This work is based on the much-acclaimed survey "The Thames Landscape Strategy: Hampton to Kew". Each of 12 stretches of the river is given a map and described in detail along with its wildlife habitats, historical origins and suggestions for its future. Anyone visiting or living in the area should find that they have a useful companion guide to hand. New for this edition are a series of illustrated essays by the author on some of the people and places to be found along the route. She writes of the mercurial David Garrick, of Pope finding Arcadia in Twickenham, Horace Walpole, Turner and Thomson. The newly restored privet garden at Hampton Court, Ham House, Henrietta Howard's Marble Hill, Syon, Richmond and Kew all come into the story.