Three Mills | >Re-PHOTO

Bow Back Rivers, Plaistow & Upton Park – 2007

Bow Back Rivers, Plaistow & Upton Park: March 8th is of course International Women’s Day, and most years I’ve found events related to that to photograph, though often the main events take place not on the day itself but on the closest Saturday. In 2007 March 8th was a Thursday and I did something completely different, taking a stroll around the various rivers and channels to the south and west of the Olympic site.

Many of the paths and roads I walked were soon to be closed for various works connected with the Olympics, including the building of a new lock. This was much heralded as being a part of making London 2012 green, with boasts that it would lead to a huge reduction in lorries taking spoil from the site out and bringing materials in to the area by barge. In fact I think it was only ever used for a few photo opportunities and the piece I wrote for My London Diary perhaps suggested the real driver behind its construction.

Another unnecessary aspect of the Olympic development was putting the power lines between Hackney and East Ham underground, perhaps also more driven by the desire by developers of the area, now with its many new tall blocks flats more attractive and profitable.

There was also a very half-hearted attempt to use the rivers and navigation as a means of access to the games, with a river-boat service. It was said to be a part of opening up the area as a major leisure attraction, but didn’t ever work and was soon abandoned.

After walking around the area I walked east along the Greenway – the elevated walkway over the Northern Outfall Sewer – to Upton Park, also affected by the Olympics, with West Ham abandoning their Boleyn ground and moving to the Olympic Stadium after the games. Close to their ground is Queen’s Market, which Newham Council had being trying to demolish and redevelop since 2004. It is still currently under threat as it doesn’t fit with their dreams of gentrification but remains as an important community resource.

*Channelsea Rvier and the island, with Abbey Creek to left*

My post on My London Diary contains a lot of background but doesn’t really describe the walk I made – the pictures tell that story, along with their captions. It is rather more fanciful than most of my posts. As usual I’ve tidied it up slightly, changing to normal capitalisation and making a few minor amendments.

Bow Back Rivers – Prescott Lock Site

*The tide flowing out fast from the Prescott Channel, officially opened in 1935*

If you are a water molecule starting in the River Lea at Leagrave on the outskirts of Luton, your route to its mouth on the Thames can be rather convoluted – even assuming you don’t get diverted on the way for drinking by Londoners. Below Hertford the river runs in concert with the Lee Navigation, part river, part canal, and examining a map you would soon be confused.

A *memorial on Three Mills Green marked the heroism of distillery workers who died trying to rescue a workmate in 1901. The sculpture ‘Helping Hands’ by Alec Peevers replaced an earlier large cross*

Since work by the Lee Conservancy Board and the West Ham Corporation started in 1931 and officially opened in 1935, the major flow of water in the southern area has been along the Flood Relief Channel (built in the 1970s following the 1947 floods) and the River Lea to Hackney Wick, and then along the Waterworks River, into the Three Mills Wall River and down the newly built Prescott Channel onward to Bow Creek and finally the Thames.

*James Dane established Dane & Co. making news, letterpress and lithographic inks in Sugar House Lane in 1853. Recently much production had moved to Stalybridge.*

All of these streams have been fully tidal since the Prescott Sluice was removed in the late 1950s (at the same time as most of the Channelsea River was culverted and filled in). Also tidal are the vestigial sections of the Channelsea River and Abbey Creek to the south of Stratford. So in your molecular progress, you might well spend some days being flushed north by tidal inflow from the Thames and then flowing south as the tide falls.

Flushed with you, at least on around 50 stormy days a year, might be some considerable sewage overflow from Abbey Mills sewage pumping station into Abbey Creek, lending its sweet smell to the banks of these streams in the Olympic area. Largely to avoid the delicate athletes (and spectators) being thus nasally assaulted a new lock and sluice is to be built on the Prescott Channel.

It remains to be seen whether the promises that the back rivers will actually carry the suggested 170,000 lorry loads in and out of the Olympic site will be met [of course it wasn’t], but it would certainly seem to be a useful development for the area longer term, opening up more of these waterways for leisure and possible commercial use. Currently there is a navigable loop on the Bow Back Rivers from the Lea Navigation, using St Thomas’s Creek, City Mill River and the Old River Lea, although this may well be restricted for the Olympics. [It was, for many years.]

*The Long Wall path took me back to where I had begun taking pictures on the Greenway*

The footpaths crossing the Prescott Channel bridge will be closed mid-March [2007] for around 18 months to allow the lock to be rebuilt, so I thought it a good time to take some pictures before the work begins.

