Sometimes a footpath is closed for so long that you imagine it'll never open again. There have been plenty of these in the Lower Lea Valley over the last decade, mostly as a result of the Olympics, but with Crossrail works severing several foot connections too. The Greenway north of Stratford High Street has been closed since 18th April 2009, for example, and opened only briefly during the summer of 2012 to allow passage for Olympic spectators.
So I'm pleased to be the bearer of good news about a footpath that's been sealed off for even longer, since 20th March 2007 in fact, and which has been silently reopened this week. It's the footpath along the edge of Abbey Creek, a minor backwater between the Greenway and Three Mills, and which can be seen from the tube to the east of Bromley-by-Bow station. This time the closure was thanks to Thames Water, originally to aid the construction of Three Mills Lock, and with the intention of reopening in the summer of 2008. Didn't happen. The next excuse was the Lee Tunnel, a massive sewage-related infrastructure undertaking, coupled to a proposed reopening date of Christmas 2014. Didn't happen either. Instead it's taken until October 2016, a few months short of ten years, but the Long Wall Path is finally accessible again. "And Will Remain Open For The Foreseeable Future", says a helpful laminated sign tied to the unlocked gate.
WALK EAST LONDON: Long Wall Path
Greenway to Three Mills(600m)
The Greenway is all about sewage, a giant Victorian pipe carrying north London's waste to Beckton with a footpath laid on top. Its focal point is Abbey Mills, where one old and one new pumping station sit alongside the waters of the Lea, occasionally overspilling into Abbey Creek. Or at least they used to overspill, dumping 40% of London's Combined Storm Overflow through a row of sluices into the river, but that's all changed since Boris opened the Lee Tunnel earlier this year. Abbey Creek is now free of nasty organic floaters, and the ecosystem from here down to the Thames is a more regularly pleasant environment than it was before. And this means the footpath running alongside is more pleasant too, not that it was ever obviously unpleasant, not that I can really remember given how long ago it was open to the public.
The Long Wall Path begins at a bridge over what used to be the Channelsea River, long since culverted to the north through the Olympic Park and central Stratford. Look out for the graffitied snail, a brightly painted swirl of pipe behind the wire fence, to mark the start of your waterside stroll. The sluices are best seen before you set off, 14 burrow-like holes from which brown liquid occasionally gushed when it rained too much, but which are now more ornamentally inert.
It's immediately obvious, to those who've walked this way before, that a lot of infrastructure work has taken place over the last few years. Two metal cages have appeared on the banks where previously there were none, one monumental in scale, containing pipes and pumps diverting surplus flow elsewhere. A choice of routes remains available to cyclists and those on foot - one via the river's edge, the other higher up - but a lot of concrete has gone in where facilities were previously low key. That pair of chunky planters look new but were added in 2004, according to the plaque, constructed from railway sleepers by community volunteers. Two similarly resilient benches provide somewhere to sit and look across towards Channelsea House, previously a stark lonely office block, now 72 apartments. Thames Water have done their work and made good, even if it's taken them an age.
To chime with modern times the path is now fully accessible, thanks to an expensive zig-zag ramp which links the upper path at Greenway level and the lower continuation. The two alternative footway options join up a short distance ahead below the Abbey Mills perimeter fence, and then the creekwalk proper begins.
It's still October, so much of the path is screened off from the water by trees in leaf. Any blackberries are shrivelled and well past their best, unsurprisingly given that nobody's been able to come brambling this autumn, but there are also a few clusters of red berries which might (but please not yet) form an attractive festive centrepiece. In a couple of locations invasive Japanese knotweed has been identified, and screened off behind fencing prior to someone hopefully coming along and doing something to remove it. Elsewhere the traditional Lower Lea mix of bush and bracken and grass holds sway, ensuring that this wildlife habitat remains appealing to many estuarine species.
The best views come where the treeline breaks, across a broad creek which might be filled by the tide or might, six hours later, be mostly mud. As well as waterfowl you'll see a lot of trains, rattling by to Barking, Upminster or Southend, with the Twelvetrees gasholders rising elegantly in the background. At one point the path nudges fractionally inland to avoid an eroded bank, adding an unnaturally prefabricated slant to proceedings. I noted that a lot of understated remediation work has been going on, for example the ground under foot is scattered with gravel, so this shouldn't become a mudbath in the winter. But don't expect to meet any other walkers along here, not yet, if ever - the most I bumped into was a slightly startled cat.
On the right hand side after the waterworks, or on the left if you're walking the other way, is this blog's favourite secret location. Mill Meads is the site of Channel 4's first Big Brother house, home to Craig and Nick and Brian and Marjorie the chicken, conveniently located for the Three Mills studio where the programme was made. In 2002 the programme moved to Borehamwood and this meadow lay empty, then was sealed off, and has since been used to dump spoil from the Lee Tunnel. The ground's now much higher than before, the ultimate intention being to reopen this as a landscaped public space as part of the Leaway project. For now, however, it looks like a landfill tip infested with scrappy undergrowth, and any physical reacquaintance will have to wait until someone deems the site reborn.
It takes less than ten minutes to reach the other end, turning right where the Prescot Channel flows into the creek. This is where Davina's Bridge used to stand, long gone, and a second unlocked gate allows access where previously there was none. A sturdy track runs up the side of Three Mills Lock, possibly London 2012's biggest infrastructural white elephant, where almost no river traffic passes through the multi-million pound state-of-the-art lock gates. Look through the security fence to see the western end of the Lee Tunnel, resembling a biodome from some dodgy 1980s sci-fi series. Then cross the new bridge to Three Mills Green, a much improved greenspace with a special playground and several artificial ridges. Three Mills itself is beyond, then Tesco, then Bromley-by-Bow station, confirming the usefulness of this abruptly-reopened link. [8 photos]
Other local paths not yet reopened include:
• The narrow path from Three Mills Lock round the watery edge of Three Mills Studios to Three Mills. Also closed in March 2007. I fear it'll never reopen. [map]
• The staircase from the Greenway to Abbey Road, opposite Abbey Mills, closed in 2012. [map]
• Sugarhouse Lane, closed while a massive new IKEA-funded housing estate is built. [map]
• Wick Lane up the eastern edge of Bow Quarter, closed for Crossrail works since 2009, meh. [map]
• The tunnel beneath the Greenway at the end of Blaker Road, sealed in 2007. [map]
• The footpath joining Otter Close to the Greenway, closed 2007. [map]
• The path up the Waterworks River past the allotments into the Olympic Park. [map]
• The Greenway north of Stratford High Street, as discussed. Apparently Crossrail were planning to be finished by Christmas, but then "Thames Water need to carry out strengthening works to the bridge over the Waterworks River (adjacent to Stratford High Street) and therefore this section of the Greenway will remain closed until around the end of July 2018." And that's so far away as to leave me in some kind of frustrated post-Olympic despair. But the example of Abbey Creek shows that sometimes public bodies do keep their promises, even if it takes nine and a half years, and the final result (assuming you haven't died in the interim) can be worth the wait. [map]
Not every path near the Olympic Park area is being closed off. In an unexpected reversal of fortune, one path that's been closed off for the last five years has recently been reopened. That's the footpath along the edge of Abbey Creek, a minor backwater between the Greenway and Three Mills. It's less than half a mile long, but by golly it's packed with interest. If you're in the area this summer, and they haven't closed it off again, this might make an interesting ten minute diversion.
