Places Features

The River Lea - starting to look like a river!

The arrival of three books about the industrial archeology of the Lea Valley by Doctor Jim Lewis provided the impetus for a journey from the river's source to it's eventual joining with the Thames, opposite what is now the O2 Arena. 

The Lea played a large part of my childhood.

Manor Road Rec today

At Manor Road Recreation Ground in Luton a flight of steps still gives access to the waters. Paddling in the Lea would be ill advised today as the detritus of the urban scene has filled the river with hazardous objects such as broken bottles and tin cans. This was my playground - although the best parts were out of bounds accessed through bent cast iron railings. We caught sticklebacks in the river and occasionally the Lea would flow in rainbow colours as hat factories discharged their dyes, although it was presumably prohibited..

The source of the Lea is pretty ignominious.  The river bubbles up from five springs near Hockwell Ring flats. The water table to the chalk aquafers must be low though, as the stream is dry beyond where the river actually starts to flow. It crosses Leagrave Marsh, once called "The Blocker's Seaside" because hat workers would make a day trip to take the waters. From here the Riverside Walk has transformed the riverbank. The walk and the river are well maintained and have been incorporated into National Cycle Network 6 and The Icknield Way National Footpath.

Part of the National Cycle Network

The Lea has been diverted over the years. The park at Wardown was created after the First World War but not until the townspeople had burned the Town Hall down in 1919 after the council refused to allow the commemoration of the war on the Moor. The lake is a diversion of the Lea and boating on the lake was a popular childhood pastime.

Earthworks along the New Bedford Road side of the park bore World War One tanks but these were melted down for scrap as the world went to war again.  The lake was used to test amphibious Bedford vehicle during the Second World War.

Today the river runs under the town in a culvert.  In the thirteenth century the Norman Faulkes de Breaute built a castle pretty much where the new Carnival Arts "carbuncle" stands today.  Faulkes used the river to fill his moat which took the town's mills out of use and flooded several houses. King John gave him a landed widow as a wife with land in South London which became Faulkes Hall or Vauxhall.

Luton Hoo South Lake created by Capability Brown

An engineering company based there started producing cars and needed to expand.   By a delicious irony the new factory was by the two railway lines in the Lea Valley on land formerly owned by Faulkes de Breaute. The famous Vauxhall griffin emblem is actually Faulkes's family crest. There's not much left these days but I remember the thousands of people streaming over the Lea at hometime, on foot, bicycle or bus. Not many of the Vauxhall workers could actually afford to buy one of the vehicles they produced until the 1960s.

The river then makes its way in the Luton Hoo Estate. The two lakes were created by Lancelot Capablility Brown. Today the house is a luxury hotel and the owners are committed to returning the grounds and the lake to former splendours. At the south end of the lake lies Warren Weir. As the water cascades down, the river is teaming with fish. Just a couple of miles from emerging from a murky tunnel the River Lea comes into abundant life.