Also in some of the pictures are a number of the sites which have been the subject of compulsory purchase to put the power lines between Hackney and East Ham underground for the Olympics. There are two lines, one going just north of the Greenway and curving down south through the Channelsea River.

More pictures beginning on the March 2007 My London Diary page

Plaistow and Upton Park

In October 2006 I photographed a march asking Newham Council to keep Queen’s Market in Upton Park. Although it is an exceedingly ugly ensemble, not helped by poor maintainence and an utterly depressing choice of colours, it is still a great local resource. The market is perhaps the most ethically diverse in London, and many rely on it as a great source of cheap fresh foods and other goods. As well as the market stalls there are many small shops around the side of the market.

[There was] then an online petition at the government web site urging the prime minister to “to ensure that strategic street markets such as queen’s market, upton park are given proper protection against the combined threat of negligent local authorities and predatory property developers. as part of this we seek an open and transparent consultation process.”

We go down to our local market a couple of times most weeks. The fruit and veg is much cheaper than in the supermarket, and it is fresh and not wrapped in 7 layers of plastic. We’d hate to see it go, and can see why the people who shop at don’t want their market replaced with yet another supermarket, and less small shops and stalls.

But Queen’s Market could do with doing up, perhaps replacing the roof, new stalls, a rethinking of some of the central space in the development which is a kind of wasteland where guys sit with cans to make it a more pleasant and family-friendly space. It could be a real centre for Upton Park, perhaps with more shops, cafés with outdoor seating and some kind of performance area and perhaps a playground. I’d get rid of the pub too, or at least give it a complete makeover.

March 2007 My London Diary page

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Canning Town, Cody Dock and Stratford – 2017

Canning Town, Cody Dock and Stratford: On Thursday 2nd March 2017 I made a rather convoluted walk along Bow Creek and the Lea Navigation, arranged around a meeting I had at Cody Dock. You couldn’t then – and can’t quite yet walk beside the river the whole way, but to get to the meeting I had to abandon a small part of the first stretch and catch the DLR, walking on from the meeting to Stratford High Street where I caught the DLR again to go back and complete the short part I’d had to miss out earlier.

Bow Creek & Canning Town

Canning Town, Cody Dock and Stratford - 2017

In this section of My London Diary I included pictures taken both at the start and at the end of my walk, which began at Canning Town Station.

The riverside walkway at Canning Town is open after many years and can take you to the bridge to London City Island.

People were living in some of the blocks on the “Island” but there was still a lot of work continuing in this area which Bow Creek loops around on three sides. Another bridge was built across the DLR tracks to allow people from South Bromley in Tower Hamlets a pedestrian route to the riverside path and Canning Town station. Open for a short time it closed well before the station entrance became open, and a gate on it was firmly locked when I tried to cross it.

This meant I had to make a lengthy detour walking around the Ecology park to get to the Blue Bridge which took me to the East India Dock Road.

This meant I had to hurry back to Canning Town Station to get the DLR to Star Lane for my meeting at Cody Dock and couldn’t then walk along the north side of the road to take more pictures.

Cody Dock

I made a few pictures on my walk from Star Lane to Cody Dock, and then rather more after my meeting, at first in the dock itself,

and then on the riverside path, thankfully renamed from ‘Fatwalk’ to ‘Leawalk’ and a part of ‘The Line’ sculpture trail.

Leawalk to Bow Locks

I paused briefly to photograph a sculpture made from shopping trolleys in a mock DNA double helix.

My next stop was to photograph the The Imperial Gas Light and Coke Co’s 1872-8 Bromley-by-Bow gasholders and the war memorials – originally at Beckton – with an eternal flame next to a monument to company workers killed in both World Wars.

Steps leading down from Twelvetrees Bridge at Bow Locks took me down to the towpath beside the Lea Navigation.

Three Mills & Stratford

Three Mills is a tide mill dating from 1776 (though on the site of earlier tide mills mentioned in the Domesday Book) on the Three Mills Wall River. It is the largest tide mill in the UK and the largest surviving in Europe.

Another sculpture on The Line, unveiled on the centenary on Three Mills Green and moved to this position on Short Wall is by Alec Peever and commemorates three men who died in 1901 They died going to the aid of a fourth who had been overcome by the lack of oxygen at the bottom of a well they were investigating.

I walked on to Stratford High Street, turning west to go to Bow Bridge and the Lea Navigation before going back beside St Thomas’s Creek and along Stratford High Street to the DLR Stratford High Street Station for the train to Canning Town.

