Queen's Swan Warden

Swan Upping on the Thames: On Monday July 17 2006 I again photographed the annual Swan Upping which takes place on the River Thames over five days, in the third week of July starting on Monday at Sunbury Dock and ending on the Friday of that week at Abingdon Bridge. Like many who live close to the river – a five minute walk for me – I’d heard about this for many years but is was only in 2001 that I first saw and photographed the event – before then I had always been teaching during that week.

It is a ceremony that began in the twelfth century where a part of their huge grab of the country the Norman invaders claimed ownership of mute swans on open water as well as all the land. Later they granted some rights over the swans to others including London Livery Companies the Worshipful Company of Vintners and the Worshipful Company of Dyers, who now share the rights to swans on the Thames equally with King Charles III.

You can find pictures and text from a number of years on My London Diary, up to 2013, when I had photographed it ten times and I then decided I was simply repeating myself. I might go again, perhaps just to watch the spectacle but not to try and cover it in any depth.

Some years I wrote at some length about the history and what actually takes place, but here I’ll post my first post about the event in 2001 and the post I made in 2006, the year in which all pictures here were taken.

2001

Swan upping is an annual event, counting swans along the Thames from Sunbury to Abingdon takes a week. The Crown decided it was a good thing to claim the swans around the 12th century, so they could gorge themselves on them at banquets, [later] they let some of their rich mates in the city have a share, but protected them from the people by severe penalties.

Swans are seldom eaten now, but upping continues to divide the Thames birds between the Crown, the Dyers and the Vintners.

2006

I’ve said rather a lot about swan upping in some previous years. It’s a fascinating and colourful event, which keeps a record of swans on the River Thames, as well as giving them a useful health check. The swans are handled very carefully and care is taken to avoid undue distress (though some of the press present this year could have been rather more careful.)

Swans are no longer normally eaten, but are admired for their decorative effect and looked after. Although anglers are now rather more responsible than in the past, the birds examined still often have signs of damage from discarded hooks and line. Many cygnets die in the first few months before the uppers come around, either from predators or other hazards.

I still feel an excitement watching the skill of the uppers as they surround a family of swans, gradually closing in on them, avoiding gaps and then grabbing them out of the water.

Great care is also taken when releasing the family back into the river, and usually only a few seconds later they are swimming serenely as ever.

*Eric who cycled along the towpath to try to lure the swans into suitable places for upping using crushed digestive biscuits*

One of the smaller mysteries to me is how there are so many swans on the river, but so few mating pairs – and many of these with very small broods. Of course there are many other lakes and rivers around, and swans can and do move around, although many of the adults in these pictures were ringed as cygnets in more or less the same locations.

*The swans get recorded – here the leg ring is being checked while the Swan Master looks at the bird’s beak.*

In 2006 I left the uppers at Runnemede, but in some years I went with them to Windsor where they stand to drink a Royal Toast in Romney Lock and then, on the way to the Eton Boathouses at Windsor, the Dyers and Vintners salute the Royal Uppers by standing in their boats with oars upraised.

More pictures from 2006 on My London Diary.

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I’d lived five minutes walk from the River Thames for around 35 years before I first saw the Swan Upping, as it takes place in the third week of July, a time when I was always at work.

*The flotilla in Penton Hook Lock, 2001*

The Uppers begin their journey in Sunbury Lock Cut in the morning and come along my stretch of the river around lunchtime, before they stop for lunch at the Swan Hotel close to Staines Bridge. In the afternoon they journey on towards Windsor, where in ROmney Lock they stand in their boats to drink a loyal toast. Their journey continues upriver for the next four days, ending at Abingdon Bridge on Friday.

It was on the 16th July 2001 than I was first free to view the event, and I got on my bike to wait for them to reach Chertsey Bridge around 11.30am. Back then I was still photographing on film, and most of the pictures I made were on a Hassleblad X-Pan.

I think my pictures from that day give a pretty clear account of how the uppers work to surround the swans and their cygnets and then capture them, lifting them onto the river bank so the cygnets can be weighed and measures and given a quick health check. The swan upping is nowadays seen as “an important element of wildlife conservation” rather than seen as a mostly ceremonial event, though it retains some elements of the ceremony.

I talked to an elderly man with a bicycle who was an important part of the event, going ahead of the swan uppers to find swans with cygnets. Although there are hundreds if no thousands of swans on our stretch of river, there are seldom more than 3 or four breeding pairs. I think Eric was a retired public schoolmaster who took a week to cycle along the towpath with crushed digestive biscuits to lure these pairs into suitable spots on the riverbank where the uppers boats could bring them to land.

I cycled behind him following so always to be in the right spot, but in more recent years he hasn’t been around and the proceedings haven’t been quite so convenient to photograph. In more recent years it has been just the Queen’s Swan Warden in a little dinghy with an outboard a short distance ahead of the rowers who spots the cygnets and gives the traditional call ‘All up!’

*Children from a local school wait for the uppers to arr*ive. Staines 2001

But things don’t really change much year to year and I think I’ve probably taken more pictures of swan upping than anyone needs to. Though when I began the afternoons were always a little less under control after a visit to The Swan, while a ban on drinking in the middle of the day came in a few years later. I might just stroll down to say hello to the uppers as they get to Staines, and if so I’ll have a camera with me, but I won’t really be bothering to take pictures of the event. The last time I did so was in 2013, but the last year I covered it seriously was in 2010 – when I went with them all the way to Windsor to photograph the loyal toast in Romney Lock and the Vintners and Dyers uppers saluting the Royal Uppers a little further downstream.

*Digestive biscuits keep the swans by the bank as the boats surround them. Staines 2001*

Back then I wrote a little about the history:

It was Henry II who first stole the swans in 1186, declaring that any birds found wild were his. Swans were too much of a delicacy for the common people; later laws prevented anyone except the wealthy from keeping them. These were further tightened in 1486, from when a licence was required from the crown to keep them, and special swan courts set up to administer harsh penalties for those who broke the swan laws.
A myth that Richard the Lionheart (Richard I, 1189-1199) had brought the first mute swans back from Cyprus (or Turkey) was used as a justification for these actions. Licence holders were required to identify their swans by special marks cut into their beaks – there were almost a thousand different marks in the sixteenth century. This became done in an annual ceremony known as ‘swan upping’ which was probably designed mainly to remind the people of the power of the swan owners and the penalties for those who killed swans – up to 1895 you could be sentenced to seven years imprisonment with hard labour, and earlier it had meant transportation and probable death.
The crown still claims all swans on open water, but only exercises this on the main part of the Thames above London. Two of the London livery companies, the Vintners and the Dyers also have licences on this water, and although the swan is no longer eaten at their feasts, having been ousted in public taste by the considerably uglier turkey. One Cambridge college, St John’s, retains the right to serve swan at its banquets though I don’t know if they still do so.
My London Diary – 2001

The 2001 account continues on another couple of pages. In other years I’ve taken more pictures, and the quality of the colour has greatly improved since I moved to digital.

If you want to see the upping this year you will find the approximate times on The Queen’s Swan Marker’s page. It begins on Monday 18th July.

Tag: Queen's Swan Warden

Swan Upping on the Thames – 2006

2001

2006

Swan Upping – River Thames