7 Facts About River Thames

1. The River Thames features prominently in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, as a communications artery for the waterborne Gyptian people of Oxford and the Fens, and as a prominent setting for his novel La Belle Sauvage.

2. The most popular sailing craft used on the River Thames are lasers, GP14s and Wayfarers.

3. In 2010, the River Thames won the world's largest environmental award at the time, the $350,000 International Riverprize, presented at the International Riversymposium in Perth, WA in recognition of the substantial and sustained restoration of the river by many hundreds of organisations and individuals since the 1950s.

4. One of the major resources provided by the River Thames is the water distributed as drinking water by Thames Water, whose area of responsibility covers the length of the River Thames.

5. In 2010, the River Thames won the largest environmental award in the world—the $350,000 International Riverprize.

6. The River Thames provided the major route between the City of London and Westminster in the 16th and 17th centuries; the clannish guild of watermen ferried Londoners from landing to landing and tolerated no outside interference.

7. The River Thames is host to some invasive crustaceans, including the signal crayfish and the Chinese mitten crab.