I can already hear you saying what?
This is actually a saying from the 19th century and refers to a row of bronze lion’s heads with open mouths that line the Thames along the Victoria Embankment.
They were put there in 1868-187 at the same time the river was being embanked for essential sewage works by the great engineer Jospeh Bazalgette. Before the Thames was embanked it was nearly twice as wide and one consequence of the building work was to make the river faster, deeper, and in heavy rain, more liable to flood.
During the 20th century the city flooded on more than one occasion, the worst being 1928 when the Thames burst its banks and submerged Central London in flood water, causing 14 deaths. Finally in 1982, the Thames River Barrier was built about 3 miles downstream of the city, whose retractable barrier system safeguards the capital from storm surges and exceptionally high tides.
But before modern technology was used to protect London, the lions were supposed to be the main warning of impending floodwater.
It was said that local bobbies on the beat, part of their job was to lean over and check the lions for raised river levels. When it’s up to their manes, we’ll go down the drains’
They are best seen from the platform alongside Cleopatra Needle and are actually mooring rings for small boats.
Image courtesy of Wikipedia. A decorative lion head on the northern side of the River Thames along the Victoria Embankment. Sourcec: Ethan Doyle White This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.