River Thames Floods

92 years ago today the River Thames, swollen for a week by melting snow and heavy rain and coinciding with an exceptionally high incoming tide and a storm surge from the North Sea, burst its banks in the early hours of 7th January 1928. Worst affected were the slums on the Westminster side of Lambeth Bridge where 10 of the 14 people who drowned lost their lives. Those killed almost exclusively were poor people and domestic servants living in crowded basement accommodation who were simply overwhelmed by the inundation. Thousands were left homeless with serious flooding extending from Greenwich and Woolwich in the east to Kew, Putney and Hammersmith in the west. The moat at the Tower of London was filled for the first time in 80 years, the Blackwall and Rotherhithe Tunnels were under water as were the Houses of Parliament and several Underground stations. HMS President which had been moored on the Thames at Victoria Embankment since 1922 floated majestically into the streets and had to be tethered to Cleopatra's Needle.


A Southern Railway electric multiple unit approaching Kew Bridge railway station.
A steam train on flooded tracks at Stratford, east London.