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City & Village Tours: 0845 812 5000 info@cityandvillagetours.com
We’ve been offering cruises on the leafy
bit of the River Lee Navigation in the Lee
Valley Park from Broxbourne for more
than a decade. Now we are going to be
able to offer cruises past the Olympic
Park in Stratford and through the East
End - raw and urban in parts but
surprisingly leafy and green in others.
The River Lea rises at Leagrave near Luton
and makes its way down the Lee Valley
passing through the leafy counties of
Hertfordshire and Essex and into the more
gritty and urban East End of London where
it passes through Tottenham Hale and
Stratford before emptying into the River
Thames at Bow Creek opposite the old
Millennium Dome.
From Hertford, the River is sometimes
simply the natural river (usually spelt Lea)
and at others it is a part of the canalisation
known as the Lee Navigation. Sometimes
the River Lea runs parallel to the Lee
Navigation and sometimes it becomes part
of a very complicated mass of streams and
flood channels - and this is no more so than
around the Olympic Park at Stratford.
For generations the no nonsense East
Enders have referred to this maze of rivers,
canals and creeks as the Bow Back Waters.
In addition to the story of London 2012
there’s an awful lot of history associated
with the River Lea and the Bow Back Waters.
Some of it quite staggering in its significance.
For example a stones throw from the
Olympic Park is Three Mills which today is
an attractive collection of historic buildings
leading back onto a vast campus of film
studios and businesses associated with
television, film and advertising. But it was
here that Chaim Weizmann's work with
others on the fermentation of grains to
produce acetone played a vital part in
munitions manufacture in the First World War
and led to the Balfour declaration, leading to
the setting up of Israel. (Weizmann was to
become the first president of Israel in 1949.)
Cruising past the Olympic Park you will see
a number of venues including the Olympic
Stadium plus the Hubble Bubble (that tangle
of red steel more correctly known as the
Arcelor-Mittel Observation Tower), the
Olympic Press Centre and the Composting
Power Station built to power London 2012
with green energy.
An awful lot of work was carried out on these
waterways in preparation for London 2012.
The Waterworks River was widened and
London Olympic Canal Trips
Book now for a London
Olympic Canal Cruise
for September or
October 2012 and soak
up the post games glory.