WALK EAST LONDON Greenway to Three Mills(600m)[map]
Look for the snail. That graffitied metal spiral nestling in the undergrowth off the Greenway is actually a chunk of redundant pumping machinery from Abbey Mills nextdoor [photo]. This is where the path turns off, two paths in fact, one high and one low. Ignore the upper past the perimeter of the Pumping Station and fork left down to an unlikely seating area. I say unlikely because there's hardly a glorious view. Sit on the benches and you can look out over a concrete office block, or if the tide's out a tyre-strewn expanse of mud. On a good day there might be birds that aren't seagulls flapping in the reeds, on a bad day, well, that could be very bad indeed. A row of fourteen outfall pipes emerge immediately beneath your feet, used in emergencies to disgorge raw sewage into the river system of the Lower Lea valley [photo]. In an average year 16 million tonnes of the stuff escape here, which is why Thames Water are currently digging London's deepest ever tunnel to divert the discharge to Beckton. More of this later.
It's not been possible to walk any further since 2007. A makeshift fence around the first bend has blocked the way, and I've lost count of the number of times I've wandered down just in case it had been removed. Finally, and without fanfare, it has, reopening the favourite footpath beyond. It's a narrow meandering track, nothing wheelchair accessible, and all the more characterful for it. The foreshore of Abbey Creek is a mass of marshy green, all verdant low-level leaves, leading down to a distant muddy channel [photo]. As the path swings round the channel deepens, now a concrete chasm filled by the tide twice daily. Again, try not to imagine it full of sewage, and concentrate instead on the railway line beyond. The District line runs along the southern edge of the creek, so maybe you've looked back the other way between West Ham and Bromley-by-Bow and wondered what that overgrown wilderness was. Now visitable. [photo]
But suddenly the way is blocked, the path overgrown. There's been subsidence, crumbling or something, which is technically the reason this route's been sealed off these last five years. But rejoice because a detour's been driven through the hedge into the neighbouring field, and this is a very special field indeed. It might look like a building site, and most of it now is, but a dozen years ago this was the site of the very first Big Brother house. Craig, Nasty Nick and Brian, they all lived in a makeshift Channel 4 prefab on the site, with cameras and excitable Davinas all around. A fence blocks off the majority of the space, behind which are diggers and machinery and obscuring piles of earth [photo]. The eviction walkway used to run along here, not quite the part accessible today, but still closer to the action than by rights ought to be the case. Live broadcasting was often interrupted, back in 2000 and 2001, by loudmouth viewers yelling secrets from the public right of way along the water's edge. It's one of the reasons the show moved to Borehamwood, this inescapable lack of East End privacy. But that path's subsidence means public access now encroaches for a hundred metres or so into a patch of overgrown wasteland where television history was made. No plaque is evident, nor ever will be.
Emerging from the trees, the path ends beside the Prescott Channel. There are so many bits of waterway around here, all part of the artificial Bow Back Rivers, and this one hides a secret. When the Euston Arch was demolished in the 1960s, chunks of broken stone were chucked into the water here. About 30 have since been recovered, courtesy of pre-Olympic dredging, but not sufficient to recreate the monument should anyone ever have the urge. Rather more money has been spent building Three Mills Lock, a ship-sized affair through which virtually nothing ever passes [photo]. British Waterways pledged it'd be used for delivering construction materials to the Olympic Park, but completed it too late, so one refuse barge a week is now more the tally. This would be a scandalous white elephant were it not for the huge increase in real estate values the lock delivers upstream, cancelling out tidal flow and removing large areas of E20 from the threat of flooding. Meanwhile across the water, across the railway, stand the Bromley-by-Bow gasholders [photo]. There are seven of these Victorian beauties, each a ring of cast iron classical columns, and Grade II listed to ensure that this heritage cluster survives. [photo]
There used to be a low footbridge here, nothing special, that is until Davina McCall arrived. This was the bridge early Big Brother evictees crossed, a staple of Friday night TV, where the media waited with cameras poised to grab a flashlit snap of disappointment. You'd know it if you saw it... but now you'll never get the chance. The footbridge was removed to provide headroom for lock-bound traffic, and has now been replaced by a much taller footbridge in approximately the same position [photo]. It's utterly charmless, with cheap-feeling bouncy staircases, but it does provide a much better vantage point from which to gawp down on the surrounding area. Look at that, the Big Brother field is now almost entirely wiped away, razed and ready for the construction of the Lee Tunnel[photo]. If the even more expensive Tideway Tunnel is ever built (beneath the Thames from Acton), that'll most likely end right here in Marjorie the chicken's henhouse.
On the far bank, that's Three Mills Studios. As well as BB's studio interviews, many's the TV show or movie that's been filmed within its security perimeter. They sometimes store props round the back, which can be seen fairly clearly from up on the bridge. On my most recent trip I was intrigued to see a headstone-style chunk of fibreglass set in the middle of a grassy platform supported by scaffolding. The inscription remained a mystery until a judicious zoom revealed unexpected wording: "This stone was placed here to mark the source of the River Thames". But that's nearly 200 miles away! It seems someone's built a perfect replica of a famous monument from a Gloucestershire field, in portable form, complete with rocky space in front (from which a water feature might gush) [close-up]. Completely coincidentally, I'm sure, hundreds of LOCOG staff are busy preparing for the Olympic Opening Ceremony at Three Mills at the moment. I wonder where this very British prop might pop up next.
