The Lea Valley

The ArcelorMittal orbit

Over the past 6 months or so as I walk to work I've been able to watch a strange structure slowly rise up out of the ground on the Olympic site. Now, I'm no fan of the Olympics but I do like interesting architecture and, living just a few hundred yards from one edge of the site, I've been able to watch a lot of building work in the last 5 years. Aside from the stadium and other main venues there have been bridges built, canals dredged, roads widened, stations redeveloped and railway track laid; being a bit of a geek I really enjoy watching these sorts of things develop as I walk or ride by. I like to watch the process, stage by stage, note the sequences, watch the people and observe how order is slowly borne out of seeming chaos. It was a treat then to see something so unusual as the Orbit emerge so close by.

This image is a panorama of three photos stitched together. Click on it to panorama-fy it up a bit

The Olympic site, which will be known as the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park once all is done and dusted, is situated in the east end of London on what was largely an industrial area in years gone by. From my point of view the main item in favour of the Olympics has always been the redevelopment of this land into what should eventually be a pleasant and green space, which is always good. Criss crossing the whole site is the river Lea and the associated canals that used to supply the industry of past. Linking this area to other patches of more natural looking life is a route known as the Greenway. This stretches from the Royal docks further south on the Isle of Dogs (not only is this no longer an island but no one seems to be quite sure anymore as to the dog reference either) up through West Ham and Plaistow into Stratford, where I live, and on into Hackney. It's a sort of ribbon of green that picks it's way through the city and, as you walk along it, if you don't look too closely and avoid the horizon you can almost fool yourself that you're taking a turn through the countryside. Almost. Maybe a small town.

This looks more like the nice end of my home town than the edge of Europe's biggest building site

The route is almost entirely raised up on a large bank that gives away it's heritage upon closer inspection: it's a sewer. But not just any sewer. The Great Stink of 1858 and the cholera outbreaks of the same decade were what instigated legendary Victorian engineer Joseph Bazalgette to construct London's famous sewerage works. The Greenway rides atop the Northern Outfall Sewer which is responsible for taking all of north London's waste down to the Thames at Beckton. At the time it still wasn't common knowledge that cholera was caused by a bacterium, the sewers were built solely to remove the stink which happened to result in the water quality improving which got rid of the cholera.

Okay, I can feel myself getting over excited now so I'm going to stop talking about sewers. The point is that there are thin veins of greenery threading their way through what is normally considered a pretty grim part of the city and they're really quite nice. They are also currently the closest you are allowed to get to the newer building work (barring special events) passing within just a couple of hundred yards of the new stadium - near enough to hear builders guffawing with laughter when something large and expensive sounding got dropped.

I exposed for about 1/3 second to get the blurring effect on the water

So, for more than five years I had been living in the Lea Valley and completely ignoring it. This has clearly been a mistake. As my wife and I left the Greenway and started following the canal around the north of the Olympic site we managed to forget that we were right on top of a vast construction site. With the stadium and Orbit out of view behind us we were just left with one and two storey residential buildings, the tranquillity of the slow moving water and the ducks and swans that made it their home.

Even the water ways here that look natural have been heavily modified by man's hand. The river has been 'canalised'; which basically means it's been levelled off, made a bit straighter and generally made more navigable. Whilst on the walk I spotted that some signs said Lee and others Lea with no apparent rhyme or reason. Investigations revealed, though, that the parts that are still fairly untouched are still called Lea, whereas man-made sections and modifications are distinguished by being called Lee. Neat.

One of the great things about canals, asides from their history and functionality, is that they tend to be rather still; combine that with a windless day, like we had, and that means you can get some very nice reflections in the water. The above shot was at a sort of T-junction that was more open than most areas and therefore the water was more disturbed but I still loved the reflection from this construction site.


Another reason why I enjoyed this little excursion so much was that it was an opportunity to get out with my new camera. I bought a Sony A65 in the January sales and am very impressed with it so far. I wasn't sure at first as it's an SLT camera, not an SLR, but it has more than held it's own and is definitely opening up some new avenues for me. I won't go into any more detail here, I'll probably give it it's own post in the near future and clearly label it as a techy sort of post so that those not interested in geeky detail can skip over it. I'll be doing the same with a post on digitally incorporating textures into images at some point too.

The old canal with traditional barges moored and the 'Gherkin' rising up on the horizon

A couple of hours of walking took us two thirds of the way around the Olympic site and from there we got the train home. I suspect I shall be spending a lot more time walking along these canals this year. I think a wander down to the Royal Docks on the Greenway wouldn't go amiss either. Home just got a little bit nicer.