Uncategorised

I shall be leading a free walk down the Lea Valley as part of the Walk London weekend. Meet at 1pm on Saturday 30 January at Hackney Wick Station to walk south to Limehouse. It’s  a chance to catch up on progress in the Olympic Park before following the Limehouse Cut from Three Mills to […]

The body of a woman was found yesterday morning (Tuesday) in the water just north of the Bow Flyover. She is believed to be 20 year old Musonda Chimfwenbe who lived in Bow. Police would like to hear from anyone who might have seen her handbag on the towpath by the Olympic Park fence on […]

Vanessa Feltz conducted a debate on BBC Radio London yesterday about the spelling of the Lea Valley. She called it a debate “gripping the capital”. The first caller was Keith from Harpenden who made the very good point that the River Lea rises at Leagrave. I had a five minute interview with her afterwards when […]

Following a plea in The Daily Telegraph letters page for us to agree on a spelling for the Lea/Lee Valley before the Olympics I have joined in the debate. I have for some time been thinking that we ought to adopt the Lea spelling not only for the river but also the valley. I sometimes […]

BBC London has some surprising pictures of Limehouse Basin at the end of the Lea Valley Walk. The Story of Limehouse is an audio slideshow of old and new pictures starting at the Narrow Street swing bridge. The lock keeper reminds us that St Anne’s Church at Limehouse was there before the Lea Navigation. We […]

By the Thirties the Lea Valley contained the largest concentration of greenhouses in the world. Indeed Tesco headquarters is at Cheshunt because that was near the glasshouses and salad supplies. The Lowewood Museum at Broxbourne is looking for old film and pictures.

“Jim Lewis is an extraordinary man” says architect Terry Farrell who credits him with revealing that the Lea Valley was the cradle of the post-industrial revolution. It was thanks to Richard Rutter at the Lee Valley Park, now with British Waterways, that I first came across Dr Lewis. That was ten years ago. Another book […]

Forman’s, the smoked salmon company forced to relocate as it was in the Olympic Park, found a new site on Fish Island. The company has launched a webcam showing the Lea Valley Walk towpath just above Old Ford Lock with the Olympic stadium beyond. You can watch progress.

Last July I wrote about the centenary of the first British flight which took place in the Lea Valley. Flight pioneer Sir Alliott Verdon-Roe, working from a railway arch on Walthamstow Marshes managed to get a few feet off the ground on 13 July 1909. At the celebration held in front of the arch, Eric […]

I am interested to discover that the new film Fantastic Mr Fox was made the Three Mills Studios. This is another major feat to add to the long list of inventions and creations in the Lea Valley. The studios up to now have been known for Kavanagh QC, Bad Girls, Footballers’ Wives and, of course, […]