Canals and wetlands of East London
Apr 22, 2018 12:19:20 GMT
Post by patricklondon on Apr 22, 2018 12:19:20 GMT
While we're having what may turn out to be our summer (who knows), it seemed time to get out and about on my bike, and I plumped for a look at the Walthamstow Wetlands, which featured on the TV a while ago. Quite some time ago I went to the one in Barnes, near where I used to live on the other side of London, so it seemed an interesting point of comparison.
The route turns off the main cycle route at Limehouse to pass through Ropemaker's Fields (created when some houses and businesses here were knocked down for the creation of a tunnelled bypass underneath)
to the Regent's Canal (which runs from the Thames here to the north and west of central London, linking up en route to canals from the north and east, and eventually to those running into the Thames west of London). All along the banks of the canal, where once there were warehouses, factories and assorted plant for processing the goods that arrived and departed by canal, now there is much sought-after residential accommodation on one side and Mile End Park on the other
but in one of the former industrial buildings is a reminder of the area's past - the Ragged School Museum:
Here the grounds of Queen Mary University of London have expanded to the canal, and the large green building is accommodation for today's rather more fortunate students:
However, the housing situation for people who can't afford the fancy new flats is such that there are many people living in narrowboats all along the canals - even though most of them are only on the kind of licence that allows them to stay no more than two weeks on any one mooring.
Arriving at a turning basin
it is time to turn right on to the Hertford Union canal, running along the south side of Victoria Park towards Olympic Park; on a week day, all is quiet:
especially for those lucky people whose back gardens run down to the canal:
more narrowboats, of course,
but here's a reminder that living here can have its dangers:
Eventually the canal leaves Victoria Park behind as it joins the Lee Navigation at Olympic Park, and the route turns left. Here the Olympic legacy is bedding down: the stadium remains in active use (as do the Velodrome and Aquatic Centre):
while the then media centre has become the Here East working and office space for start-up businesses and "makers", while elsewhere in the park, whole new residential neighbourhoods are being created:
On from the spick-and-span Olympic Park to Hackney Marshes, much of it famous as sports fields for Sunday football matches, but here you might hardly know you were in London - were it not for yet more narrowboat moorings.
Time for a brief stop at the former Middlesex Filter Beds, once part of the capital's water management system, now turned into a nature reserve, where the remains of the old equipment look more and more like archaeological artefacts, some even converted into a Concretehenge.
Back to urban modernity as the route skirts new residential flats, complete with signs of the effort needed to keep the waterways clean and tidy:
and then on beside Walthamstow Marshes, another expanse of flat and seemingly empty grasslands:
before the route leaves the waterside and returns to townscape under the railway line (duck!):
and with a surprise for anyone arriving here by bus:
Once in the Wetlands area, the old Engine House makes a fine visitor centre , given that there's no entry fee; of course it's complete with café and the inevitable giftshop:
The much-vaunted size of the Wetlands is clearly down to the fact that these are still working water supply reservoirs, just with some areas set aside for wildlife management, with added reedbeds and scrub left wild:
and since this is the nesting season, most of the wild areas are closed off to visitors, and on a weekday there are few to be seen, either human or avian, while the flat expanses of "edgeland" surroundings, blank industrial sheds and electricity pylons, are less than inspiring:
What feathered visitors there are seem to be mostly the kind of geese, coots and swans we see plenty of on the docks and the riverside:
But clearly the nesting sites are having the desired effect:
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The route turns off the main cycle route at Limehouse to pass through Ropemaker's Fields (created when some houses and businesses here were knocked down for the creation of a tunnelled bypass underneath)
to the Regent's Canal (which runs from the Thames here to the north and west of central London, linking up en route to canals from the north and east, and eventually to those running into the Thames west of London). All along the banks of the canal, where once there were warehouses, factories and assorted plant for processing the goods that arrived and departed by canal, now there is much sought-after residential accommodation on one side and Mile End Park on the other
but in one of the former industrial buildings is a reminder of the area's past - the Ragged School Museum:
Here the grounds of Queen Mary University of London have expanded to the canal, and the large green building is accommodation for today's rather more fortunate students:
However, the housing situation for people who can't afford the fancy new flats is such that there are many people living in narrowboats all along the canals - even though most of them are only on the kind of licence that allows them to stay no more than two weeks on any one mooring.
Arriving at a turning basin
it is time to turn right on to the Hertford Union canal, running along the south side of Victoria Park towards Olympic Park; on a week day, all is quiet:
especially for those lucky people whose back gardens run down to the canal:
more narrowboats, of course,
but here's a reminder that living here can have its dangers:
Eventually the canal leaves Victoria Park behind as it joins the Lee Navigation at Olympic Park, and the route turns left. Here the Olympic legacy is bedding down: the stadium remains in active use (as do the Velodrome and Aquatic Centre):
while the then media centre has become the Here East working and office space for start-up businesses and "makers", while elsewhere in the park, whole new residential neighbourhoods are being created:
On from the spick-and-span Olympic Park to Hackney Marshes, much of it famous as sports fields for Sunday football matches, but here you might hardly know you were in London - were it not for yet more narrowboat moorings.
Time for a brief stop at the former Middlesex Filter Beds, once part of the capital's water management system, now turned into a nature reserve, where the remains of the old equipment look more and more like archaeological artefacts, some even converted into a Concretehenge.
Back to urban modernity as the route skirts new residential flats, complete with signs of the effort needed to keep the waterways clean and tidy:
and then on beside Walthamstow Marshes, another expanse of flat and seemingly empty grasslands:
before the route leaves the waterside and returns to townscape under the railway line (duck!):
and with a surprise for anyone arriving here by bus:
Once in the Wetlands area, the old Engine House makes a fine visitor centre , given that there's no entry fee; of course it's complete with café and the inevitable giftshop:
The much-vaunted size of the Wetlands is clearly down to the fact that these are still working water supply reservoirs, just with some areas set aside for wildlife management, with added reedbeds and scrub left wild:
and since this is the nesting season, most of the wild areas are closed off to visitors, and on a weekday there are few to be seen, either human or avian, while the flat expanses of "edgeland" surroundings, blank industrial sheds and electricity pylons, are less than inspiring:
What feathered visitors there are seem to be mostly the kind of geese, coots and swans we see plenty of on the docks and the riverside:
But clearly the nesting sites are having the desired effect:
My blog | My photos | My video clips | My Librivox recordings
"too literate to be spam"