The Thames Barge Driving Race under oars' or "sweeps" and ride tidal river currents alone, up river. The event commemorates the skills of lightermen who moved freight this way along the Thames up until the 1930s and in a wider context it encourages ongoing interest in moving cargo via water and as a way to recruit younger people back into river trades.The teams are normally made up of employees of Thames Lighterage companies, Port of London Authority or are sponsored by local businesses. The best places to view the race are Tower Bridge, London Bridge and Westminster Bridge. During the 1970s Britain suffered a major
Kew Bridge Wood (1848–1918), who lived in Chiswick between 1897 and 1908, painted "", portraying passengers embarking from the river transport service at Kew Pier in front of the second bridge. Chiswick Local Studies Library has a painting "Kew Bridge and Strand-on-the-Green" attributed to Smyth Watson and also "Strand-on-the-Green and Kew Bridge" by an unknown artist. Hounslow Local Studies Library has "Kew Bridge" by James Isaiah Lewis, painted in about 1900. Kew Bridge Kew Bridge is a Grade II listed bridge over the River Thames in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and the London Borough of Hounslow. The present bridge,