In message , michael adams
writes

What's on the opposite bank is a "footpath" - with numerous trees etc
between the path and the river which would have ruled out any use of
rope,

The trees have all grown since the demise of barge towing. In fact, the
chestnuts on the Kew bank, opposite Strand on the Green, were
deliberately planted to enhance the view. They were not there in the age
of towing for the reason you state.

The actual towing path along the Thames was entirely on the south
(Surrey) side for many miles upstream of London. There are a few
riverside walks on the north bank, but they are not continuous and were
never part of an actual towpath.

"Towpaths" are most commonly found on canals where horses were used to
tow the barges. And where the more normal means of propulsion i.e sail
or oar weren't available.

There was certainly some towed transport on the Thames, but the river is
strongly tidal (originally as far as Kingston) and so most carriers made
use of the tides, aided by wind where possible, rather than towing.

For anyone who's interested the railway bridge in the vicinity may have
suffered bomb damage during the War as some of the piers are different
- plainer and without the original embellishments.

I think that's more than likely - and also, perhaps, an answer to the
OP's query. There was severe damage to the area around Old Post Office
Alley in 1940 as the result of a land mine (which destroyed most of the
adjacent City Barge pub). I'll try to remember to take a look next time
I got to the latter, but I suspect the metal knobs are the ends of tie
rods to stop any further bulging of a weakened wall.

Although that part of Chiswick now appears peaceful and affluent, it had
some nasty scrapes during WW2, including (not far from Strand on the
Green) the first V2 rocket to fall on London - hushed-up at the time as
a "gas explosion".
--
Paul Terry

In article , Tom
Anderson on Mon, 28 Jul 2008 at 16:43:40 awoke
Nicholas from his slumbers and wrote
On Mon, 28 Jul 2008, michael adams wrote:

Here's another thought: if you had a letterbox on both sides, could you
have two addresses? Do addresses in fact belong to letterboxes, and not
houses?

That's true, mutatis mutandis, of internet addresses and network
interfaces. I was very confused when i realised that my computer didn't
actually have an internet address, but my network card did! And am still
slightly confused by the fact that it's my computer which has the domain
name ... isn't it?


Even more off topic, it is a good job that houses do not have dynamic
addressing like many computers, sorry network cards, sorry networks.
Would be just like finding 'Holly' last year.

For census purposes does a boat have an address, particularly if it is a
genuine CC'er?

The numbers are probably not significant today, however, how did the
census deal with this problem when significant numbers of narrowboat and
barge workers, lived aboard and moved round the country on a daily
basis? Maybe this should be the subject of a new thread?

'I went to bed on "The Strand" and woke up on "Gas Works Alley".'

--
Nicholas David Richards -

"Où sont les neiges d'antan?"

On Wed, Aug 06, 2008 at 10:24:16AM +0100, Nicholas D. Richards wrote:
In article , Tom
Anderson said:
Here's another thought: if you had a letterbox on both sides, could you
have two addresses? Do addresses in fact belong to letterboxes, and not
houses?

The former. Sort of. The building I live in has three flats in it,
numbered 1, 2 and 3. Flats 2 and 3 share a common front door and
hallway, having their own doors off that. As far as normal people are
concerned, that's three flats and three addresses. Post for flats 2 and 3
is delivered through a single letterbox. Consequently, as far as the post
office is concerned, there are only *two* addresses, one for flat 1, and
one for the shared letterbox of flats 2 and 3.

This is quite irritating, especially when stupid programmers working for
stupid companies insist that I tell them my address by typing in my
postcode and then selecting one of the addresses that the post office
think exist. Normally it doesn't matter, of course, but it does matter
when I'm trying to do something like order a pizza late at night and
want the delivery boy to ring *my* doorbell and not have to guess at
random between mine and my upstairs neighbour's.

--
David Cantrell | London Perl Mongers Deputy Chief Heretic

comparative and superlative explained:

Huhn worse, worser, worsest, worsted, wasted

David Cantrell wrote:
On Wed, Aug 06, 2008 at 10:24:16AM +0100, Nicholas D. Richards wrote:
In article , Tom
Anderson said:
Here's another thought: if you had a letterbox on both sides, could
you have two addresses? Do addresses in fact belong to letterboxes,
and not houses?