You can't turn left to walk the next bit, around the waterside edge of Three Mills Studios. That's also been sealed off for five years, quoting instability as the reason, and nobody seems to have any impetus whatsoever to open the route back up. But you can turn right past the backlot, past the lock gates, up to Three Mills Green. And that's the end of this "couldn't do it since 2007, can do it now" walk. Ten minutes tops, but so much of interest packed in along the way. I've missed it.
One of the joys of April, I find, is being able to walk to BestMate's house along the Greenway. Before the clocks go forward it's locked and dark of an evening, but for a few summer months I can make it all the way to Plaistow before dusk without fear of mugging. Having not been east along the Greenway for some time I noticed several changes to report along the way. So that'll be interesting for everyone, I thought.
a) I normally join the Greenway on Stratford High Street, which involves walking from the Bow Roundabout alongside the extension to Cycle Superhighway 2. This opened less than six months ago to great fanfare, so it's a surprise to see part of it coned off for repainting. A long strip from Abbey Lane towards Bow looked freshly blue this week, with tape along one side to prevent cyclists or pedestrians from accidentally straying onto it. It's strange to be repainting a Superhighway so soon, I thought, particularly because it's segregated and has thus only been subjected to bike wheels since October. I wonder if that's because the original paint was slapped down incredibly fast to meet an approaching deadline, or if the contractor drafted in to do that work did a less than brilliant job. Whatever, with the blue stripe temporarily closed cyclists have been forced to ride along the ordinary carriageway, now one lane narrower than it used to be, to reach the less-than-adequate Bow Roundabout. Superhighway? Not currently.
b) A temporaryfootbridge spanned Stratford High Street during the summer of 2012, linking up the Greenway to allow the passage of spectators. The bridge hung around for a while afterwards, dumped unceremoniously in the former coachpark alongside, until it was finally removed and disassembled elsewhere. Left behind was a large square indent about a foot deep, the bridge's former footprint. This was duly deemed a health and safety hazard and barriered off for months, blocking three-quarters of the entrance to the Greenway for months. Now finally this large dip is being filled in, returned to a level surface like it should have been ages ago, and maybe they'll even take the barriers away soon.
c) The other major Olympic intrusion on the Greenway was the tarmacking of the entire stretch between Stratford and West Ham. In readiness for the Olympics money was poured into replanting the grassy strip, removing knotweed and adding flowering plants. Then shortly before the Games all these improvements were ripped out so that the full width of the Greenway could become a grass-free spectator superhighway, and all the prettiness lost. It was therefore especially galling when 100% tarmac remained throughout 2013, as if all the promises of improvement had been forgotten and we'd be doomed to endure a Greyway, not a Greenway, forever more. But now suddenly hurrah, the contractors are back and the additional tarmac has been rent asunder, replaced by a wide swathe of raked earth. It'll take a while for the grass to regrow, and we may not get pretty shrubbery this time, but the regeneration of the Greenway is once again back on track.
d) Tarmac removal means the Greenway is back to being two thin strips again, one for pedestrians and one for cyclists. Occasionally that's a bit narrow, but it echoes the arrangement past the View Tube so fair enough. Things broaden out past Abbey Creek, where as sunset approaches the devout of Newham pour in to worship at the Masjid-e-Ilyas. And beyond West Ham the Greenway still looks much like it ever did, more spruced up than remodelled... a bit of grass, a bit of path, and midges hanging in the air above the sewer-whiff.
e)Two summers ago Newham Council got all heavy-handed with graffiti artists on the bridge over the Jubilee line. They erected two metal fences in front of the walls, obliterated the spray paint tagging and stationed a bloke in a van to prevent further misdemeanours. The security bloke didn't last past the Games, and the two fences were so feeble that graffiti sprang up again almost overnight. What we see today is a pathetic barrier in front of some not great art, the worst of both worlds, and the unmistakeable sense of misplaced municipal self-righteousness.
f) Several tunnel boring machines have been making their way beneath East London recently. The most well-known are digging out Crossrail, but another has been ploughing beneath the Greenway from Beckton to Abbey Mills to create the Lee Tunnel. This is a key overflow tunnel being built to prevent discharges of sewage into the Lea at Abbey Creek, and should improve the post-storm environment around here no end. Tunnel boring machine "Busy Lizzie" reached her destination back in January, and the workforce are now busy installing the tunnel lining and making connections to the pumping station at Abbey Mills. They're also watching nervously in case the ground shifts, hence the appearance of several tiny shafts labelled TBM painted onto the Greenway surface. Just goes to show you never do quite know what's beneath your feet... and on the Greenway it's probably best not to imagine.
g) Being the only elevated path in the very flat borough of Newham, there are some fine views from the Greenway. The best are beyond the Jubilee line, across the Memorial Recreation Ground towards Docklands and the City. One day we'll look back on now as the golden era of 21st century skyline, before developers came along and disfigured select architectural pinnacles with tacky matchbox towers. There again, it could be some time before Plaistow joins the ranks of upscale upmarket gentrification.
h) As sunset approaches, the Greenway becomes less a thoroughfare and more a place for locals to hang out. Some slouch on the bench by the cemetery quaffing a selection of Polish lagers, some cycle by blazing the suspicious smell of weed, while others bring their hound for one last dump before bed. Only the fearless pass through after dark, by which time the guy from the council will have been round and padlocked the gates on Upper Road to prevent easy access. But by now I'm on BestMate's sofa watching telly and putting the world to rights... and it'll be the tube home, I think.
One of the downsides to living near the Olympic Park is that the authorities keep shutting off places you like to go. Huge chunks were sealed three summers ago and they won't open again until the Games, obviously. But occasionally other routes get fenced off - footpaths, roads, cycleways, that sort of thing - with the promise that it's only temporary and we can use them again soon, honest. I'm starting to wonder, in certain cases, just how long 'temporary' is.
I used to like walking along the Greenway north of Stratford High Street. Heading under the green sign by the Yardley Building, along the raised pathway between brambles and convulvulus, and up to the broad viaduct over the City Mill River. Not gorgeous, but a linear oasis of green between a housing development and an Olympic building site. But that was before the blue hoardings went up. No entry at the bus stop end, no entry at the Pudding Mill Lane end, and an annoying indirect detour for anyone walking or cycling between West Ham and Hackney Wick. All essential, though, because the Greenway had to be resurfaced to turn it into a spectator-motorway for hundreds of thousands of Games visitors. And not just that, but Crossrail too. Stratford-bound train tracks are eventually due to emerge from an underground portal around here, so preparation works are required so that they can safely negotiate the Greenway's enormous overland sewer pipes. A necessary closure, they promised, and only for a year.
