I’d lived 5 minutes stroll from the River Thames for round 35 years earlier than I first noticed the Swan Upping, because it takes place within the third week of July, a time after I was all the time at work.
The Uppers start their journey in Sunbury Lock Lower within the morning and are available alongside my stretch of the river round lunchtime, earlier than they cease for lunch on the Swan Resort near Staines Bridge. Within the afternoon they journey on in the direction of Windsor, the place in ROmney Lock they stand of their boats to drink a loyal toast. Their journey continues upriver for the following 4 days, ending at Abingdon Bridge on Friday.
It was on the sixteenth July 2001 than I used to be first free to view the occasion, and I bought on my bike to attend for them to achieve Chertsey Bridge round 11.30am. Again then I used to be nonetheless photographing on movie, and many of the footage I made have been on a Hassleblad X-Pan.
I feel my footage from that day give a reasonably clear account of how the uppers work to encompass the swans and their cygnets after which seize them, lifting them onto the river financial institution so the cygnets could be weighed and measures and given a fast well being examine. The swan upping is these days seen as “an essential aspect of wildlife conservation” relatively than seen as a largely ceremonial occasion, although it retains some parts of the ceremony.
I talked to an aged man with a bicycle who was an essential a part of the occasion, going forward of the swan uppers to seek out swans with cygnets. Though there are a whole bunch if no hundreds of swans on our stretch of river, there are seldom greater than 3 or 4 breeding pairs. I feel Eric was a retired public schoolmaster who took every week to cycle alongside the towpath with crushed digestive biscuits to lure these pairs into appropriate spots on the riverbank the place the uppers boats may convey them to land.
I cycled behind him following so all the time to be in the best spot, however in more moderen years he hasn’t been round and the proceedings haven’t been fairly so handy to {photograph}. In more moderen years it has been simply the Queen’s Swan Warden in somewhat dinghy with an outboard a brief distance forward of the rowers who spots the cygnets and offers the standard name ‘All up!’
However issues don’t actually change a lot 12 months to 12 months and I feel I’ve most likely taken extra footage of swan upping than anybody must. Although after I started the afternoons have been all the time rather less underneath management after a go to to The Swan, whereas a ban on consuming in the midst of the day got here in just a few years later. I would simply stroll right down to say hey to the uppers as they get to Staines, and if that’s the case I’ll have a digicam with me, however I received’t actually be bothering to take footage of the occasion. The final time I did so was in 2013, however the final 12 months I lined it critically was in 2010 – after I went with all of them the way in which to Windsor to {photograph} the loyal toast in Romney Lock and the Vintners and Dyers uppers saluting the Royal Uppers somewhat additional downstream.
Again then I wrote somewhat concerning the historical past:
It was Henry II who first stole the swans in 1186, declaring that any birds discovered wild have been his. Swans have been an excessive amount of of a delicacy for the widespread folks; later legal guidelines prevented anybody besides the rich from holding them. These have been additional tightened in 1486, from when a licence was required from the crown to maintain them, and particular swan courts set as much as administer harsh penalties for many who broke the swan legal guidelines.
A fable that Richard the Lionheart (Richard I, 1189-1199) had introduced the primary mute swans again from Cyprus (or Turkey) was used as a justification for these actions. Licence holders have been required to determine their swans by particular marks lower into their beaks – there have been virtually a thousand completely different marks within the sixteenth century. This turned finished in an annual ceremony generally known as ‘swan upping’ which was most likely designed primarily to remind the folks of the ability of the swan homeowners and the penalties for many who killed swans – as much as 1895 you may be sentenced to seven years imprisonment with laborious labour, and earlier it had meant transportation and possible demise.
The crown nonetheless claims all swans on open water, however solely workout routines this on the principle a part of the Thames above London. Two of the London livery firms, the Vintners and the Dyers even have licences on this water, and though the swan is not eaten at their feasts, having been ousted in public style by the significantly uglier turkey. One Cambridge school, St John’s, retains the best to serve swan at its banquets although I don’t know in the event that they nonetheless achieve this.
The 2001 account continues on one other couple of pages. In different years I’ve taken extra footage, and the standard of the color has tremendously improved since I moved to digital.
If you wish to see the upping this 12 months you’ll find the approximate occasions on The Queen’s Swan Marker’s web page. It begins on Monday 18th July.
Tags: All up!, cygnets, Dyers, training, environmenta; survey, Laleham, peter Marshall, Queen’s Swan marker, Queen’s Swan Warden, River Thames, Royal, Staines, Swan marker, Swan Uppers, Swan Upping, Swan Warden, swans, Vintners
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