Ford’s Enfield plant – known as Visteon for the last few years – backs on to the Lea Navigation, one of many factories in what was, at least until recent times, one of Britain’s major industrial areas.
The gate for those who came to work at Ford by boat
Industry came to the Lea at first partly because of environmental legislation which banished highly polluting industries from London itself; the River Lea was the border between London (in Middlesex) and Essex, where anything went. But the area also became the centre for developments in transport (road, rail, air, sea) and later electrical industries. And although most of the major factories south of Tottenham have long gone, there is still a sizeable strip of industry to the north, although much is now warehousing, supermarkets and leisure facilities.
Having photographed the Visteon workers coming out from their factory occupation I decided to take a look at the works from the towpath on the opposite side of the canal, and, since I had a couple of hours before my next appointment in a Fleet St pub, to walk back beside the canal to Tottenham Hale.
This is the Ford (Visteon) factory seen from a bridge over the Lea Navigation to the north. You can just see the private bridge over the canal from the Ford workers car park on the east side of the canal to the works.
A few hundred yards away, this is what I saw:
The green bank in the background is one of the many reservoirs in the Lea Valley that supply London with a considerable fraction of its water (though more comes from the River Thames.) Pylons carry power from the national grid to the city (the power stations once in the valley have closed.) Although the power lines in the Olympic area have now been put into underground tunnels – it isn’t clear quite why the athletes should be so sensitive about their presence – members of the Pylon Appreciation Society (founded in 2005) can still have a field day further north.
Pylons in light rain on the Lea Navigation
You can see more of the pictures I took in my rather damp walk on My London Diary.