The discrete joy of guerrilla swimming in the Thames
Guerilla swimmers are defying the authorities to go swimming in the Thames – don’t listen to the gloomsters telling you it’s not safe, says James Bethell
Swooshing down the Thames past the pubs and bridges on the powerful tides in the warm summer water is utter bliss.
We met at a pub for some chat, entering the water at the turn of the tide. Everyone had a bright float, with their clothes to change at the other end. We checked the temperature, a balmy 20c. And the water company website for overflows, but it is all clear. Five kilometers of swimming to Hammersmith, five bridges and an hour of blessed mischievous fun.
The river is surprisingly wide, the evenings are empty of water traffic, the banks teaming with wildlife. Wild swimmers are a cheerful bunch, so there’s always lots of banter. It’s more a mental health work-out, as the tide does all the work. An hour of sploshing around, and we celebrated our achievement with a pint of London Pride at the Black Lion to celebrate.
From June to September, you can see the Thames’s “guerrilla swimmers” discreetly entering the Thames in Richmond, Kew, Hammersmith and Putney for this secret urban adventure.
They’re quietly breaking new ground to establish a “swimmable city” that might one day rival one of the thriving urban swims in big city rivers once overwhelmed with industrial filth.
In Basel, the public swim in the Rhine which once ran red with pollution. In Amsterdam, “The City Swim” is a major visitor attraction. In New York, the gruelling twenty Bridges swim around Manhattan is a marquee event for long-distance swimming. The “Bassin de La Villette” pontoon-pool on the Seine is booked out with elegant Parisians. Berlin’s Badeschiff (literally “bathing ship”) is a floating swimming pool created from a converted cargo barge in the River Spree.
Wickelfisch
As I swoosh past Chiswick and Barnes, I dream of hundreds of Londoners floating down the river on rubber rings like they do in Berne. Or a revival of the “Lords and Commons Race” from Kew to Hammersmith, as they had from Victorian times until the Blitz destroyed the sewers. I dream of Londoners standing ready for a high tide and a warm day with their “Wickelfisch”, the waterproof fish-shaped bags invented in Basel to keep belongings dry while floating.
And it seems the Mayor shares my passion. Speaking near the banks of the Thames in Isleworth during his election in 2024, Mr Khan said: “We’ve made huge progress in cleaning up London’s air, exceeding expectations. Now it’s time to clean up our waterways too and build a plan to make rivers in London swimmable again within ten years. I will commit to bringing together the companies, government agencies and campaigners to work together on a 10-year plan to get London’s rivers so clean they are safe to swim in.”
But it seems that not everyone is feeling the love. “The tidal part of the Thames will never be safe to swim in,” says the Port of London Authority.
“We’ve worked really hard over the last 15 years to reduce the number of deaths that we get in the Thames,” said Grace Rawnsley, the PLA’s gloomy director of sustainability to City Hall’s environment committee earlier this year.
But this is a misdirection. A vast majority of deaths are suicides, not cake-eating wild swimmers or even pub heroes. Whilst I celebrate the remarkable work of RNLI volunteers, it’s wrong to overstate the dangers on the tidal Thames. Most of the rescues are capsized boats and dog walkers, and if you want to see dangerous water, you should try Cornwall’s Constantine Bay on a summer’s day, with its riptide and freezing water.
The law is clear. The Port of London (PLA) is required to support access to the water for “maintaining safe access and managing and supporting the safety of navigation for all river users on the Tidal Thames”. They interpret this as “allow but not encourage” swimming. It seems particularly British to say “You may swim here, but we rather wish you wouldn’t” while simultaneously maintaining a 24/7 rescue service staffed by volunteers who’ll fish you out if something goes wrong. This tilting of the scales against swimming in favour of other river users hasn’t been tested in the courts, but it increasingly seems vulnerable.
The PLA rightly takes pride in its handling of Britain’s industrial legacy and protecting the last vestiges of the river’s role as a transport artery. Heritage projects like the London Museum Docklands, No. 1 Warehouse gallery, and the Peruvian Dockyard are a worthy tribute to our past.
But the days when the River Thames was an economic asset are long gone. As I swim down the wide river, watching the herons, it is the quietest place in London, certainly no sign of the river traffic of previous years.
The River Thames is now primarily a social asset and it’s time that the PLA woke up to the opportunities to update its role and start by embracing the opportunities for swimmable cities.
Lord Bethell is vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Swimming (wild and open).