If you're not in a rush, take a few minutes to read this lovely poem called The River's Tale by Rudyard Kipling
Twenty bridges from Tower to Kew wanted to know what the River knew
For they were young and the Thames was old, and this is the tale that the River told:
'I walk my beat before London Town, five hours up and seven down
Up I go and I end my run at Tide-end-Town, which is Teddington Down
I come with the mud in my hands to plaster it over the Maplin Sands
But I'd have you know that these waters of mine were once a branch of the River Rhine
When hundreds of miles to the East I went and England was joined to the Continent
I remember the bat-winged lizard-birds, the Age of Ice and the mammoth herds
And the giant tigers that stalked them down through Regent's Park into Camden Town
And I remember like yesterday the earliest Cockney who came my way
When he pushed through the forest that lined the Strand, with paint on his face and a club in his hand
He was death to feather and fin and fur, he trapped my beavers at Westminster
He netted my salmon, he hunted my deer, he killed my herons off Lambeth Pier
He fought his neighbour with axes and swords, flint or bronze, at my upper fords
While down at Greenwich for slaves and tin the tall Phoenician ships stole in
And North Sea war-boats, painted and gay, flashed like dragon-flies Erith way
And Norseman and Negro and Gaul and Greek drank with the Britons in Barking Creek
And life was gay, and the world was new, and I was a mile across at Kew
But the Roman came with a heavy hand, and bridged and roaded and ruled the land
And the Roman left and the Danes blew in, and that's where your history books begin'.