The River Lea in London is surprisingly hard to cross. Only a handful of roads cross the river in the 12 miles from the M25 down to the Thames, plus some railways, but not a particularly great number of footbridges. It's not quite such an impenetrable barrier as the Thames, but there are sound historic reasons why it formed a natural dividing line between Middlesex and Essex.
A particular hindrance is that the Lea is generally at least two streams of water, one artificially navigable and the other either a flood channel or an echo of the original course. Having to cross two channels makes the Lea harder to traverse, and the land inbetween is often unsuitable for development.
So I thought I'd tot up how few ways there are to cross the Lea on its path through East London and then try to create a graphic to show the results, not because I thought you'd find it interesting but because I like a challenge.