More from Bow Creek

It was beginning to get a little dark as I came out from the station to photograph from the north side of East India Dock Rd.

This was still an industrial area although a large area seemed now to be unused. I thought it would probably not be long before this area too was covered in flats as I walked back to the station.

You can see many more pictures and read more about the walk in my four posts on My London Diary:
Three Mills & Stratford
Leawalk to Bow Locks
Cody Dock
Bow Creek Canning Town

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Three Mills, Xenophobia & Infinite Love – 2006

Three Mills, Xenophobia & Infinite Love: On Saturday 11th February 2011 I went to an industrial archaeology meeting in the morning at Three Mills, one of the country’s most important surviving early industrial sites on the River Lea in Newham on its border with Tower Hamlets, then went back into central London for a rally against Xenophobia followed by a free Valentine street party at Piccadilly Circus. I wrote about all three on My London Diary, with of course photographs but like all posts on that site at the time this is a little difficult both to find and read – so I’ll repeat it here with proper capitalisation, minor corrections, a few extra links to add context and links to all the pictures.

Three Mills, Bromley-by-Bow

Three Mills, Xenophobia & Infinite Love - 2006

Saturday I was up early on my way to a meeting at Three Mills, Bromley-by-Bow. These mills are almost all that will be left standing in this area of the Lea valley by the development for the 2012 London Olympics and a huge growth in housing. If you want to see the Lower Lea Valley, you’d better get down there soon before it all disappears. The plans are not so much regeneration but more a total replacement.

I arrived early so I could take a short walk and a few pictures, and after lunch was able to take some pictures from the upper floors of the Mill Owners House. The whole area is one that played an important part in the development of many industries, and is littered with sites of interest to industrial archaeologists, while buried beneath these are doubtless important remains from medieval and earlier times. An important part of our heritage, and all likely to be bulldozed with at most a token report being made.

I first visited the Lea Valley in the 1980s. You can see a few of my pictures from it on my unfinished site River Lee – Lee Valley, although this covers a rather wider area than the Olympic site. There are also some pictures from the area elsewhere on this site – use the search box.
more pictures

United Against Xenophobia – Trafalgar Square

Meanwhile, back in Trafalgar Square, around ten thousand people, mainly British Muslims, had gathered in a rally organised by the Muslim Council of Britain to demonstrate they were united against xenophobia. As well as showing their disapproval of those cartoons depicting Muhammad, they were also determined to disassociate themselves from more extreme Muslim groups.

It was a gathering of decent people, behaving decently, listening to decent speakers speaking decently, carrying only the approved decent placards, overwhelmingly decent. Somehow it hardly seemed a real demonstration.
more pictures

Reclaim Love 3 – Operation Infinite Love, Eros, Picadilly Circus

But I had a date with Eros, and wandered along to Piccadilly Circus where St Valentine was being honoured with a gathering by O-I-L, Operation Infinite Love.

“In response to the growth of confusion and fear in the world… we have decided to send love and healing to all the beings in this world, many of whom are suffering today.”

*Venus CuMara the organiser of the events calls everyone to form a circle and hold hands*

This is the third such annual event, and also carried the point that you didn’t need to buy expensive gifts, giving love was what mattered.

After some highly spirited samba from the Spirits Of Resistance everyone present made a large circle to “send love out from the bottom of our hearts to the whole world and all the beings upon her“.

Then the sound system started up and everyone was dancing.

I stayed at the event taking pictures until the light began to fade and then went home, taking with me one of the hundreds of free t-shirts that were given out by Venus and her friends.

I photographed most of these free annual Valentines street parties over the years until 2019. Although a few people have tried to get them going again since Covid I think few people have turned up to party.

Many more pictures

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A Walk Along Bow Creek, 2017

On Thursday 2nd March 2017 I had a meeting at Cody Dock about my photographic exhibition there later in the year. The weather forecast was good and promised me a day with blue sky and some clouds, perfect for my photography, particularly for some panoramas, where a clear blue sky or sullen grey overcast are both killers, so I rushed to get on an earlier train than I needed for the meeting to give time to take a walk along a part of Bow Creek before the meeting.

Years earlier there had been plans for a walk beside Bow Creek all the way from where it meets the Thames at Trinity Buoy Wharf up to the Stratford to join the tow path beside the Lea Navigation, but so far only some separate sections have materialised. The original plans envisaged two bridges taking the path across Bow Creek, and although a competition was organised (and won) for designs for one of these, neither had been built, largely because the money wasn’t there.

