Eel Pie Island

Product Description

Details: Eel Pie Island is the only inhabited island on the semi-tidal Thames. Its most famous contemporary resident, Trevor Baylis, OBE, inventor of the clockwork radio, has been heard to describe it (with some exaggeration) as "120 drunks clinging to a mudbank". It is a tiny place, just 600 yards long & barely 150 at its widest, but it has nearly fifty houses, some twenty houseboats, two boatyards & a score of small businesses & craft studios, two boating clubs & a nature reserve at each end, & it is connected to the rest of the world by an elegant footbridge. Named for the favoured snack of Henry VIII, who was said to stop here on his way to & from Windsor, the island has enjoyed two periods of special fame: -In the nineteenth century it was a resort for Londoners, who came by the newfangled steamboats to spend the day in the grounds of the hotel that dominated the island until 1969. -In the middle of the twentieth it was a venue for jazz & later English R&B groups, where the likes of Chris Barber or George Melly, & then the Rolling Stones or Rod Stewart, performed in the dancehall of the hotel. Ideal for: A fascinating book, perfect for a nostalgic read. This hardback book has 112 pages & measures: 27.4 x 25.8 x 1.4cm.