In world terms the River Thames is a relatively insignificant river being only a mere 215 miles (344 km) long but it is England's greatest river. Not only does it flow across much of the centre of the country, it is said that many of the events that made English history happened near, or were affected by, the Thames.

The bones of the oldest man (in fact a woman) to have been found in Britain, lived along the Thames perhaps a quarter of a million years ago. Her skull was found in the gravels in Swanscombe on the south bank of the Thames in north Kent.

There is evidence that the earliest of man wandered into Britain across Europe from Africa about half a million years ago, crossing from Africa to Spain across land that then spanned the Straits Of Gibralter.

 These people, known as ‘Chellean man’, lived in small communities probably in trees in river valleys or in caves along the sea shore. They used the earliest of shaped tools formed from flintstone chipped to a jagged edge following the natural contours of the stone. Chellean axes have been found in the Wey Valley, one of the lower tributaries of the Thames, and no doubt he wandered into the Thames valley itself.

 Chellean man was around for some 300,000 years!!