Tower Beach: A seaside in the city

In the early 1900s, trips to the seaside were a luxury many East End families couldn’t afford. Instead, many children played on the muddy, pebbly foreshore of the Thames by the Tower of London. This was technically trespassing, as the beach is property of the monarchy.

So, with King George V’s permission, the charity Tower Hill Improvement Fund created a larger, safer beach for children in the local area. They did so by importing 1,500 barge-loads of sand onto the foreshore. Tower Beach officially opened in July 1934.

During the summer months, you could relax on deck chairs, rent rowing boats, watch Punch and Judy puppet shows or go for a swim – under the watchful eye of an on-duty boatman. The Times called it a “happy playground… a scene of the merriest animation and colour.”

Tower Beach was very popular. In its first five years, hundreds of thousands of people visited this London ‘riviera’. But as the Thames is a tidal river, Tower Beach was only accessible at low tide. It also closed during the Second World War, reopening in 1946.

Tower Beach closed in 1971 due to concerns over pollution and the safety of swimming in the river. Today, if you pulled into the nearby Millennium Pier by boat, or walked along Tower Wharf by the riverside, you’d hardly know you were a stone’s throw from London’s very own beach resort.