Men’s Health, November 2025. PDF here.
Nigel Walley, 61, has been swimming in the Thames since he was a boy and now regularly tackles the iconic river’s tidal section. He explains what it’s like to be in the water as the tide surges. As told to Jessica Furseth .
We went for an hour and a half swim in the Thames the other weekend – I really can’t do that in a pool, it’s so boring. But in the river, it’s just a pleasure. We went up to Kew Bridge and got in when the tide turned, and swam with the tide all the way down to Hammersmith. A lot of it is about managing where you are in the water, as the river does much of the work. A key rule is to make sure you know where you can get out, because when you’re in the Thames, you’re on the river’s territory.
I’m a Londoner, born and bred in West London. I’m married with two grown kids and I run a tech startup. I still live near the river, in Chiswick, and I’ll swim three seasons out of four, when the water is over 15 degrees. I’ll go in the river two or three times a week, always with friends – it’s crazy to swim alone.
I mostly swim in the Thames tideway out of Hammersmith – it’s illegal to swim in Central London until you’re west of Putney Bridge. But the Thames is strongly tidal up to Teddington Lock, and the tideway is a difficult bit of water. A lot of people avoid it because the river is strong and surging. There’s a lot of boats and things moored in the river – pontoons, rafts and buoys. Up past the lock, the river is more like a lake. But you really need to keep your wits about you to swim in the tideway.
Swimming the tideway is all about timing. Often we go in at Hammersmith, when the tide’s still coming in. We swim with the tide from Hammersmith up to Chiswick where there’s an ait, an island in the river. If you time it right, the tide dies by the time you get to the end of the ait. We go around it and then the tide starts going out. By the time we’re coming back to Hammersmith, the tide is surging quite strongly.
If we get the timing wrong, we have to swim the last 100 yards against a tide that’s just turned – it’s amazingly strong. When it’s at full force there’s no chance you can swim against it. One of my earliest memories was seeing a canoeist go under a pontoon in Richmond. He eventually came out the other side, but it was an important lesson in how strong the current is. It’s best not to be anywhere near a moored object, as the river will drag you under.
When I was growing up my parents had a boat on the Thames at Richmond, nothing grand but just something we could take up to Teddington on a Sunday. We’d swim anywhere as kids – there wasn’t the same focus on safety. As I got older we’d have a bit of a swim from Strand-on-the-Green in Chiswick before going to the pub. I was a rower as well, at Thames Rowing Club in Putney. The river has always been part of my life.
You shouldn’t swim more than ten metres out from the bank in the tideway, and you should never cross the river – this is because of the shipping channel. There’s always boats and rowers in the river and they can’t really see you, and in any case, they can’t stop. You have to stay out of their way. I’ve been lucky that I’ve never had a dicey moment.
There’s a lot of focus on sewage spills into the Thames, so we always check if it’s good to swim. The river has been tangibly cleaner this year since we got the Thames Tideway Tunnel, the sewer diversion around London. But there are still some problem spots. We’re becoming more aware of the Thames as a complex river network.
The river is ours – it’s for all Londoners. One time there was a seal that came and swam with us. That was really special – a seal popping its head up and swimming with you for a bit. That’s how we know the river is mostly healthy.
The Thames is like a national park that cuts right through the city. There’s something magical about being in the water in the middle of London. On the other side of Chiswick Ait, there are natural riverbanks on both sides and it feels really remote. There’s a real sense of peace, out in the middle of the Thames. We look at cormorants as we swim. And then suddenly, we’re back in Hammersmith again.
Jessica Furseth 