*This section of the Leawalk has yet to open*

Instead the plans were changed to make use of existing bridges, but vital riverside sections remain closed, either because of existing users of the land refusing access or because of new developments taking place in the area. One such development, that of London City Island has recently provided a new bridge which allows an alternative route to the mouth of the creek.

*The red bridge built for London City Island*

Part of the problem has probably been that the walk is along the boundary of two local authorities, Tower Hamlets and Newham, with sections in both.

I walked one section before the meeting, but came to a locked bridge which led to a fairly lengthy detour, and ended up with me having to run along the West India Dock Road to catch the DLR to get to the meeting in time.

There is currently no path between that road and Cody Dock which would have been a faster route for me. Instead I took the DLR from Canning Town one stop to Star Lane, from where a walk through an industrial estate took me to Cody Dock.

After the meeting I was able to rejoin the riverside path, now renamed the Leaway after I and many others made fun of its previous title as the Fatwalk, and made my way to Stratford.

On my way I was pleased to find a newly opened link from Twelvetrees Crescent (named after a Mr Twelvetrees who built a bridge there to his factory) to the footpath between the river and the Lea Navigation, enabling me to avoid the rather nasty detour between here and the path via the horrendously busy Blackwall Tunnel Approach road.

This part of the Leaway is now walked much more, not least because if forms part of of ‘The Line’ sculpture trail, which rather roughly follows the Meridian from Greenwich to Stratford. But those following this still have, like me, to take the DLR or walk along busy and dusty roads from Canning Town to Cody Dock.

There was still plenty of daylight left by the time my wanderings took me to the DLR Stratford High Street station, where I entrained back to Canning Town for a few more pictures which both lack of time and the position of the sun had made impossible before my meeting. Then it was back to the station for the Jubilee Line back to central London.

Many more pictures from these walks on My London Diary at:
Three Mills & Stratford
Leawalk to Bow Locks
Cody Dock
Bow Creek Canning Town

An East London Ride – 2010

It’s perhaps misleading to call this a ride, since I spent most of the day on Wednesday 3rd February 2010 actually off my bike, parking it neatly to take photographs. Although a bicycle has been my main personal transport now for over 70 years (when I’m not using public transport or walking) I’m not really a cyclist. Or at least just a pragmatic cyclist, using a bike just to get from A to B (and on this day to C,D and most of the letters of the alphabet.)

An East London Ride - 2010 — *Memorial to firewatchers of Stepney Gas Works*

And just very occasionally for a bit of exercise. I have used exercise bikes and always thought why bother when you could use the real thing, though I suppose when its pouring with rain or below zero there might be some point in them. And though one wouldn’t help me to take photographs I would be less likely to be killed by careless or dangerous drivers.

Back at the end of 2002 I bought myself a Brompton folding bike, and a year or three later when I was undergoing a Q & A interview for an amateur photography magazine it became my answer to ‘What is your most useful photographic accessory’. It had replaced the answer to a similar question from another such magazine which was ‘a good pair of shoes’.

*Eternal flame, West Ham Memorial Gardens*

Once you have practised a few times the Brompton folds (and unfolds) in a few seconds into a fairly compact package, which has the advantage you can take it at any time onto our trains and underground system. It’s too heavy for me to comfortably carry any distance, but I added the tiny wheels which mean you can pull it rather like a suitcase, only actually lifting it when necessary. And I bought the bag which fits on in front of the handlebars which was about the right size for my camera gear and essentials like a bottle of water or a flask of coffee and sandwiches.

I can’t know remember exactly how I got to the start of my ride, though I think I probably rode from Waterloo to Fenchurch Street for a train to Limehouse station, crossing the Thames on Southwark Bridge. But from there on the pictures make my route fairly clear.

I cycled roughly along the Regents Canal up to the former Stepney Gas Works site north of Ben Johnson Road. There had been a fight to save more elements of the former gas works including gas holders which were some of the oldest surviving in the world; although some were said by English Heritage to be of national importance an attempt to get one of them listed failed. Eventually the area was redeveloped by Bellway Homes with only token ‘public art’ residues of the works.

From there I headed east to the bridge at Twelvetrees Crescent across Bow Creek and the Lea Navigation to visit another gas works site, the West Ham Memorial Gardens where war memorials, a permanent flame and a statue of Sir Corbett Woodhall are in a small wooded area close to the remarkable group of gas holders for the former Bromley-by-Bow Gas Works.

