Exploring the Lea Valley
From early in 2005 I have undertaken a number of walks and/or bike rides in the Lea Valley in east London. With the encroaching developments coming both from the west and rising from the docklands, and with the threat of the Olympic games hanging over the area, things are changing fast in the Lea Valley. This is my attempt to capture some of the state of it at the moment, and something of what I find fascinating about it. In this I am indebted to Peter Marshall, who has done all this before, for much longer, and with more talent.
Route 1 - 19 Feb 05
Thatched House - EastWay Cycle Circuit - Old Ford - Greenway -Beckton
A bitterly cold day on my Brompton bike. It took a little time to find a gap in the fence to allow me onto the Cycle circuit, and I had to look carefully to avoid being run over. The Bully Point Nature reserve is right next to the Channel Tunnel Rail link. Unfortunately there is no way into the allotments on the east bank of the Lea that I could see, which meant trekking all the way up to the Eastway and wheeling the bike across. Coming down Waterden way, just before Hackney Stadium, was a travellers site amidst the multidude of bus depots, complete with about eight little girls, all dressed in pink, playing by the road. A wonderful photograph, but not one you could take these days without the possibility of suspicion or even violence.
White Post Lane provides the biggest indication of the changes to come: from the warehouses and industrial units to brand new developments at the junction of the Hertford Union Canal and the Lea Valley Navigation. I wonder how long it will take those Victorian warehouses to turn into studio flats? Old Ford Lock is picturesque, and then it's up onto the Greenway: in fact the embankement carrying Bazagette's Northern Outfall Sewer, taking North London's sewage to Beckton. The route is a good cycle, going past the spectacualr Abbey Mills Pumping Station - now sadly devoid of the original pumping equipment.
My intention was to ride this route all the way to Beckton, but I ride beyond the end of my small A-Z, and lose the route at the junction with the A13: one for another day! In reality the Greenway is pleasant, but not electrically interesting, though there was some excellent grafitti at West Ham where the Greenway crosses the District line.
Route 2 - 26 Feb 05
Clay Lane - Old Ford - Hertford Union Canal - Regent's Canal - Canary Wharf
Another cold day sees a similar start to the route, but this time I go over the the Old Ford Lock and explore the peninsula beyond, with its run down industrial units. Then past McGrath's waste disposal on the Wansbeck Road and down onto the Hertford Union Canal. The light is going by this stage, so I cycle down this canal and the Regent's Canal to the Limehouse basin without taking more pictures. The new developments of Docklands seem much less real, and vaguely repulsive, after the rich historical patina of what has gone before, but I am glad of Waitrose to sell me supper.
Route 3 - 05 Mar 05
Greenway - Old Ford Lock - Hertford Union Canal - Regent's Canal - Canary Wharf
This really was a walk, with my boyfriend. Only a few pictures taken, as it is again very cold, and we don't want to be too slowed down. We are much amused by the plastic swans of one property, bemused by the IRA slogan on one building, and impressed by the modern structures of Queen Mary College at Mile End. The Pub beckons in Canary Wharf...
Route 4 - 13 Mar 05
Canary Wharf - Limehouse Cut - Lea Valley Navigation - City Mill River - Channelsea - West Ham
A longer walk today: faintly disbelieving stares from the shoppers in Canary Wharf as I tote several kilos of camera gear past them all, wrapped up for the cold. From the Limehouse Basin, I press up the straight line of the Limehouse cut to Bow Locks. On the other side from the towpath the bank is chopped up into sections by the buidlings and warehouses on either side: each with some fearsome divider between it and the next property to prevent ingress via the river bank. There is new development here too: especially down at the Limehouse end.
Bow Locks is spectacular, and leads under the railway bridge to the very beautful tidal mill at Three Mills. I press on from here up the Lea Valley Navigation, until I have to cross the road at the Bow flyover. Up here the rivers are a maze: Lea Valley Navigation, Waterworks River, Channelsea River, City Mill River, Old River Lea, Prescott Channel, Abbey Creek. I push on up to the Old Ford Locks again, but go up the Old River Lea this time. At the junction with the Pudding Mill River there are the remains of something in the river: doesn't look substantial enough to be a lock: what was it, a bridge? Beyond here, as I push on up to Carpenters lock, I have a strong sense of pushing out into areas which I don't know again. I felt this the first time I was out three weeks before, but this is the first time for I while I have been doing something other than connecting up things I already know. The footpath at Carpenters Lock is closed, so I push on down the City Mill river to City Mill Lock, then on wards, back down to Three Mills again. The multiplicity of Rivers and Channels continue: some of these disappear underground at points, to reappear elsewhere with the same name: I rediscover the Channelsea River, appearing from some pilings near the Abbey Mills Pumping Station. I last saw it three weeks ago at Bully Point nature reserve, but it surfaces elsewhere in the Valley at other points before it gets here. Onwards to West Ham station, and home.
