The Lee Navigation, war and peace

Wednesday, 31 August 2011 08:00

We left Pickett's Lock behind us and continued along the Lee Navigations to Ponders End

Pickett's Lock from below

On the left or west bank is Lee Valley Park ......

The Lee Valley Regional Park in fact stretches along the River Lee (or Lea) from Ware in the north to the Thames at East India Dock. Therefore we have been travelling by or through it for most of our cruise so far. Near Pickett's Lock it takes the form of a golf course and the Lee Valley Athletics Centre, the newest training centre in the south of England. It is here that many of our 2012 Olympic hopefuls train alongside our top UK athletes. We just cannot get away from those Olympics in this area!

Another "interesting" boat spotted on the way

On the right or east bank is the enormous William Girling Reservoir (he was once Chairman of the Metropolitan Water Board) and above Ponders End, the larger King George V Reservoir. Incidentally, their main function is to supply London with water, along with all the other ones along the Lee!

Below Ponders End Lock is a wharf with moorings and the remains of a cut to the mill stream. Wrights Flour Mill has stood on Wharf Road in one form or another since 1789. The light bulb (Sir Joseph Swan in 1886) and the thermos flask (Sir James Dewar in 1892) were invented at Ponders End - could it be the water makes people inventive?

Below Wharf Road and Ponders End Locks

Above the locks is the Navigation Inn, once a pumping station, built in the early C19th by the Metropolitan Board of Works to deal with the heavy pollution causing cholera outbreaks.

The Navigation

These cast iron sculptures are opposite the upstream entrance of the Mill Stream. I think they depict various industries and pursuits along the Lee.

Brimsdown, just south of Enfield, is where David Beckham began his career playing for Brimsdown Rovers' Youth Team. I saw no football pitches, but plenty of pylons still.

The Lee near Brimsdown

The first Olympics in Greece promoted peace between warring kings; they signed a treaty to allow travel and sport to continue. Since then the Olympics have symbolised "peace between nations". Sadly this was not so In Munich in 1972 - I was there and still remember the shock and horror that went through the city. The IOC still promotes peace as one of their principals. However, beside the Lee Navigations too there is a reminder  of war too.

Enfield has a history of armaments manufacture. The Royal Small Arms factory (RSAF) used to be near Enfield Lock. Built in 1816, water power drove the machinery and the guns were transported by water to London and loaded on to sailing barges on the Thames. The famous Lee Enfield rifle was designed in 1895 and manufactured here. The factory saw out the Crimea War, the two world wars and then half the factory closed in 1963. It was finally totally closed in 1998.

Approaching Enfield Lock

We lived in Enfield for a couple of years in the mid 1980s, but we did not recognise the lock. There have been a lot of changes since then and it may be that we only visited it "in passing" anyway. The factory has been knocked down and replaced with housing and has become Enfield Island Village. Some of the old factory remains though. The Lock itself is rather rundown, the Rifles restaurant has closed and the Lock house is boarded up.

The old water tower seen from above the new Ordinance Raod Bridge

We wondered if these terraced houses were for the workers at the RSAF - note the floating islands reservations for the plants we presume - or wildlife even.

Terraced housing on the east bank

Now we were looking for a mooring and it was not long before we found one: just below Rammey Lock and opposite these permanent moorings.

Time to find a mooring

The Lee Navigations, Turnover bridge, Clapton to Rammey Marsh
4 hours 53 minutes, 8.36 miles, 5 locks