From there I went down to the recently opened path beside Bow Creek, part of a planned riverside walk which had been landed with the ridiculous name of The Fatwalk. As I commented then, most of the walk, meant to lead from Three Mills all the way to the Thames was still closed (and is still closed 13 years later) and by the time they were open the “nincompoop who thought that ‘The Fatwalk’ was a good name for this route will probably have retired or died or moved to another job for which he (or she) is equally incapable and common sense will prevail as we walk or cycle along the Bow Creek Trail.”

The walk still only goes as far south as Cody Dock, now a thriving community resource and hub with events and exhibitions and worth a visit, but in 2010 still undeveloped. The silly name has gone and this path is now also a part of London’s sculpture trail, The Line, making its way from the Greenwich Peninsula to Stratford.

At the end of the Fatwalk, I had to turn around and go back to the Twelvetrees Crescent bridge, where I once again photographed the locks from the Lea Navigation to Bow Creek. Now there are new steps leading down from this bridge to the towpath, but then I had to go across and join the fast-moving traffic on the Blackwall Tunnel Northern Approach to make my way to Three Mills.

Three Mills is home to one of Newhams only four Grade I listed buildings and the House Mill, a tide mill, was built in 1776, though there had been tide mills here at least since the Domesday book.

The film studios here were converted from a gin factory where Chaim Weizmann developed a new biochemical process to produce acetone needed for explosive production in the First World War – which led to the Balfour Declaration and later to Weizmann becoming the first president of Israel.

Past the studios I visited the new lock on the Prescott Channel, opened in 2009. Supposedly this was to be used by barges to carry away waste and bring in material for the development of the Olympic site instead of lorries, but was in practice only used for photo-opportunities. The Prescott Channel was built in the 1930s, part of a large flood relief programme, that was also largely to provide jobs at the height of the depression.

Finally I cycled up to the Olympic site, a building site with little or no public access, but parts of the ‘Greenway’ – the path on the Northern Sewage Outfall – were still open and gave extensive views. The reason I was in London on this particular day, when the weather wasn’t at its best was to be interviewed and filmed by a group of students at the View tube on the Greenway. I can’t remember ever seeing the video. After the interview I made my way to Stratford to fold the Brompton and start my journey home on the Jubilee Line.

Bow Creek – right click to open at a viewable size in a new tab

As well as taking single images I also produced a number of panoramas, taking a series of pictures from the same position to be stitched together. These include some 360 degree views, produced by software from 6 or 8 individual images. The pictures were taken on a Nikon D700 and are each 12Mp, but the combined files are huge. It isn’t easy to display these on the web, and they fit even less well on this blog. I’ll post one here on a rather smaller scale and invite you to double click on it to see it larger, though still much reduced. You can find more online here.

Olympic Site Revisited
Three Mills
Bow and The Fatwalk

Bromley-by-Bow Gasholders

Bromley-by-Bow Gasholders: A week ago on Monday 28th March I was invited to go with a team from Cody Dock on a site visit to the gasholders which are a prominent feature of the local landscape, seen by many thousands every day from the Underground and National Rail lines as they travel in and out of London as well as local residents and walkers along the Lower Lea and Bow Creek, including those following The Line sculpture trail. We were there invited to study the heritage, history and ecology of the Bromley-by-Bow Gasworks site which has just been sold by its future developers.

The seven gas holders, all to a similar design were built between 1872 and 1882 and are all Grade II listed. Nine were built on the site but two are no longer there, the base of one now forming a large circular lake in the site. Holder No 1 was given an extra upper tier in steel in 1925-7 to more than double its capacity. All were taken out of use in the 1980s.

The real value of the site is not in the individual holders although these were some of the “most aesthetically distinguished and finely detailed gasholders ever built” (according to the listing text) but in the ensemble, thought to be “the largest group of Victorian gasholders known to remain in the world, which is testament to the scale of Britain’s pioneering gas industry and its contribution to the Industrial Revolution.” It is a heritage site not just of national importance but of world importance.

Given their importance the group, together with the adjoining memorial garden with its Grade II listed memorial lamp and statue of Sir Corbett Woodall surely deserves both Grade I listing and preservation, and the former gas works offices could form a heritage centre for the area. The offices were for some time a gas museum.

Just across the Channelsea river from the site is the Grade I listed Three Mills and a little to the south the former gas works Dock at Cody Dock, now a thriving creative and community hub, the sites linked by a riverside path which currently stops at Cody Dock but which should long ago have been opened as planned to lead to the Thames at Trinity Buoy Wharf, passing on the way the Bow Creek Ecology Park. Many sites along here played an important part in Britain and the world’s industrial history, but unfortunately little evidence remains, making it essential to preserve what does.