Well, that was 15 months ago, and if anything the barricade now looks even more blocked off than before. Previously there was a thin hoarding and some concrete blocks, now there's an additional black screen with no obvious reason for its existence. The extended closure could be related to the temporary footbridge due to be built here so that Olympic spectators can walk up and over Stratford High Street rather than across it in 2012. (For those interested, this is Olympic Bridge T12, for which there are two mighty-big planning documents here and here) (and yes, a direct pedestrian crossing is going in too, to be retained in legacy, hurrah!) But construction of this bridge isn't due to start until "mid 2011", so I hope the Greenway isn't being sealed off for an additional intervening year for no good reason. Whatever the unspoken reason, the previous promise of "spring 2010" sounds increasingly hollow, and is increasingly inconvenient.
A bit further down the Greenway near the Abbey Mills Pumping Station, an even longer shutdown is underway. Three and a half years this time, which is a full two years longer than expected. The plan was to seal off the footpath along Abbey Creek while a whopping great tidal lock was constructed, the lock which would allow Olympic building materials to arrive "sustainably" via the Bow Back Rivers. Failure all round, alas. The lock took longer to build than expected, so didn't open until last summer rather than 2008. Embarrassingly, Olympic Park contractors aren't actually delivering building materials by water because they've found other cheaper methods of transport, so this £20m facility is being used by almost no traffic whatsoever. (An ITN report exposing this shameful white elephant here, my report here) And has the footpath been reopened? Has it hell. (It's a famous footpath, this. It's the footpath which ran along the edge ofthe compound used for the Big Brother House in series 1 and 2. Until recently a footbridge crossed the river here, the one over which Davina would lead the evictees towards the studio every Friday evening. Alas, building the lock meant demolishing Davina's bridge, and no upstream crossing was possible until the new Three Mills Lock was complete)
As well as a new footbridge, there's now a lovely new footpath along both sides of Three Mills Lock [photo]. Someone's gone to a lot of effort to install them both, plus appropriate safety barriers, but unfortunately they're both currently useless. On the eastern side the path ends at a locked gate, a few yards before a boarded hoarding, close to where the entrance to the Big Brother compound used to be. And on the western side the path ends at a locked door, bolted top and bottom, plus a padlock bar secured with four screws and five nails (just to be on the safe side). Visitors to Three Mills ought to be able to walk along the edge of the Channelsea River in both directions now that the lock is complete, but they can't because the follow-on footpaths haven't reopened.
At the Clock Mill end, an undated closure notice has been scribbled on by a frustrated rambler. "This towpath has been closed for far too long!" "Get on with it!" Meanwhile at the Greenway end, a fresh new fingerpost points confidently down the path towards Three Mills, although heaven help any passing walker who chooses to believe it. The path's firmly blocked a couple of minutes down, requiring the retracing of steps and a lengthy detour. Meanwhile all the expensive Lea Valley Park tourist maps erected around the area last year clearly show the footpath as open, even though it isn't and shows no sign of ever being. Fancy doing a nice circular walk of the 2012 hinterland, as planned? No chance.
So that's two different Olympic projects where a reopening date was clearly signalled in advance, but where that reopening date has long since passed. And that's two different projects where the original closure notices have all vanished, replaced by nothing, leaving the East End public completely in the dark. I have no idea who's responsible for these extended blockages, be it Newham council, the ODA, British Waterways or Thames Water. But someone's wrecking our right to roam and refusing to reveal how much longer the barriers might last. With even more closures likely as the Olympics approaches, this leaves me pessimistic that anything around here which shuts will ever reopen on schedule. Broken promises, with no excuses forthcoming, don't exactly inspire faith in the future.
11pm update: The Greenway closure appears to be courtesy ofCrossrail, as part of the Pudding Mill Portal enabling works. Starting June 2010, ending September 2013, and with a brief pause in 2012 during the Olympics. Sheesh! It'd be polite if Crossrail admitted this to the general public by sticking a closure and diversion notice on their big black hoarding, or else found a way to keep the public footway clear.
Tuesday update: Crossrail have confirmed (via an email to a reader) that "the section of the Greenway between Marshgate Lane and Stratford High Street will remain closed until late 2014. This section will remain diverted for pedestrians and cyclists while construction works are undertaken for Crossrail." They haven't said this in public anywhere, nor have they mentioned this on the hoardings at either end of the closed-off section. So... closed May 2009, reopened Christmas 2014. Five and a half bloody years. Nice of them to say so.
The 20th series of Big Brother kicked off this week, with sixteen fresh housemate wannabes confined inside a brand new Big Brother House.
But where is that house, why will you never drive past it, and which much-loved teatime snack is manufactured in the same street, indeed...
Where is the new Big Brother House hiding in plain sight in London's best-smelling cul-de-sac?
A surprisingly high number of news outlets published a similar clickbait post at the weekend, promising to reveal "the exact location of the house". But if you clicked through to the article all they said was "Garden Studios, a newly built set in West London" before proceeding to showcase newly-released photos of the interior. I had to do a bit more digging to discover whereabouts in West London Garden Studios might be, and then I nodded, and then I popped down to have a look. I'd been inside both of the previous Big Brother houses so I couldn't miss out on the chance to see the third.
Peter Bazalgette's production company scouted several locations for the first Big Brother House (including Radlett, Elstree and Shepperton) but eventually plumped for a scrap of wasteland in Bow. This lay within cabling distance of the back of a major studio complex and best of all nobody lived anywhere nearby. The precise location was at the fork of two tidal waterways - the Prescot Channel and Abbey Creek - just to the south of the Abbey Mills pumping station and facing the Twelvetrees gasholder cluster. The production team even did the housemates' weekly shopping in my local Tesco, alas just before I moved to E3.
