Following the course of the river as closely as I could over a continuous period of 14 days, I set out<\/a> on the 240-mile journey using the Thames Path<\/a> and the England Coast Path<\/a>. They are national trails that now provide an uninterrupted route from the river\u2019s official source<\/a> in the Cotswolds to the North Sea, off the coast of Kent. <\/p>\n Mobile phones strapped to my body live-streamed my viewpoint and location. This enabled me to share the experience and for people to follow and track my navigation as I ran. <\/p>\n At each mile, I paused to take a photograph in the direction of the river. This allowed me not only to take in my surroundings and build an archive of images that could be shared with others, but to manage this task of running an average of 17 miles each day.<\/p>\n As we reach the 30th anniversary of the Thames Path<\/a>, I am reflecting on the importance of such paths \u2013 and how they can help people learn more about the environment.<\/p>\n The Thames Path and England Coast Path are two of 20 long-distance walking national trails across the UK<\/a> that have been designated by the government as \u201cspecial\u201d. This means they are managed to a set of four high-quality standards<\/a>, setting them apart from other routes and protecting them from deterioration or adverse development.<\/p>\n National Trails were established alongside the UK\u2019s national parks<\/a> and areas of outstanding national beauty<\/a>, following early 20th-century and post-second world war initiatives to encourage walking in the \u201cwild and beautiful parts of Britain\u201d.<\/p>\n They were developed as gateways to the great outdoors with the idea of connecting people to nature, underpinned by the belief that there should be no barriers to accessing and experiencing natural landscapes.<\/p>\n These principles still predominate in the UK \u2013 as does the question of sustainability in the care and maintenance of the trails, especially in relation to environmental concerns.<\/p>\n Long before reaching its designated status, the Thames Path played a major role in enabling public access to the river and its surrounding environment. Named as one of the UK\u2019s long-distance recreational trails in the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act of 1949<\/a>, it was largely through the efforts of the River Thames Society and the Ramblers group that the path was later developed as a continuous publicly accessible walkway.<\/p>\n The Thames Path is the only one of the national trails to follow a river<\/a>. Its route from the source of the Thames to the sea passes through the borders of eight counties<\/a>, providing a variety of scenery both rural and urban. <\/p>\n It was developed following the old towing path along the river that was created during the industrial revolution, when rivers (and canals) provided the main means of transporting goods and services. This not only drew attention to the historical significance of the river, but also to environmental concerns including its erosion due to flooding, which came to light when the route was first proposed. <\/p>\n While there have been a number of improvements over the years, these issues have become more acute as we grapple with more extreme weather and the impacts of climate change<\/a>.<\/p>\n In 2022, as part of the Totally Thames Festival<\/a>, material gathered in the planning stages and on my run was exhibited as a multimedia installation at the Oxo Gallery<\/a>, located on the riverside in central London. <\/p>\n This enabled me to make sense of the fragments of video, sound, photography and writing I had assembled while running. By bringing everything together in one space, I could tell the story of the whole journey I had travelled along the Thames Path and communicate its importance in a more direct way.<\/p>\n An introductory vinyl text and framed etching of the route, based on an antique map of the River Thames, greeted visitors coming in from the riverside entrance to the gallery.<\/p>\n Stretching across the wall facing the back entrance was an eight-metre-wide collage and drawing of the whole Thames Path route. Ordnance Survey maps and superimposed drafting film formed the main artwork, with hand-drawn annotations indicating the proposed route and places to stay. <\/p>\n Placed at intervals were printouts from the blog I had written about the journey. Recycled mobile phones positioned in the gaps in between replayed looped daily sections of video footage that had originally been live-streamed. The overlapping sound from these could be heard throughout the gallery. <\/p>\n Connecting both sides were digital pigment prints of the 240 photographs I had taken at each mile during the run.<\/p>\n Showing the work in this way enabled visitors to not only see the expanse of River Thames from source to sea, and get a sense of the landscape that lies in between, but to explore different aspects of my journey in their own time. <\/p>\n Above all, they could get an idea of how the Thames Path as a route can enable us all to access and experience this precious natural resource for ourselves.<\/p>\n V\u00e9ronique Chance does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 2021, as the UK began to emerge from the third COVID lockdown, I embarked on a slow, long-distance run from the source of the River Thames to the sea. The run was a live artwork I called Thames Run: Source to Sea, as part of the Estuary 21 Festival Associated Programme. Following the course […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}How the Thames Path was developed<\/h2>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/735663\/original\/file-20260513-71-trqsow.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip\")
\n Ben Elliot<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\nExhibiting the run<\/h2>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/counter.theconversation.com\/content\/282509\/count.gif\")
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