An aerial view panorama from the south of the Thams, looking north over London and showing a detailed view of both sides of the river from just upstream of Westminster Bridge (including the as yet unfinished new Palace of Westminster at the date of first publication) to beyond Greenwich in the east. As the title suggests, the emphasis is on the importance of the Thames, with the names of significant features printed along the lower margin. There is also a wide variety of shipping on the water, with pleasure traffic mixing with commercial, coal and hay barges, paddle steamers, dredgers, ferries and the mass of shipping in the Pool, below London Bridge.

The image has a fairly complex history, not easily clarified. It was first published to be given away as a free supplement with the 'Illustrated London News' of 11 January 1845, comprising two parts each printed from three separate woodblocks and with the two sheets to be joined in the middle if one wished. This version did not have sites identified along the bottom but had a separate 'key' sheet with outline reductions of both parts, and the principal buildings numbered and identified on that. One could also obtain, or have it bound into, a hardback binding in red paper simulating leather and with a decorative ILN title gold-embossed on the front. It was also only issued uncoloured in the first instance. This appears to be a subsequent form with the side and part of the upper and lower margins of the two sheets trimmed off and the whole rolled up round a wooden spindle, with the vertical title 'tag' attached to the right end, as well as being hand-coloured. Other copies are known so it is likely it was also sold in this form. It is signed 'SMYTH SC' [sculpsit] in the far right lower corner by Frederick James Smyth, the wood engraver who produced it, who was active between about 1841 and 1867. Notable Greenwich features are the 'Dreadnought' hospital ship shown moored between Deptford and Greenwich and the long brick viaduct of the London to Greenwich railway, which opened in 1836 as the world's first suburban line and only went beyond Greenwich (via cut-and-cover tunnel) in 1878.

This type of domestic panorama was very popular in the mid-19th century, as were the full-scale stationary circular or moving/ unrolling ones that were a form of 'proto-cinema'. The present example may have been the ILN response to 'The Grand Panorama of London', also viewing the north side of the Thames from Westminster to the City but at eye level from the south bank, that was issued by its rival the 'Pictorial Times' in 1844. That one was only about five inches high but was 12 feet long, whereas this is nearer 8 feet: a hard-bound reprint of the 'Pictorial Times' one (with an introduction by the historian Professor Asa Briggs, then Vice-Chancellor of Sussex University), was published in 1972.

Another one, 'The Grand Architectural Panorama of London: Regent Street to Westminster Abbey', wood-engraved by G.C. Leighton and was published by I. Whitelaw at 188 The Strand was also issued in 1845 (and reprinted in 1966 by the London Topographical Society). This was just a few doors down from the ILN offices at 198, The Strand, where it was first published in May 1842 by Herbert Ingram, a bookseller, newsagent and printer from Nottingham, who acquired the necessary capital from the sale of 'Parrs' laxative pills. It was the longest surviving of all the 19th-century illustrated magazines, only closing in May 2024, and Its continuous run of 182 years makes it a major resource for the study of many aspects of British and word history and change over the period. It also has a particular link to the National Maritime Museum, since Sir Bruce Ingram (d. 1963) grandson of the founder, and in his turn its managing editor and proprietor, was both a major early supporter of the Museum and a generous contributor to its collections.