Episode 9: London's Defences

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Alan: As all boatmen and watermen know and have known for time immortal, it's been always known as the London River. Never the River Thames. Only the tourists call it that!

Sam: From bloodthirsty battles to the spectra of climate change: London has always been under attack.

Sean: So we sent Jamie out in the water to see how London has defended herself through the ages.

Jamie: Welcome aboard the X-Pilot! Now if you look here, I can show you the plan we're going to take this morning. We're going to start at Whitstable, and we're going to go in a straight line all the way to Redsand Towers. Then, once we've seen the towers, we're going to turn left and 40 miles later down the Thames Estuary, we come to Londinium itself.

Alan: We've left Whitstable now, and seven and a half miles out to the Redsand Towers. During World War Two, the forts were instrumental in stopping German aircraft using the Thames as a navigational aid to the centre of London.

Frank: The Admiralty asked Guy Maunsell – a civil engineer – to design a fort to overcome the problem. They shot down 22 aircraft and 30+ doodlebugs or V1s during the period from June 1944 to the end of the war in 1945.

Jamie: All the men are running across the gantries, running to their stations. The guns start firing, the searchlights light up, the doodlebugs come over and they start shooting them down! Can you imagine all the noise and mayhem, and the cheers when they finally get the planes? And the German bombers crash into the sea?

Sam: After the war, the forts didn't see action until the 60s when they were used for pirate radio.

Sean: But they were forgotten again until 2003 when Project Redsand was set up to save them. You can save the forts right now by visiting http://www.project-redsand.com/. Julius Caesar failed to tame Britain, but he made trade links and crowned client kings to pave the way for Roman domination.

Sam: Richborough Roman Fort is almost certainly Claudius' invasion began 97 years later in 43AD. It's one of Britain's most important sites, seeing the beginning and end of Roman rule.

Jamie: This is the Thames Estuary and a little bit further that way is the Thames Barrier. And that's how London defends itself now against the invasion of water.

Well here it is – Thames Barrier. It's taken us 4 hours to get this far!

Sam: What springs into your mind if I say scary blackbirds, beefeaters and Crown Jewels.

Sean: So we caught up with Kings College expert Eljas Oksanen to find out how the Tower of London came to be.

Eljas: William the Conqueror was the first Norman king of England and he was during his reign that the construction work on the White Tower began. Much of this edifice that you see behind me was actually added onto by later kings. What it really represents is not so much defensive fortification for the protection of the city. The castle, really, is a place where the military aristocracy can protect themselves. It very much secured an iconic royal presence in this potentially rebellious Anglo-Saxon city. This also is a structure which projects power outwards. Imagine being a late-11th Century Anglo-Saxon, a Londoner living under a shadow. It stood apart and really towered over this old Anglo-Saxon city.

Jamie: I nearly didn't make this trip – weather conditions, tide times, other commitments. I'd have been gutted if I hadn't seen those sea forts with my own eyes! Seeing London from the river, I can really understand its draw.

Sam: If London was under attack, what would you save from destruction?

Sam and Sean: Au-Revoir!