We were shown around the site in the morning by two of those responsible for planning the development who expressed their wish for the development to retain these elements which make the site unique and to open them up to the public, but good intentions are not enough, particularly for company accountants.

Given what has happened at other sites greater protection is required to make sure that any development in the area leaves the gasholders intact and preserves their landscape value, in particular the views of the ensemble from the railway and Underground lines, from Three Mills and the riverside footpaths by the Channelsea River and River Lea and the navigation. We do need more housing, or at least more social housing rather than luxury flats many of which remain largely unoccupied as investments, but we also need to preserve important monuments such as these which record and could celebrate our history.

Many more pictures from the day, mainly inside the holder site in my album Bromley-by-Bow Gas Holders. You can click on any of the images above to see a larger version in the album – and browse from there. Most of the images have an horizontal angle of view of approximately 145 degrees. There are more pictures of the area in various posts on My London Diary including Bow and The Fatwalk, Bromley-by-Bow to Star Lane and Gasworks Dock Revived.

Around Three Mills

House Mill, Clock Mill, Three Mills Island, Bromley-by-Bow, Newham, 1981 29q-15_2400 — Three Mills

Three Mills Lane which runs from Hancock Road, a short walk from Bromley by Bow Underground station takes you across the Lea Navigation and Bow Creek to a remarkable ensemble of four of Newham’s listed buildings, including the Grade I listed House Mill from 1776, the early 19th century offices and the 1817 Clock Mill, with its 1753 Clock Tower. The fourth is easy to miss, as it is the stone setts and flagstones under your feet, dating back to the 19th century.

The Clock Mill, Three Mills Island, Bromley-by-Bow, Newham, 1981 29q-13_2400

Together they make a splendid early industrial landscape, though now a little hemmed in by rather more recent flats. When I photographed there in the 1980s and 1990s, the area around was full of largely 20th century industrial sites, mainly along the navigation, and a little still remains, particularly an impressive set of gas holders (seven Grade II listings) on the southern side of the Channelsea River at the former Bromley-by-Bow gas works (which also has listings for its bridge across the canal and Bow Creek as well as its war memorial and statue of Sir Corbet Woodhall.)

Three Mills Wall River, Stratford, Newham, 1981 29t-63p_2400 — Three Mills Wall River

In more normal times the House Mill, which was saved from demolition in the 1970s and has been partially restored offers reasonably priced guided tours on Sundays from May to October and at some other times as well as hosting various events. The mill is a tide mill, and is on a site recorded in the Domesday Book, with foundations dating back to the end of the 14th century. It was able to generate power for 7-8 hours a day, though the output varied with the monthly changes in tides. Together with the Clock Mill it would grind an average of 125 tons of grain a week.

Works, Lea Navigation, Bromley-by-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1981 29t-33_2400 — Works, Lea Navigation, Bromley-by-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1981

The towpath running south from Three Mills is on a narrow strip with the navigation on the west and Bow Creek to the west, and it leads down under railway bridges to Twelvetrees Crescent (where recent stairs now allow you to go on to the bridge and continue your walk beside Bow Creek) and under the bridge to Bow Locks where you can continue along the Limehouse Cut.

Railway bridge, Wharf, Lea Navigation, Bromley -by-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1981 29t-61_2400 — Railway bridge, Wharf, Lea Navigation, Bromley -by-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1981

Bromley-By-Bow Gasworks, Imperial Gas Light and Coke Co, Bromley-By-Bow, Newham, 1981 29q-25-6_2400 — Bromley-By-Bow Gasworks, Imperial Gas Light and Coke Co, Bromley-By-Bow, Newham, 1981

Lea Navigation, Twelvtrees Crescent, Bromley-by-Bow, Tower Hamlets, Newham, 1983 36v-02_2400 (2) — Lea Navigation, Twelvtrees Crescent, Bromley-by-Bow, Tower Hamlets, Newham, 1983

You won’t see the empty lighters on the navigation that were there when I walked along here in 1983, not long after commercial traffic ended. The large pipe across in front of the bridge would have carried gas from the Bromley gas works across to deliver gas to London west of the works. The listed bridge dates from 1872. Under it you can see the bridge which takes the path across Bow Locks and on to Gillender St or to the towpath beside the Limehouse Cut.

More on page 4 of River Lea – Lea Navigation. Click any of the images above to go to larger versions on my Flickr site.

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.