14 April 2009

Teddington Weir at high tide

The Tidal Thames reaches all the way from the sea to Teddington Weir, i.e. the water level rises and falls with the tides. The Thames upstream of Teddington Weir is not tidal in that sense but some high tides do rise over the weir and the effects of this can be seen upstream through high-tide lines (i.e. where the water borne materials get deposited). The best place to see this is Canbury Gardens in Kingston.

Here we can see the overspill at Teddington Weir as high tide approaches (there is about 15 minutes to go) and the rushing waterfalls that can normally be heard from some distance have been reduced to a gentle fall of just a few centimetres.

At high tide (and this was not an especially high one) the tide has breached the weir pushing debris upstream and allowing the ducks to swim over it freely.