The House By The Thames
  • Published: 1 March 2007
  • ISBN: 9781844130948
  • Imprint: Pimlico
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 272
  • RRP: $39.99

The House By The Thames

And The People Who Lived There

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A masterpiece of miniaturist, social history. By closely examining the history of one house, Gillian Tindall tells the story of Southwark and the south bank, the river Thames and indeed of London itself.

Just across the River Thames from St Paul’s Cathedral stands an old and elegant house. Over the course of almost 450 years the dwelling on this site has witnessed many changes. From its windows, people have watched the ferrymen carry Londoners to and from Shakespeare’s Globe; they have gazed on the Great Fire; they have seen the countrified lanes of London’s marshy south bank give way to a network of wharves, workshops and tenements – and then seen these, too, become dust and empty air.

Rich with anecdote and colour, this fascinating book breathes life into the forgotten inhabitants of the house – the prosperous traders; an early film star; even some of London’s numberless poor. In so doing it makes them stand for legions of others and for a whole world that we have lost through hundreds of years of London’s history.
  • Published: 1 March 2007
  • ISBN: 9781844130948
  • Imprint: Pimlico
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 272
  • RRP: $39.99
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About the author

Gillian Tindall

Gillian Tindall is a master of miniaturist history, well known for the quality of her writing and the scrupulousness of her research; she makes a handful of people, a few locations or a dramatic event stand for the much larger picture, as her seminal book The Fields Beneath, approached the history of Kentish Town, London. She has also written on London's Southbank (The House by the Thames), on southern English counties (Three Houses, Many Lives), and the Left Bank (Footprints in Paris), amongst other locations, as well as biography and prize-winning novels. Her latest book, The Tunnel through Time, traced the history of the Crossrail route, the forthcoming ‘Elizabeth’ line. She has lived in the same London house for over fifty years.

portrait photo of Gillian Tindall

Also by Gillian Tindall

The Pulse Glass
The Tunnel Through Time
Three Houses, Many Lives
Footprints in Paris
The Man Who Drew London
Celestine
See all

Praise for The House By The Thames

Mesmeric... This book is not just for London enthusiasts. Tindall has demonstrated a genius for a certain kind of social history that, in shining a light on one small place, illuminated a huge amount around... A rare instance of a history book that, in its optimism about the indomitable spirit of the place, raises the hairs on the back of your neck.

Sinclair McKay, Sunday Telegraph

Fascinating... Gillian Tindall brilliantly deploys contemporary observations to bring the centuries alive.

Christopher Howse, Tablet

Delightful... Tindall's story is truthful and unexaggerated, combining elegantly elegiac prose with imaginative empathy and descriptive power.

Jessica Mann, Literary Review