Love Locks

The picture on this blog was taken during my Walk-About of London in 2014. It captures a small portion of the Millennium Bridge where a cluster of Love Locks hung attached to the girder lines. At the time there were only a few locks, but I imagine there are many, many more now. Each lock  included at least one name and a date, commemorating something for the individual who placed it there. Some had additional words, an explanation of purpose, but I refrained from reading them -- somehow it felt intrusive even though the locks were displayed openly for all to see.

I walked the length of the bridge slowly, having just climbed from the trench through the city that is the Thames. It was the time of month when the full moon pulled the tides out to sea, so the banks of the Thames were exposed during the day. Seeing the locks reminded me of all the tokens that had been thrown into the water over the millennia -- coins, buttons, and other small objects inscribed with names and dates. Things the mudlarks collected in their daily combing of the reeking mud which beckoned with its promise of treasures both ancient and mundane.

Times change but people's instinct to memorialize their existence does not. Though the locks are more visible, apropos in the era of social networking, their mystery is just as palpable as those bobbles washing upon the floor of an ancient river.