Route 5 - 20 Mar 05
Stratford - Channelsea Path - Three Mills - Bow Creek - Trinity Buoy Wharf - Three Mills - Three Mills Wall River - Waterworks River - Greenway - Old Ford Lock - Lea Valley Navigation - Hackney Marshes - Clapton
Starting today at Stratford station, I was on the Brompton again, so progress could be more rapid, with more distance covered. I had adapted the Brompton front bag to be a camera bag by putting an insert from another photobag inside it. After swinging by the old Stratford Low Level station on the High Road, I took a left down the Channelsea Path, which follows the course of the Channelsea River, which now runs under ground as far as I can tell. Like everywhere in Stratford there were new apartment developments springing up all around. And also rather typically, there was a burned out car right in the middle of the path next to them. I pressed on to Abbey Creek and Abbey Mills Pumping Station again. The tide was very low today, and there was ample evidence of the local sport of dropping things off the bridge into the creek!
Between the stubs of Abbey Creek and the Channelsea River here is an intriguing small island with some derelict small industrial buildings on them: I imagine the footbridge is closed too now, and I always find locked bridges and blocked paths fascinating. There was a lot of that today.
I rode on to Three Mills and Bow Locks, where I managed to get a (bad) snap of a heron who eluded me last week. He is very spectacular, and has been fishing here both times I have been here now.
South of Bow locks it becomes very difficult to follow the course of Bow creek to the River Thames. I spent a frustrating but interesting time poking around the back of industrial estates until I finally crossed the Lea at Canning Town and pressed on to Trinity Buoy Wharf, a fascinating collection of Trinity House memorabilia at the junction of the Lea and the Thames. You have to ask for permission to photograph here, but a nice young woman hanging out in an office by the entrance came out without being asked and told me to carry on. The views of the Millennium Dome and Canary Wharf were very good, even on a grey March day, and there was lots of interesting architecture and stuff to look at, not to mention a complete Lighthouse and Lightship. After this I more or less retraced my steps to Canning Town. It is evident from looking at all the new bridge and road works that they will be invigorating the pathways so that it will be easier in future to follow the Lea.
From here I returned to Three Mills, and made my way towards Stratford along the Three Mills Wall River. Next to the park there is a little community of people living in houseboats here.
At the City Mill lock I went up the Waterworks River to the Greenway, where I had intended to go left up to Old Ford Lock: but I saw that, since my walk of the 19th of February, the walkway along the Waterworks River up to Carpenters Lock has had a fence welded across it. It looks like a very permanent closure. I heaved my bike over the fence and rode along the overgrown path to where it met Marshgate lane: here there was an impassable gateway, so I had to return. It looks like all of Carpenters lock and the Waterworks River has now been closed, and the methods used look very permanent. In the middle of the Waterworks river is a follorn sign telling how the towpath was restored by local unemployed people under the New Deal, with help from various agencies. That was only in 1999, so it looks like the life of such regenerative schemes is only six years...
Back at the Greenway, I pushed on up to Old Ford Lock, and then continued north up the Lea Navigation through Hackney Marshes. I was most amused to see a Lesney building, still proclaiming their "Matchbox" toys. I remember my father bringing me home a matchbox car most Fridays of my childhood: but the building looks very run down now, a victim no doubt of cheaper far eastern labour.
Another building was more mysterious: I appeared to be the remnant of something much larger, with the stumps of great concrete arches on the side of the building. It reminded me very much of a concrete and brick equivalent of a ruined abbey. I eventually stopped in Clapton for a pint at the Anchor and Hope, and then returned home on the train.
Route 6 - 27 Mar 05
Stratford - Carpenters Road - River Lea Navigation to Waltham Town Lock
Map to follow Pictures
A long haul on the bike all the way up the towpaths to beyond the M25. Although I started at Stratford, the first pictures start at the Waterworks River and Carpenters Lock, both currently closed to the public. Since Route 5 had covered most of the Lea Valley Navigation up to Clapton, I didn't take many pictures until I got to North Millfields recreation ground.
Just north of here I cam upon an incredibly tame heron, waiting by the Riverside, always looking up intently at the window of one of the high riverside flats. Talking to another resident, I found out that an old man in the flat used to feed the bird shrimps, and although the old man had died some time ago, the heron still came back to see if he was there. It was rather poignant, but the heron, lonely or not, was still very beautiful.
Although on the map this towpath takes you by all the huge Lea Valley Reservoirs which supply 10% of London's water, you never see them from the towpath because they are all actually higher than you: all you see are the sheep grazing on the embankments that surround them.
Stone Hill Business Park has the wonderfully misnamed Silvermere Drive: it was a wonderful place to take pictures.
Journey's end was at the Waltham Town lock, and home on the train from Waltham Cross