According to reports yesterday and in the Evening Standard today the people occupying Porter’s Field have been moved. Police took action after the Lee Valley Park obtained a court order. Work on the temporary Olympic basketball structure has restarted. Meanwhile some protestors are now camped alongside Lea Bridge Road. Local opinion is divided. My view […]

The Great Bed of Ware, an Elizabethan tourist attraction mentioned in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and once displayed in the Ware’s inns, is back in the town for a year. The Victoria & Albert Museum has lent it to Ware Museum. It was made around 1593 and has been on show and in use at five […]

Protesters from the camp recently outside St Paul’s Cathedral have arrived on the towpath just upstream of Lea Bridge. They claim to be supporting local opposition to a temporary an air hall housing basketball training courts for the London 2012 Games. The site is on the Porter’s Field of Leyton Marsh near the footbridge leading […]

The Johan Zoffany exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts has at least one picture of Luton. It shows the three daughters of Lord Bute in 1763 when he was prime minister. The girls are grouped round a tree at Luton Hoo near the archeway entrance. A painting of the sons is in siimilar countryside […]

Yes, that was St Anne’s Limehouse in last night’s Call The Midwife on BBC1. The church exterior was used for the wedding of the midwife (Miranda Hart) and the police constable.

“The work to complete many of the environmental improvements at the Olympic Park and secure a green legacy for future generations was completed today,” claimed the Environment Agency on Monday 6 February. It’s a signifiant achievement for the Queen’s 60th anniversary day. “The River Lea is now healthier than at any time over the last […]

Greater Anglia has taken over the railway franchise from National Express East Anglia from today. All trains from Liverpool Street up the valley to Hertford East are now operated by the Dutch railway company Abellio under the name Greater Anglia. The franchise is planned to last during the Olympic Year and is subject to review […]

It’s just a month to go before Nicholson’s pubs will be serving Three Mills pale ale. It is the first in a series brewed in honour of William Nicholson who founded the pubs in 1873. This was a year after he had purchased Three Mills, near the end of the Lea Valley Walk, for his […]

According the Sunday Mirror there are plans to revive the Big Breakfast TV show for the Olympics and broadcast from Old Ford Lock. The lock cottages were the TV studio for a decade when the programme was on Channel 4. It is understood that the house could be available again during the period of the […]

It’s Walk London‘s Winter Wanders weekend on 28 and 29 January and again there is a Lea Valley walk. Walking towards the Games: The Glorious Lea Valley starts at 11am on Saturday at Tottenham Hale Station. The three hour walk is free and goes south all the way to Limehouse.