharge storm sewage from Mogden Sewage Treatment Works directly into the River Crane. However Thames Water does discharge storm sewage into the Thames just north of the River Crane.

Petition

The fact that billions of litres of raw sewage are being dumped into our rivers, seas and streams is a disgusting state of affairs. But with an election coming up this year, there is a chance to change things. We can write to MPs and DEFRA. There is also a petition from the pressure group 38 Degrees: “The next Government should fine water companies in shares, not just their bonuses and profits. If they fail to clean up their act, renationalise them and their profits – and let’s clean up the mess once and for all.” Every name on it counts: after 10,000 signatures, petitions get a response from the government. After 100,000 signatures, petitions are considered for debate in Parliament. So far there are 55,000 signatures. [link]

Household misconnections

River Crane Smarter Water Catchment Programme (SWC)* has identified “major pollution pulses coming into the river, that are likely to be caused by cross-connections from the sewerage system into the river.” Properties are misconnected when sewage systems are plumbed into the surface water drainage system (meant for clean rainwater) instead of the proper sewage outlet. But also Identifying the misconnected drains is now one of the objectives of SWC in order to reduce sewage pollution in the river.

There is something called the Crane Valley Outfall Safari run by Zoological Society of London, in which volunteers  log and map outfalls into the river along an assigned stretch. ZSL say “An estimated 3% of houses in greater London have misconnections so this is a serious problem that is degrading the health of our urban rivers.”

But local environmental groups are working very hard to restore, maintain and protect the River Crane and the river remains an amazing wildlife corridor. It has recovered from two major polluting events and still it has a huge range of marginal plants and wildlife, including kingfishers, water voles, eels and seven types of bat.

State of the Environment Report of the River Crane Smarter Water Catchment Programme 2022

Fish and Fishing on the Crane and Dukes River 2014

I went back to the river today to dig up the linen I buried 2 weeks ago. I was feeling concerned that it would be a)washed away or b)torn to shreds.

Happy days! It was still there and much stained by mud, silt and stones from the river bed. Even after rinsing, the stains stayed in the fabric – as did the smell of the river! Stretching it over a recycled picture frame, the corners of the linen were fragile and tore in places. But dried out and stretched, it’s now ready to draw on – watch this space…