I'd watched avidly, but by the time I came to investigate the site in 2003 it had been razed clean and I could only wander through an unlocked gate into an empty field. It was already hard to spot that Channel 4 had ever been here, with the footprint of the original building already entirely indistinct. Grass now grew up across coarse pebbly soil, and a single group of birch saplings thrust through what might have been the bedroom or the chicken run. It was still possible to stand on "Davina's Bridge", across which evictees wheeled their suitcases on Friday nights. But Newham council's plan to return the site to natural habitat would soon be thwarted, first by the Olympics and then by sewage.
In 2007 the public footpath past the site was sealed off for the construction of Three Mills Lock, a futile attempt to provide waterborne access for the construction of the Olympic Park. Then in 2010 the site was earmarked by Thames Water as the western end of the Lee Tunnel, a giant sewer designed to end harmful sewage discharges overflowing into Abbey Creek. Material excavated from its massive shaft was stored and stacked where C4's daily drama had taken place, burying the site of Craig and Brian's triumphs forever beneath a hump of earth, and although you can now walk past the site again it's been firmly and permanently quarantined.
After Big Brother's producers were given their marching orders from Newham they chose to settle instead at Elstree Studios, the world famous facility located at the less glamorous end of Borehamwood High Street, just round the back of the Tesco megastore. A fully secure semi-permanent corral was created, with a living area and garden surrounded by camera runs on all sides. It got a makeover every year but proceeded to be used for all the ordinary series, umpteen Celebrity versions and several spinoffs. Alison Hammond, Jade Goody and Aisleyne Horgan-Wallace all made their TV debuts here. But the general public generally got no further than the eviction party outside, so when the National Trust offered 500 free tickets as a promotional gimmick in 2013 I leapt in and grabbed one.
They took us in through the camera runs, the dark back passages shielded behind mirrored windows and dangling black drapes. And then we stepped into the actual bedroom, as seen on hours of TV, and the BB superfans amongst the group let out an audible squeal. Then they let us into the bathroom, bedecked with whatever that year's plumbing was, and also the garden with its hot tub, outdoor shower and mangle. The view from the treehouse spoiled the illusion somewhat, with the George Lucas soundstage poking over the perimeter wall, but you never saw any of that on the telly. When we were finally allowed inside the sacred central space they even wheeled out three recent housemates, but all from the Channel 5 era so I had no idea who they were. I couldn't survive ten weeks cramped in here, I thought, not with multiple egotists, nowhere to hide and scores of cameras watching.
The best part was probably when they invited us all upstairs, one by one, to sit in the infamous diary room chair. Sit here and stare into the lens, they said, and then a disembodied Big Brother chirped up and asked us questions. I proved stunningly bad at answering, so much so that my interrogation stumbled to a halt almost before it had begun, and was promptly ushered out after the taking of a souvenir selfie. Not only would I have hated being a housemate, I thought, but they'd never have invited me anyway. But I can claim to have sat in the ultimate TV hotseat, with the added bonus that almost nobody was watching... much like the winner of series 18 as it happens.
Now on ITV after a five year hiatus, the new Big Brother house is a very different beast. No longer a separate building it's been constructed inside another, a giant grey soundstage, which protects the whole production from the weather and exterior scrutiny. This is part of Garden Studios, a state of the art facility with four sound stages, two Virtual Production stages and multiple behind the scenes areas, all of which opened in 2021. It's located on the northern edge of the Park Royal Industrial Estate between the canal and the railway, a short walk from Harlesden station. Specifically it's on Waxlow Road, a lengthy dead end which once led to the Heinz factory, and can be found right down at the far end past the fire station. Waxlow Road is also where you'll find the McVities factory, still very much a going concern, so if you pick your time right the smell of digestives will waft out to transport your nostrils to nirvana.
The Big Brother house has been built inside the soundstage called Iris 2/3, the first of the grey sheds on the left. You'll see nothing interesting from the road, just high walls, blank gates and a staircase the production staff possibly walk up and down. No security guards are needed, everything's secure and the CCTV vibe is strong, although I imagine it'll be different down here on eviction night. Also the garden is tucked away on the other side, which is south-facing, so there's no chance of eavesdropping on the latest astroturf action. But it also happens to abut the Grand Union Canal so I wondered if there'd be any better view from the towpath... only to discover, dammit, it's closed.
It's not a Big Brother-inspired closure, they were going to shut it anyway. It's part of a plan to improve the Harlesden Canalside, a project so important it has its own Instagram account and so dull they've only posted three times, most recently in June. Also the diversion lets you back onto the towpath via the Oliver Business Park and, hey presto, that's just in time to see the two Iris stages with a rig of spotlights pitched up inbetween. You can't quite stand opposite, well not officially, although it'd be the simplest thing to wander past the barrier and see the big eye in the eviction zone. What I did get was a nice photo of canalside reflections and another as a narrowboat passed through and disturbed them all. But for the real action, be it Salmongate, Olivia's no-hands cartwheel or Jenkin's exploding suitcase, this year's Big Brother House is alas only visible on screen.
Last week I was walking along the Greenway between West Ham and Plaistow when I spotted some new notices. A lot of the Greenway is closed at the moment so I assumed it was about that. The title on the first notice was 'Manor Road NOS Improvements', explaining underneath that NOS stands for Northern Outfall Sewer. But nowhere on the poster did it say anything was closed or closing so I didn't give it a second look.
I gave the map a second look. It showed a closure on the Greenway much longer than at present, with big 'no entry' signs at Abbey Creek and Upper Road. It seemed to suggest the section of the Greenway I was standing on was closed, except it plainly wasn't because I'd just walked along it. No dates appeared on the map, just as on the poster, nor any text confirming a closure. I carried on walking to BestMate's and we finished off watching Squid Game.
This week the poster and the map were still there, also a history of the Greenway and how historically sewer-tastic it is. This week I was more curious and decided to use the QR code to 'Scan for more information', as directed. And boy were they hiding some unwelcome information on their website!
The Greenway will indeed be closing here, additionally incorporating the bridge over the District line, but not until October. Why they didn't mention October anywhere on the printed notices I have no idea, but my best guesses are that either i) Thames Water don't want to frighten anyone yet, or ii) the people who designed the posters are incompetent.
More importantly it'll be closing from October until autumn 2028. I had to read that twice - 2028! That's a three year closure including all of next year, all of the year after and most of the year after that. And this is in addition to the existing closure over the Jubilee line which has been shut since last September, supposedly for eighteen months but it's actually going to be more like fifty.
