Tag Archives: thames water

I have an interest in chalk streams, or one in particular, the Hogsmill, which lies less than a mile from my home; its tributary, the Bonesgate, runs through my ward.

The Hogsmill rises in Ewell and flows for 6 miles to the Thames at Kingston, having passed by the Coronation Stone where seven Saxon kings were crowned and gone under the 12th century Clattern Bridge. Its name derives from the water mills that lay along its length, and specifically one belonging to someone called Hogg. The mills were used for several purposes, from grinding flour to providing gunpowder for the American Civil War.

Millais worked on his famous painting of Ophelia along one pretty stretch of the river (see photo). He did not ask his model to actually float in the river, but painted the lush background there and more prosaically got her to pose in a bath in his studio.

Another pre-Raphaelite, Holman Hunt, knew the area well. In The Light of the World, which hangs in St Paul’s Cathedral, he depicts Jesus carrying a lamp in a dark wood and knocking on a door that is overgrown with creepers. That door was based on one of the disused mills that he found along the Hogsmill.