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Thames Gateway Prayer goes deeper into London
This coming Saturday, 27 March, intercessors from Essex and Kent and the London boroughs north and south of the river will be praying together in the Greenwich Foot Tunnel under the Thames.
 Those coming from the north side will be meet at the Isle of Dogs entrance to the tunnel at 10.15am (DLR Island Gardens). We’ll enter the tunnel and half way along meet up with fellow Thames Gateway Prayernetters coming in the opposite direction.
There will be the usual mix of shofars, olive oil, salt, bread, wine, mustard seeds, prayer sticks, scriptures, hymns, psalms, and anything else prophetically 'actiony' the Lord lays upon hearts to perform.
The tunnel was designed by Sir Alexander Binnie and was opened 4 August 1902. The tunnel replaced an expensive and sometimes unreliable ferry service, and was intended to allow workers living on the south side of the Thames to reach their workplaces in the London docks and shipyards then situated in or near the Isle of Dogs.
The cast-iron tunnel itself is 1217ft (370.2m) long and 50ft (15.2m) deep and has an internal diameter of about 9ft (2.7m).
 The tunnel is a convenient link between Greenwich town centre on the southern side — the entrance is close to the remains of the previously preserved tea clipper Cutty Sark — and parts of Docklands including Canary Wharf. The northern entrance to the tunnel is at Island Gardens, a park on the southern tip of the Isle of Dogs - which is in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets - with excellent views across the river to the former Greenwich Hospital, the Queen's House and the Royal Greenwich Observatory.
Of course, we will be very near to the highly significant Greenwich Meridian, from which all lines of longitude and time zones around the globe are determined. The Millennium Dome / O2 Arena is nearby, almost opposite to the mouth of the River Lea, which once marked the boundary between King Alfred’s Wessex and the Vikings’ lands governed by the Danelaw.
 A Story from Greenwich’s History: Alphege and the Danes
During the reign of Ethelred the Unready, the Danish fleet anchored in the river Thames off Greenwich for over three years, with the army being encamped on the hill above. From here they attacked Kent, and in the year 1012, took the city of Canterbury, making Alphege the Archbishop their prisoner for seven months in their camp at Greenwich. They stoned him to death for his refusal to allow his ransom (3,000 pieces of silver) to be paid and kept his body, until the blossoming of a stick that had been immersed in his blood. For this miracle his body was released to his followers, he achieved sainthood for his martyrdom, and in the 12th century the parish church was dedicated to him. The present church on the site west of the town centre is St Alfege's Church, designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor in 1714 and completed in 1718. Some vestiges of the Danish camps may be traced in the names of Eastcombe and Westcombe, on the borders of nearby Blackheath.
If you’d like to join Tim Harrold on this escapade, please contact him on 07 929 878 089 or tim@transformationthurrock.com.
For map see:
www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?x=539500&y=177500&z=120&sv=greenwich&st=3&tl=Map+of+Greenwich,+Greenwich+[City/Town/Village]&searchp=ids.srf&mapp=map.srf
If coming by train, tube and DLR, check all tube lines are working - it's a Saturday, remember!
Links of interest:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwich
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwich_foot_tunnel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Borough_of_Greenwich
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isle_of_Dogs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_Hamlets
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danelaw
Future TGP events:
Saturday 19 June - Tower of London and Tower Bridge
Wednesday 14 July - Celtic Prayer Pilgrimage to St Peter's-by-the-Wall, Bradwell-on-Sea
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Tim Harrold, 23/03/2010 |
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