I've made this summary to show what's closing when. It's not official but I hope it makes things clearer. (normally you'd colour the Greenway green, but I've used brown for hopefully obvious reasons)
I know the Northern Outfall Sewer is critical infrastructure and also Victorian, hence long-term maintenance is essential and works are likely to be major. But three years is a bloody long time to be sent off on a diversion, and given the lack of alternative routes locally it's a horrific diversion too.
There are no good east-west connections in this area other than the railway and the Greenway. Even the existing diversion over Abbey Creek and the Jubilee line, normally four minutes direct, involves a contorted twisty route that takes more like twelve. Once they additionally shut the next kilometre along the Greenway the paucity of those connections will be sorely highlighted, blighting pedestrians and especially cyclists whose cross-borough shortcut will be cruelly dashed.
Thames Water's closure map shows two diversions, a green one and a blue one, both substantially longer than the direct red. Blue runs north and connects to Stratford town centre rather than the other closed end of the Greenway. Green runs south and has to skirt the whole of West Ham Recreation Ground and the East London Cemetery. Bafflingly blue is described as northbound and green as southbound, despite direction being irrelevant in this case, so I can only assume that i) they meant northern and southern, ii) the people who designed the posters are incompetent.
The closed section of the Greenway will be 1.3km long.
The green diversion is 2.5km long.
The blue diversion is 3.1km long.
That's how bad this three year closure is.
The map also includes an orange line, a 'route connecting' blue back to the Greenway. This it turns out is the shortest diversion of all, a mere 2.0km, but you'd never draw that conclusion from the colours on the map. The diversion could be even shorter if the orange line followed Stephens Road instead, a reduction to 1.9km, and for both these reasons I conclude i) the people who designed the posters are incompetent, ii) the people who designed the posters are incompetent.
Thames Water have also produced a leaflet which they were dishing out to passers-by at an engagement event on Thursday and Friday. If you weren't there sorry, no leaflet for you. I went along and harangued the hapless Thames Water employee for a good ten minutes, not complaining about the need for repairs but pointing out how utterly inadequate the poster and the map were. Look, I said, the background map you've used doesn't even show the rest of the Greenway, only a blank grey background.
I harangued politely, and made sure the employee realised I wasn't having a go at them, only the incompetent people who designed the notice and the map. But I hope he passed on my observations and suggestions, and that the information provided by Thames Water evolves as the closure date approaches. If you're going to make everyone's journeys hugely worse for three years the least you can do is warn them competently.
This may look like an ordinary dot-matrix display on a DLR train, but look again. The destination is West Ham, and DLR trains don't go to West Ham. Not yet, anyway. They will do once the extension to Stratford International opens, but as yet there's no definite date for that. Originally this new line from Canning Town was due to open in Summer 2010, but that slipped to September 2010, then late 2010, then January 2011, now probably late spring 2011, maybe even summer 2011. Signalling problems are to blame, apparently, plus local lowlife stealing the new cable. But the line will definitely be up and running by September when the new Westfield shopping centre opens.
This new DLR line is due to connect Stratford International station to the rest of London's train network... and about time! Since December 2009 passengers for High Speed services have had to board a bus from the end of Stratford platform 11 and be driven through an Olympic building site to reach Stratford International's ticket hall. There still aren't many passengers, to be honest, what with Stratford "International" being London's largest transport white elephant, but maybe a DLR connection will help to boost traffic. The photo's showing a scrolling DLR display, by the way, because the station name's too long to fit on the dot matrix screen all in one go.
I wonder how many tourists are going to end up at this station by mistake. Abbey Road will be another new stop on the DLR extension, a short distance north of West Ham, and to the best of my knowledge the Beatles never visited nor marched over any local zebra crossing. There was once a Cistercian abbey, founded in 1135, but Henry VIII had that closed down and virtually no trace remains. So you're unlikely to want to visit this particular Abbey Road, not unless you live nearby. It'll be interesting to see how passenger numbers build up, if indeed they do, and whether the DLR link works as a catalyst for further development.
Here's another new station with an unfamiliar name. Star Lane will be located between West Ham and Canning Town, and sits astride the old North Woolwich Silverlink line (which closed at the end of 2006). The new station already looks shiny and complete, and has done for many months, but as yet there's no sign of the platforms opening, the barriers coming down and DLR services running through. They'll be slow stopping services too, running parallel to the 'express' Jubilee line, so I expect the great majority of passengers to carry on using the latter because skipping Star Lane will be much quicker.
Hang on, what's this? There is no DLR station called Thames Wharf, neither is any such station being built. But there might be one day, on the Woolwich line south of Canning Town, because passive provision was made when that extension was built. The surrounding area's currently one of the emptier bits of Silvertown, where post-industrial redevelopment has yet to get off the ground, so trains won't be stopping here until there's something worth stopping for. Still, if the DLR's scrolling displays have been enabled for stations that don't exist yet, let's applaud the value-for-money that this electronic future-proofing brings.
But this has me baffled. I can find no evidence anywhere on the internet that a DLR station at "Bow Creek" has ever been considered. I can't even work out where such a station would go, unless it's planned for the middle of the Bow Creek nature reserve (and that would be lunacy). There might be additional unplanned DLR stations hidden away in the dot matrix system, but don't expect to see them flashing up in the future. There's no more money for DLR developments, no more funding, so the Stratford International extension looks like being the network's last hurrah. Coming not very soon, to a neighbourhood not very near you.
Today I'm continuing my walk along the Greenwich Meridian through Tower Hamlets and Newham... or attempting to walk along it because direct passage becomes a lot harder from here thanks to a derelict gasworks, a tidal river and several industrial estates. So, plenty to look forward to... [map][photos]
New Village Avenue [51.513°N 0°W]
Much of the postwar Aberfeldy estate, cut off behind the A12 and the A13, has succumbed to regeneration over the last decade. Most of the housing association flats bordering the East India Dock Road have been knocked down and replaced by something sparklier, blockier and more likely to have a 24 hour concierge. Initially the marketing team called it Aberfeldy Village but they've since morphed to calling the site Oxbow, which is a godawful name because a) it's not in Oxford b) it's not in Bow and c) it does not in any way resemble a disconnected meander. The main thoroughfare retains the name New Village Avenue, however, although there's nothing rural about a long grassy canyon with occasional footbridges crossing an imaginary water feature. About the only thing I like about the development is that they remembered the Greenwich Meridian exists and marked it with a lovely brass spike across one of the walkways.
