Stratford to Waterloo Riverside Walk, 23 January 2011

Just got in from Jim's quickly-configured 6-78 (sic) mile walk along the channels and navigations of Stratford and Bow, and the great river of London.

When I say I've just got in, in fact now I've been in about an hour, having slated my aching ankle on gin-and-coke (yes, I know – something to do with tonic – but try it before you knock it, and if you don't like, don't bother to drink it or knock it). I've also slated my hunger – which wasn't extreme – with a cottage pie.

So – now for the walk. My day started with an approach to Manor Park Station, where waiting at the bus stop en-route for Beckton was a long-time-back walking companion. Don't remember her name, but we exchanged the day's walk details briefly, and only after I'd got to the platform for my train thought I ought to mention EFOG to her. She'd probably appreciate that, so I went back, told her about it, but in the short minutes available was unable to write down the details. She no-web-access, me no-business-card.

Stratford, LondonStratford had eventually 10 people assembled for set-off, with one more catching us up after a few minutes.

We found our way off the High Street onto the paved footpath towards Three Mills, usefully signposted as things change so much so quickly hereabouts. For those (few) interested I mentioned that a mediaeval bridge used to be visible here, where the Channelsea River passed under the main road from London. This would have been one of the very early “Bow” bridges – but reconstruction work at the very least covered this in, and more probably destroyed it. The pathway is still being developed, but actually runs along the course of the Channelsea. We also passed an early sign of Spring in the form of bright hazel-catkins.

The Channelsea was one of many channels that provided routes through what once had been Stratford Marsh, a wild area which effectively divided the County of Middlesex from the County of Essex. We tend to forget that places like Stratford, Forest Gate – even Wanstead – were very much part of Essex. These channels – more recently called the Bow Back Rivers – are a complex of navigable, un-navigable, overgrown and overbuilt waterways.

Our route chose to take us past a row of very impressive Victorian terraced houses with lovely chimneys, set below the Northern Outfall Sewer and adjacent to the “Cathedral of Sewage” – one of the grandest buildings in London. The whole - the Cathedral and the N.O.S. - was designed by the engineer Joseph Bazalgette to enable sewage from a vast area of London north of the Thames to be collected and dealt with. His idea was that all cesspits should be closed and that house drains should connect to sewers and empty into the Thames downstream of London. The outcome was that the incidents of diseases such as cholera was drastically reduced, and the foundations laid for our present sewage system. From an outdoor point of view, his plan also included that the huge sewage pipes that led to the Thames in the vicinity of Hackney, Stratford and Beckton should be covered over with a walkway to provide a promenade in the open air for the people that lived in the poor and heavily polluted areas that the east of London had become. That walkway – and cycleway – is now known as the Greenway – and is very much that.

Soon we picked up another of the channels – one which as an urchin I was told crocodiles lived in. Now we found that it was a haven for the narrow-boats that had been evicted from their green moorings within the Back-Rivers to make way for big games. Nearby are the two remaining mills of the Three Mills area – House Mill and Clock Mill. Although Clock Mill is the more spectacular of the two, with it's “Oast House” cones, this is listed as a Grade 11 building, whilst House Mill is Grade 1– for it is is one of the most important buildings of the early industrial revolution. This is an impressive grading. Less obvious – except for painful ankles, that is – the very cobbles over which you walk here are Grade 11 listed!

Canary Wharf, London

Our walk then took us between two waterways: on the left is the deep channel of the tidal Lea – the waters of which powered the mills – and on the right the gentle hardly-flow of the Lea Navigation. This is the waterway which at one time carried wood one way and paper the other between London and Hertford, on barges towed by steam tugs. Not a narrow-canal, this, but a once-busy, wide and deep water. Bow-locks is the junction of the tidal and the non-tidal navigations, and a great tide-lock still enables passage between the two. At present, the tidal Lea down to the Thames is not accessible for pedestrians, but branching off to the left, the Limehouse Cut now is. I say now is, because now there is a platform walkway passing under the wide road that is the Blackwall Tunnel Approach from Hackney (if you listen to traffic reports, Gillender Street figures highly!). There never was a towpath under here, so even were it possible to walk the Limehouse Cut, to get between it and Bow Locks was somewhat inhibited by the approach-road. The walkway shows what can be done to accommodate walkers, and cyclists.

