The Thames has become a ‘national disgrace’ – so we tested the water to see how bad it really is

It’s strange, really, that one of our most beloved, lyrical books about English rivers should have been written in the dying embers of the Victorian era. When Kenneth Grahame was writing about a rat and a mole passing their days “simply messing about in boats” – inspired by the walks he took with his son by the River Thames and its tributaries in Berkshire – the waters that flowed past his house and on to London were a cesspool often blamed for the diseases that ripped through the city, characte