The meridian passes through Watermans House, Traders House and Blairgowrie Court. None of these are as vibrant as the marketing collateral claims.
Abbott Road [51.514°N 0°W]
Nudging up against all this redevelopment malarkey, Abbott Road is a throwback to when these South Bromley streets were the closest to the docks. Only a few Victorian buildings survive, but the majority of residents are still lucky enough to have proper houses rather than flats. The meridian cuts invisibly across the point of a triangular parklet past a road sign using not quite the right typeface pointing not quite the right way.
Poplar Gas Works [51.516°N 0°W]
In the 1820s the Poplar Gas Company opened its first gasworks alongside a bend in Bow Creek. It did its dirty job for decades, out of general sight, and grew to accommodate threegasholders, two retort houses and numerous tanks and gantries. In 2010, its job done, British Gas announced plans to demolish the lot and remediate the 20 acre site. 28,000m³ of mucky spoil was removed, much of it by barge, and today the land is securely fenced awaiting, you guessed it, 2800 flats. Tower Hamlets nodded through planning permission earlier in lockdown, with full completion scheduled to take many years. One major benefit will be the opening up of 500m of riverside path, but on the downside the developers have only been asked to leave space for footbridges across the Lea rather than funding any themselves, leaving future residents potentially rather cut off.
The Greenwich Meridian cuts across the heart of the site, as you can see on this artist's impression culled from the masterplan. Unfortunately I've had to add the red line myself as the architects appear to have completely overlooked the meridian's existence. It doesn't get a mention anywhere in their 24 page Design Evolution document, and the footprint of the blocks and towers entirely disregards the alignment. There are always other factors to be taken into consideration, of course, but it does seem a terrible waste of geographical good fortune given that branding a location 'Meridian Something' invariably adds value.
A footbridge across to Cody Dock was granted planning permission in 2010 but has never been built, as if this section of the Lea Valley Walk is forever cursed.
Bow Creek [51.518°N 0°W]
The River Lea is broad and tidal at this point, and also entirely inaccessible to the public. The meridian crosses the river just downstream of Cody Dock, tantalisingly out of reach, and enters the London borough of Newham through the depot of GBN Services Ltd, specialists in skip hire, recycling and waste transfer. To stand on the zero degree line you need to head for the stretch of South Crescent immediately outside the arched entrance to Cody Dock, close to a cluster of parked-up street sweepers, and deftly dodge any passing trucks.
Cody Dock itself is lovely, an evolving community asset to be proud of, but alas it misses the meridian by about twenty metres.
Cody Road [51.521°N 0°W]
The Cody Road Trading Estate houses numerous businesses London needs but nobody wants to live near. As such the location is ideal because absolutely nobody does. High fences and locked gates screen off cement works, electricity substations, builders yards, document archives, car rental depots, windscreen repairers, food wholesalers, even a dealer in eels. If the wind's in the right direction you might also get the whiff of freshly-roasted coffee but that's a rare treat. The meridian crosses Cody Road in the tiny gap between North Crescent and South Crescent where the pavements are generally clogged by unmarked delivery vans and off-duty ambulances. May you never have any good reason to visit.
For the next 700 metres there is no public access to the meridian, other than those aboard trains between West Ham and Bromley-by-Bow stations. The easternmost of the Twelvetrees gasholder cluster is narrowly scraped.
Long Wall Path [51.528°N 0°W]
Here's one of my favourite local paths, a secluded dogleg clinging to the north bank of Abbey Creek. It was closed for ten years while Thames Water completed adjacent works on the Lee Tunnel but reopened in 2016 connecting Three Mills to the Greenway. The waterfront is mostly obscured by undergrowth and mud while inland is screened by a security fence, so it can feel a bit like you're walking through a green tunnel. I used GPS on my phone to try to work out where the meridian passes, and I think it's the one spot where the undergrowth has been trodden down and the fence has been yanked open, but ultimately there is no escape.
The field in which the first two series of Big Brother took place is (almost) just behind the fence (but marginally into the western hemisphere).
Abbey Mills Pumping Station [51.531°N 0°W]
Not only is this an absolutely glorious building but the Greenwich Meridian slices through the cruciform engine room. Abbey Mills Pumping Station was built by Joseph Bazalgette as part of his 1860s sewage masterplan and helped flush London's effluent down the Northern Outfall Sewer towards Beckton treatment works. It is ridiculously over-decorated, but Victorians liked to go way over the top in their public works. These days most of the work has been taken over by a separate silvery-roofed pumping station, also coincidentally astride the meridian, but the old girl still adds her weight when required. Should you ever get the opportunity to look inside, as I managed in 2011 with Open House, move mountains.
Apologies, there's only been one proper meridian marker in today's post, right at the beginning. We'll do better tomorrow.
• Today's 10 photos can be found here
• Tomorrow we continue from the Greenway
If you've ever been to the toilet north of the Thames, anywhere between Acton and Bow, then you've contributed a little to the history of this building. The Abbey Mills Pumping Station is an essential link in London's sewage system, built in the 1870s by Sir Joseph Bazalgette and designed to speed millions of gallons of unpleasant liquids downstream. The pumps within raise the brownwater by forty feet into the Northern Outfall Sewer, thence slowly downhill for release into the Thames at Beckton. And the station still functions, despite being superseded by a more modern pumping station nextdoor, such was the genius nature of Victorian infrastructure. Courtesy of Open House, Thames Water allowed a handful of consumers inside the building this weekend, and we all enjoyed a fascinating two hour tour.
It's a magnificent building, entirely unnecessarily so [photo]. The Victorians had a habit of embellishing public projects, and Abbey Mills is no exception [photo]. The lantern on top earned the pumping station the nickname "the Mosque in the marsh", back in the days when nobody else lived anywhere nearby. Four Byzantine towers provide access to the roof, with rows of glazed tiles and carved limestone flora beneath to provide additional artistic flourishes. The building was originally cruciform in shape, before two additional boiler houses were added (only one of which survives). There were also twoenormous chimneys topped by minarets, although those came down at the start of the Second World War when they were decreed a toppling hazard. A railway line brought in coal to keep the plant working 24 hours a day, and key employees were housed in a row of cottages close by so that they were always on call. The building is sometimes known as the Cathedral of Sewage, and it's easy to see why [photo].
