Sometimes I Feel Lonely:To Be On The Lea.

"When I was a child I grew up by the River Lea. There was something in the water. Now that something's in me" - River Lea, Adele.

2019's first London by Foot walk may not have seen the capital basking in the beautiful spring sunshine that I'd hoped for (and the green clothes I'd suggested people wear were thin on the ground too, tsk) but the rain stayed away and the big yellow fellow occasionally poked his head through the clouds as a reduced number of walkers (some kind of anti-Brexit march going on across town, 100% supported here at London by Foot,btw, had seen some of our regulars otherwise engaged) took a gentle stroll along the Lea from Stamford Hill to Bow Creek and onwards.

There may have only been six of us but 50% were newcomers. Joining Belinda, Pam, and myself were Carl, Marianne, and Michelle. Carl's a dedicated psychogeographical walker of the East End and Michelle used to live on a narrowboat so both were mines of information. All three of them were absolutely top company and I hope they'll be joining us again for future explorations.

Having arrived in Stamford Hill, we headed towards Clapton Common and the famous (if you're a bus enthusiast) Clapton Pond. Clapton means 'farm on a hill' and for centuries this area was occupied by tenant farmers growing hay and food for the City of London. The late eighteenth century saw Jewish and Huguenot communities (the Jewish community still highly visible) move into the area. Once a wealthy area it's now a little careworn but it certainly has character.

From Clapton Pond we turned down Spring Hill and into Springfield Park. Pam and I were part of a team that painted a kids centre there as part of our 'corporate social responsibility' some years back. The park dates from 1905 when it was formed from the grounds of three private houses, one of which survives as a cafe. Roman sarcophagi have been discovered but all we found was the River Lea (or Lee, more later) itself, looking across to Walthamstow Marshes.

The Lea runs from the Chilterns (Leagrave, a suburb of Luton) for forty-two miles and is the easternmost major (however they define that?) tributary of the Thames. Further east we can find the Roding (31 miles), the Ingrebourne (27), and the Darent (21) which all seem a decent length. There's also the lesser known Beam and Mardyke.

The Lea is the fourth largest of all Thames tributaries, bested only by the Wey (87 miles), the Mole (50), and the Kennet (45) and its Chiltern origins are why London tap water can have a chalky taste. Perhaps it's why these curious moorhens were up in the trees rather than down on the water?

As well as Lea and Lee it has been spelt Ligan, Ligean, Lygan, Luge, and Leye. Believed to be a Celtic word for 'bright river' or 'river dedicated to the God Lugus'. The Lee Navigation (which we were now following, the Lea itself has no footpath at this point), by Act of Parliament, insists on two Es but we decided to go with EA.

Between 878 and 890 the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrun was drawn up and its most salient point was the border between the Danes and the English - "up on the Thames, and then up on the Lea, and along the Lea unto its source, then straight to Bedford, then up on the Ouse to Watling Street". The Treaty may have set boundary lines but it didn't provide peace. Alfred and the Danes continued to fight on, and over, the Lea for years.

Nowadays it's a more peaceful stretch. Full of cyclists, dog walkers, and joggers and populated with a colourful, and colourfully named, range of narrowboats. Some looked brand new. Some looked in serious need of repair. Some looked tiny. Others huge. Some were like submarines. Mostly they have women's names but there were odder examples like Pukeko, Wuff Bark Donkey, and Dawn Treader III (if you thought Dawn Treader II was scary!). Michelle was pleased to see one called Llangollen as she'd been fortunate enough to spend a few years living in that beautiful Welsh town.

Cats stretched out in the leeside grass, wheelbarrows were propped up in an aesthetically pleasing fashion atop canal boats, and a young man had set up a portable easel to paint a nearby tower block. All seemed good until we reached a bridge and saw what first appeared to be a serious case of fly-tipping.

Luckily, we were mistaken. Admittedly a threadbare panda cuddly toy and discarded filing cabinets and washing machines don't initially please the eye but we soon realised it was all part of some kind of art project. More wheelbarrows, laundry baskets, and broken chairs couldn't compete with the shiny CDs and circuit boards attached to the supports of the bridge and painted with bright and beautiful colours. It was urban art and though it risked being a bit wanky, it got away with it. I liked it. I think we all did.

As well as the Lea and the Lee Navigation there is a third (more in places) stretch. The New River is neither new nor a river (in fact it is, they say, as old as that very observation) and looks a good place for a future walk.

Sticking on the Lea though, visitors have reported a Canada goose being pulled under water in August 2005. Cygnets, too, have mysteriously disappeared and speculation as to the culprit has suggested a caiman or even a crocodile. It seems unlikely but it's a lovely urban myth and the Lea, like its dad (the Thames), has been mythologised in poems, songs, and books by artists as various as Adele (see above), Yang Lian, and Izaak Walton (the Compleat Angler, 1653).

We carried on to Lea Bridge Road where we crossed to the Eastern (Danish?) side into Hackney Marshes, one of London's largest areas of common land. Passing under a series of bridges, and past a surprisingly rammed bar - West Ham weren't even playing at home, and into the Olympic Park with the London Stadium rising up in front of us.

