I recently managed to acquire a very tidy first edition of Thames from Mouth to Source by L.T.C. (Tom) Rolt. It was published in 1951 and apart from Rolt's very readable text it includes some excellent colour plates, all of which are from watercolours, aquatints or oil-paintings - no photographs. Because the book is essentially historic in its view, this fits in well.
I recently read Peter Ackroyd's Thames- sacred river, which at 447 pages and with a literary style is a big read. Getting back to Rolt's easy style and only 75 pages was light relief! The emphasis is on the history of the great river but he manages to include many references to his voyage along the river with Angela. For me it's a very accessible book. I have included some boat related plates here. They show some early prints of narrowboats (or should it be narrow boats). You should note that they are not decorated.
I also found it interesting that David Blagrove is currently examining the history of the Thames up to the 1860s in the winter edition of the Narrowboat magazine. Particularly since the article is ilustrated with several images found in Rolt's book; they are now very familiar to me. David, of course, is able to provide a fantastic amount of detail about each of images, as only he can.