The former. Sort of. The building I live in has three flats in it,
numbered 1, 2 and 3. Flats 2 and 3 share a common front door and
hallway, having their own doors off that. As far as normal people are
concerned, that's three flats and three addresses. Post for flats 2
and 3 is delivered through a single letterbox. Consequently, as far
as the post office is concerned, there are only *two* addresses, one
for flat 1, and one for the shared letterbox of flats 2 and 3.

This is quite irritating, especially when stupid programmers working
for stupid companies insist that I tell them my address by typing in
my postcode and then selecting one of the addresses that the post
office think exist. Normally it doesn't matter, of course, but it
does matter when I'm trying to do something like order a pizza late
at night and
want the delivery boy to ring *my* doorbell and not have to guess at
random between mine and my upstairs neighbour's.

If the pizza boy has two brain cells to rub together he will figure out that
lower flats tend to have lower doorbells, and flats with people awake late
at night tend to have lights on.

On Aug 7, 1:23 pm, "John Rowland"
wrote:
If the pizza boy has two brain cells to rub together he will figure out that
lower flats tend to have lower doorbells, and flats with people awake late
at night tend to have lights on.

AIUI, this isn't a key criterion applied in pizza boy recruitment.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

On Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:06:24 +0100, David Cantrell wrote:

Normally it doesn't matter, of course, but it does matter
when I'm trying to do something like order a pizza late at night and
want the delivery boy to ring *my* doorbell and not have to guess at
random between mine and my upstairs neighbour's.

Why doesn't the delivery person just call you?

--
jhk

"Nicholas D. Richards" wrote in message
...

Even more off topic, it is a good job that houses do not have dynamic
addressing like many computers, sorry network cards, sorry networks.
Would be just like finding 'Holly' last year.

For census purposes does a boat have an address, particularly if it is a
genuine CC'er?

The numbers are probably not significant today, however, how did the
census deal with this problem when significant numbers of narrowboat and
barge workers, lived aboard and moved round the country on a daily
basis? Maybe this should be the subject of a new thread?



" The enumeration of people not in normal households on census night "

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/hitch/gendocs/census2.html

Contains a mine of information on such topics. To wit

quote

VESSELS ENGAGED IN INLAND NAVIGATION ~

[...]

From 1871 onwards it became the responsibility of the enumerators to enumerate
such vessels. They handed the person in charge of the vessel a ship's schedule,
and collected them when completed. The information they contained was then entered
into their enumerators' books at the end of the household entries. From 1881 this
applied not only to vessels which had been given schedules prior to census day but
also to barges and the like which appeared in the enumeration district on that day.

Copyright © 1996-2003 John Hitchcock. All rights reserved.


/quote


michael adams

....















'I went to bed on "The Strand" and woke up on "Gas Works Alley".'

--
Nicholas David Richards -

"Où sont les neiges d'antan?"

On Aug 7, 5:49*am, John B wrote:
On Aug 7, 1:23 pm, "John Rowland"

wrote:
If the pizza boy has two brain cells to rub together he will figure out that
lower flats tend to have lower doorbells, and flats with people awake late
at night tend to have lights on.

AIUI, this isn't a key criterion applied in pizza boy recruitment.

Can you not label your bell with your name?

Tom Anderson wrote:

Here's another thought: if you had a letterbox on both sides, could
you have two addresses? Do addresses in fact belong to letterboxes,
and not houses?

I take it you know about Baarle-Nassau?

I've just noticed that the Westbury Hotel gives its address as
The Westbury Hotel
Bond Street,
Mayfair,
London, W1S 2YF

I was aware that estate agents have grown Hampstead and Cla'am to cover all
London between them, but I was surprised to find that merely sounding like
it might be a prestigious address is enough to summon "Bond Street" into
existence.

On Sat, 9 Aug 2008, John Rowland wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote:

Here's another thought: if you had a letterbox on both sides, could
you have two addresses? Do addresses in fact belong to letterboxes,
and not houses?

I take it you know about Baarle-Nassau?

Oh yes. Surely everybody knows about Baarle-Nassau?

I've just noticed that the Westbury Hotel gives its address as
The Westbury Hotel
Bond Street,
Mayfair,
London, W1S 2YF

I was aware that estate agents have grown Hampstead and Cla'am to cover
all London between them, but I was surprised to find that merely
sounding like it might be a prestigious address is enough to summon
"Bond Street" into existence.

The only question is whether it's the Bond Street in Ealing or the one in
Stratford!

tom

--
Everyone has to die sooner or later, whether they be killed by germs,
crushed by a collapsing house, or blown to smithereens by an atom bomb. --
Mao Zedong