The river, confusingly, was now in four different sections so we ignored the sports stadium and ploughed on. By the time we came off the Lea at Bow Road the river had split into SIX sections including the Three Mills Wall River, Channelsea River, and Abbey Creek.

Headsplitting stuff. So we needed a drink (any excuse). Down Bow Road we found (or I'd already planned, I'm no amateur any more) the carrot coloured Bow Bells and its supposedly haunted ladies toilet. After a quick drink we returned to the Lea (Carl bade us farewell here so he could catch the fabulous Doreen Fletcher exhibition at Bow Arts Centre) and the rest of us got snacks. I had barbecue Hula Hoops, a hangover special!

Back on the Lea, past the discarded mattresses (mattri?) and graffitied willies, we proceeded further south between the Lee Navigation and the Three Mills River. After the hustle and bustle of the Olympic Park it was suddenly very quiet again. Just us, the river, and the waterfowl. How we (sometimes) like it.

We stopped to look at the Three Mills themselves, London's oldest extant industrial centres. The brick buildings resembling oast houses reach directly on to the water giving them a Dutch, or North German, feel and seem quite at odds with much of the architecture of both the area and London (hardly an ensemble piece of a city) as a whole. They're rather beautiful and I wonder what they looked like when there were eight or nine of them, used for gunpowder, grinding flour for bread, and grinding grain to distill alcohol for the many gin palaces of the area.

Past photogenic gasholders we discovered that 'NAT HAS HERPES', and soon reached a statue made of shopping trolleys in the shape of Watson and Crick's images of the structure of DNA (we didn't know that, we read it), a rainbow shit emoji cushion lobbed on to the banks, a Damien Hirst sculpture that looked like something out of Spongebob Squarepants (but had some loftier claim), and our first proper views of the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf.

Crossing Cody Dock, there was what appeared to be a rusty Easter Island head, a bar with nobody in it, some kind of 'bug hotel', and a blackboard containing the names of all birds spotted in the area. Stranger was to come.

As we left the river briefly (no footpath here) we had to pass through an industrial estate. Star Lane (a station none of us has ever even heard of ) looked pretty empty and the taxi, with DRIVEN BY QUALITY, on its side looked an even less promising travel option. An old caravan looked as appealing a holiday destination and the Docklands Steam and Sauna must surely be the most uninviting destination for a spa weekend ever.

The boarded up pub with "SUBHUMAN SCUM KEEP THE FUCK OUT" written on a sign on its door looked even less promising. It was a sad, derelict area and it's quite amazing that so close to gentrification, areas like this still exist. It says something about an area if the least grotty things are a load of discarded buttons (wtf?) and a load of skulls hanging on some barbed wire in a gothy kinda way.

The colourful pallets in a nearby yard as we crossed the Lower Lea Crossing caught my eye so I took a photo. A angry, or pretending to be angry, man talking to a black cab driver shouted up to me that I should pay him a fiver for the privilege. Yeah, right!

We followed the, now quite wide, Lea to where it joined the Thames and I suggested to the other walkers we could only go to the pub after I'd taken them on a small diversion. I think I did good with this one.

Trinity Buoy Wharf is an odd place. Post-industrial chic with a surrealist twist. There are huge warehouses with stencilled on signs that look as if they belong in film sets, there are bizarre statues everywhere, there is Fatboy's Diner, and there is a taxi with a tree growing out of its roof.

My main reason for dragging Pam, Michelle, Marianne, and Bee down there, though, was to show them Trinity Buoy Wharf Lighthouse (actually a lighthouse testing centre) and to go inside it and hear (some of ) Jem Finer's (ex-Pogues) thousand year long piece of music, Longplayer. I'd been meaning to go since it started in 2000 so I'd missed the first nineteen years. I don't rate my chances of hearing it end much either. 

So I'm glad we went. We ascended a spiral staircase into the lighthouse to be presented with a room full of gongs and a slightly repetitive (but actually ever changing, hence the 1000 year duration) piece of ambient, and very relaxing, music. Further stairs took us up to a viewing gallery where we could look out, across the Thames, to that considerably more expensive millennium project, the Dome (or, now the O2). I think Longplayer beats it hands down - and it's not named after a mobile phone company either.

We had a brief browse around the area, taking in the views and other peculiar art installations before we said goodbye to Michelle and Marianne who had a party to go to. The dwindling (sorry, hardcore) trio of walkers continued down into the Isle of Dogs for a drink (or three) in the Gun on Coldharbour.

Suitably refreshed, and now in the dark, we continued through the skyscrapers and floating bridges of Canary Wharf and round to Poplar to Ravaa for a curry and another beer, and a good old chinwag. I'd been apprehensive about running a walk on such a big day in British politics but it turned out to be something of a tonic. Next time (Good Friday) we'll be starting a series of walks that visit seven very special graveyards (the Magnificent Seven no less) in London. First walk takes us from West Norwood to East Dulwich. Hope to see some of you there.

Thanks, once again, to Belinda, Carl, Marianne, Michelle, and Pam. I've nicked some of your photos for this blog.