light25: 15

By 1901 light vessels with powerful sound signals were scattered all over the Thames and its approaches. They were often named for the channels they were anchored on, and their names are like poetry when read together, more magical than cartographic. A year into the new century, Sunk, Kentish Knock and Swin Middle all had fog sirens, and there were fog trumpets on Tongue, Black Deep, Girdler, Galloper, Nore, Long Sand and Mouse, along with the Princes and Edinburgh Channels. Bells sounded at the sea reach and on piers all the way to Southend.

THE FOGHORN’S LAMENT, Jennifer Lucy Allan