In my early-walking-years explorations of the London canal systems, I once managed to access the cut from Limehouse Basin. This was before it was opened up to pedestrians, and I had to do this by a long jump down from a hole-in-the-fence to the overgrown towpath. There was no way back up again, so I walked the whole stretch to Bow-locks end in the hope I wouldn't be stranded for ever there. A locked gate was my greeting at Bromley-by-Bow, but I managed to climb over a wall, and hence survived. It is now a popular strolling and cycling route.

St Anne's, Limehouse

We missed some of the impressive and historic buildings around Limehouse, and the Basin itself, but went directly to the Thames Path. From the canals to the Thames is a sudden jump in scale, and certainly Pam would not believe that the wide waterway before us was the Ching Brook. But the Thames Path is also a bit of a lie, because much of it isn't and that that is is often locked to protect the inhabitants of the apartments that line the river. This is obviously vital, for here was the notorious Ratcliff Highway – easily the most most violent and murderous region in London. Here poor dwellings of dock-workers and Thames boatmen were situated just streets away from the elegant houses of merchants and sea-captains – and the press-gangs recruited some of their finest seafarers. Many of these elegant houses, and some of the poorer terraces, still remain just off the Highway or Wapping High Street, along which we continued. Here too is the remains of one of Hawksmoor's great churches: St. Georges in the East. We'd passed another at Limehouse: St Anne's. These are two of just twelve in London, and it is Hawksmoor's design that gives us our traditional “wedding cake” design.

View from Tower Bridge

By this time, there seemed to be a trend in the walk to reach toilet facilities, so the cobbles were traversed at a sprightly pace until we reached St. Katherine's Dock. Along Wapping High Street are two very well known historic pubs, the Prospect of Whitby and the Town of Ramsgate. They may well have been given their names to encourage seamen on the coastal trade route from the north of England and fishermen from Ramsgate coming into London to feel a contact with home; a bit of clever early marketing. An interesting collection of boats are berthed at St. Katherine's Dock, with millionaire cruisers and yachts cheek-by-bow (or whatever the maritime expression may be) with sailing-barges out of Maldon and Harwich. Also here is a pub which has a quirky history. The Dickens Inn looks like some modern re-creation of something traditional, but is actually something traditional re-created. In 1972 a warehouse was being demolished when within its brickwork was discovered an 18th Century timber building. This was cleaned-up, and the old frame was moved on rollers to its present position and re-established as a modern version of an ale-house. Re-opened in 1976, it is already a listed building.

Half the group had a coffee/hot chocolate break and lunch whilst the other went off to foray for toilets. They were gone a long time, and on returning, they required lunch whilst others required a toilet break. So there was another break, near to the Tower which – for those who didn't require the loo, turned out to be somewhat chilly.

We reached the south bank of the Thames by way of Tower Bridge and again picked up pace along the easy riverside walk. Considering what has been done by means of the platform walkway at Bromley-by-Bow, it is a shame that some means could not be found to at least allow access under London Bridge rather than up the stairs and across the busy road to pass behind Southwark Cathedral. The Thames walk still has a lot of off-Thames parts to it, even though there may have been opportunities when more recent developments were and are undertaken. Still, it's vastly different to what it was.

Suddenly we were at Waterloo Bridge, and Jim told us that was it and I went back on the Jubilee Line from Waterloo Station with Fred and Ann.

Now, my aching is telling me we did 6.5 miles, but working it out more accurately I find that it was actually 7.45 miles.

(Sorry - didn't take any pics. but have put some archive ones in to brighten things up - all views we may have had)

Paul Ferris, 23 January 2011