I had to visit the Olympic Park western boundary during the first week of London 2012. It was possible to get a seat on the DLR to Bow Church Station. I was sorry to find the ancient Bow Church closed which seems a lost opportunity. But I was delighted to be able to enter Our […]

  A model of the Olympic Park and part of the River Lea made of Lego can be seen at St Katharine Dock next to Tower Bridge. It’s part of the Imagine Denmark national showcase which runs until Sunday 12 August and is open 11am to 11pm.

English Heritage has produced a leaflet called London’s Lea Valley: the Olympic Park Story. It describes the area as “until recently a little-known and largely uninhabited landscape of wild vegetation peppered with pylons, canals, locks, bridges and towpaths – mostly silent and still – a no-man’s land ripe for development”. There are some interesting facts […]

Peter Marshall, who has photographed the Lea Valley over many years, has commented on the Fatwalk failure and possibilities at Cody Dock: “…provide a wooden bascule bridge across the dock entrance to carry the Fatwalk across, which would join the existing section from beside Twelvetrees Bridge to a isolated section only currently accessible to those […]

“Dismaying and baffling” is how Rowan Moore in today’s Observer describes the “possible scrapping” of the Lea River Park, or Fatwalk, which would complete the Lea Valley Walk. He questions Mayor Boris Johnson’s failure to act after “a few million in public money and five years of work have been spent getting it this far”. Read […]

Diamond Geezer has written an excellent piece on the failure of the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation to build the Fatwalk. The Fatwalk is the final section of the Lea Valley Walk which should follow the tidal Lea rather than the rather dull Limehouse Cut. He rightly points out that the volunteer group at Cody […]

Dave Hill has some thoughts about the towpath alongside the Olympic Park.

The U3A, University of the Third Age, has produced a film of its Olympic Year walk down the Lea Valley. It gives a good overview and shows some of the latest changes in landscape including the Olympic sites at Waltham Abbey and in London. Also shown is the new safe path under the Bow Flyover […]

The Olympic torch will arrive in the Lea Valley on Saturday 7 July. It will be seen in Waltham Abbey’s Sun Street before being taken to the white water centre where it will descend down the rapids. The following day the torch will be in Luton. The flame will be in the lower Lea Valley […]

The towpath alongside the Olympic Park closed on Monday evening 2 July. The Lea Valley Walk now ‘ends’ at the site of the Matchbox Toy factory below Homerton and will not continue south until after the Olympics. The diversion from Marshgate Bridge to Bow Bridge is so long that it is hardly worth bothering with. […]