The River Thames
From Source to Sea
The Thames is about 100 metres (325 feet) wide at Teddington.
Teddington
Height above sea level: 3.83 metres
Click to see a map of this area.
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Teddington is a place in Middlesex. The non-tidal Thames comes to an end here at Teddington Lock, which is the longest lock on the River Thames (200m long).
From Teddington the Thames is tidal, which means its level rises and falls twice daily with the tides of the North Sea.
Did you know? .....
Depending on the time of year, the river rises and falls (twice a day) by anything up to 7 metres (24ft) and takes longer to flow out (between 6 to 9 hours) than it does to flow in (4 to 5 hours).
Lock Cut - the main river flows over the weir. |
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178 million gallons of water per day flow over the weir.
July 2006 - The amount of water flowing over Teddington Weir has also dropped dramatically. The daily torrent of 178million gallons falling to just 44million gallons.
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From here the Thames has a further 109 or so kilometres (68 miles) to go before it becomes the sea.
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The Thames will continue to grow in size from 100 metres wide now to 265 metres (870 feet) at London Bridge, 448 metres (1470 feet) at Woolwich, 732 metres (2400 feet) at Gravesend and 8 km (5 miles) between Shoeburyness and Sheerness at its mouth.
Did you know? ....
The water above and below Teddington lock is very different. Above the lock the River contains fresh water where as below the lock the tidal water is salty.
The two types of water mix. As fresh water is less dense than sea water, the fresh water forms a wedge and moves out to sea flowing over the denser sea water. The tidal salt water flows in a reverse direction below the fresh water.
London was made capital of Roman Britain at the spot where the tides reached in AD 43.
| Start of Voyage down the Thames | Contents Page | Introduction |
| Facts about the Thames | Flooding | Thames Basin |
| Pollution | Erosion | Tributaries |
| Industries | ||
 © Copyright - please readAll the materials on these pages are free for homework and classroom use only. You may not redistribute, sell or place the content of this page on any other website or blog without written permission from the author Mandy Barrow. |
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