Inside (oh yes, the tour went inside), the view's justasamazing. High ceilings, rising to the lantern's symmetrical windowlight at the centre [photo]. A raised level of intricate ironwork, originally installed to access a series of beam engines, until these were replaced by electric pumps in the 1930s [photo][photo]. The replacements look like Daleks guarding the four corners of the building, and have recently been restored to provide several more years of service. Gaping holes in the floor lead down to thick pipes in chambers below, a curious mixture of old and very new. Around the walls are various dials and scales and chunky electronic cabinets, all now superfluous but part of the charm of the interior [photo][photo]. Nobody works inside any more, not unless something here goes wrong. In normal circumstances, as and when, the entire station now runs automatically, controlled from elsewhere.
In truth the old Victorian building doesn't need to function too often. A new aluminium-clad pumping station was opened in 1997, and only a couple of times a month does this still need support from its ancestor. There are eight pumping stations here in total, each lettered from A to I (but no G) and all of slightly different vintage. The original's A, boosted by B a few years later, then rather-largeC built to disgorge excess greywater direct into the Channelsea River. The Channelsea still suffers when too much sewage needs to escape, which is why the Lee Tunnel is being built between here and Beckton to reduce the environmental impact on the Thames. Its pumping station will be wholly underground, leaving virtually no visible footprint, unlike the other tumbledown buildings we observed during our tour of the site. I'd never realised there was quite so much here at Abbey Mills, but now I'll look down from the Greenway with a completely new eye.
The tour was excellent, thanks not least to our guide who delivered all the facts with humour and a knowing smile. He was accompanied by two Thames Water employees in hi-vis jackets, one of whom is the company's archivist and who later took us down to his repository. The room is stuffed full of files of plans, blueprints, photographic plates and manhole cover locations. On the shelves are some fantastically old volumes detailing all the original plans of London's Victorian sewers - giant leatherbound tomes labelled "Hammersmith to Bow" or "Counters Creek to Old Ford" or whatever - which are still referred to whenever developers want to build something new on top. The other employee works down the sewers, attempting to keep them clear and unblocked, and recently helped dig out a huge plug of cooking fatunder Leicester Square. You wouldn't want to do it, but be damned glad that someone does, and that Bazalgette's supreme sewage solution survives.
Look for the snail. That graffitied metal spiral nestling in the undergrowth off the Greenway is actually a chunk of redundant pumping machinery from Abbey Mills nextdoor [photo]. This is where the path turns off, two paths in fact, one high and one low. Ignore the upper past the perimeter of the Pumping Station and fork left down to an unlikely seating area. I say unlikely because there's hardly a glorious view. Sit on the benches and you can look out over a concrete office block, or if the tide's out a tyre-strewn expanse of mud. On a good day there might be birds that aren't seagulls flapping in the reeds, on a bad day, well, that could be very bad indeed. A row of fourteen outfall pipes emerge immediately beneath your feet, used in emergencies to disgorge raw sewage into the river system of the Lower Lea valley [photo]. In an average year 16 million tonnes of the stuff escape here, which is why Thames Water are currently digging London's deepest ever tunnel to divert the discharge to Beckton. More of this later.
But suddenly the way is blocked, the path overgrown. There's been subsidence, crumbling or something, which is technically the reason this route's been sealed off these last five years. But rejoice because a detour's been driven through the hedge into the neighbouring field, and this is a very special field indeed. It might look like a building site, and most of it now is, but a dozen years ago this was the site of the very first Big Brother house. Craig, Nasty Nick and Brian, they all lived in a makeshift Channel 4 prefab on the site, with cameras and excitable Davinas all around. A fence blocks off the majority of the space, behind which are diggers and machinery and obscuring piles of earth [photo]. The eviction walkway used to run along here, not quite the part accessible today, but still closer to the action than by rights ought to be the case. Live broadcasting was often interrupted, back in 2000 and 2001, by loudmouth viewers yelling secrets from the public right of way along the water's edge. It's one of the reasons the show moved to Borehamwood, this inescapable lack of East End privacy. But that path's subsidence means public access now encroaches for a hundred metres or so into a patch of overgrown wasteland where television history was made. No plaque is evident, nor ever will be.
Emerging from the trees, the path ends beside the Prescott Channel. There are so many bits of waterway around here, all part of the artificial Bow Back Rivers, and this one hides a secret. When the Euston Arch was demolished in the 1960s, chunks of broken stone were chucked into the water here. About 30 have since been recovered, courtesy of pre-Olympic dredging, but not sufficient to recreate the monument should anyone ever have the urge. Rather more money has been spent building Three Mills Lock, a ship-sized affair through which virtually nothing ever passes [photo]. British Waterways pledged it'd be used for delivering construction materials to the Olympic Park, but completed it too late, so one refuse barge a week is now more the tally. This would be a scandalous white elephant were it not for the huge increase in real estate values the lock delivers upstream, cancelling out tidal flow and removing large areas of E20 from the threat of flooding. Meanwhile across the water, across the railway, stand the Bromley-by-Bow gasholders [photo]. There are seven of these Victorian beauties, each a ring of cast iron classical columns, and Grade II listed to ensure that this heritage cluster survives. [photo]
On the far bank, that's Three Mills Studios. As well as BB's studio interviews, many's the TV show or movie that's been filmed within its security perimeter. They sometimes store props round the back, which can be seen fairly clearly from up on the bridge. On my most recent trip I was intrigued to see a headstone-style chunk of fibreglass set in the middle of a grassy platform supported by scaffolding. The inscription remained a mystery until a judicious zoom revealed unexpected wording: "This stone was placed here to mark the source of the River Thames". But that's nearly 200 miles away! It seems someone's built a perfect replica of a famous monument from a Gloucestershire field, in portable form, complete with rocky space in front (from which a water feature might gush) [close-up]. Completely coincidentally, I'm sure, hundreds of LOCOG staff are busy preparing for the Olympic Opening Ceremony at Three Mills at the moment. I wonder where this very British prop might pop up next.
Olympic update
I used to like walking along the Greenway north of Stratford High Street. Heading under the green sign by the Yardley Building, along the raised pathway between brambles and convulvulus, and up to the broad viaduct over the City Mill River. Not gorgeous, but a linear oasis of green between a housing development and an Olympic building site. But that was before the blue hoardings went up. No entry at the bus stop end, no entry at the Pudding Mill Lane end, and an annoying indirect detour for anyone walking or cycling between West Ham and Hackney Wick. All essential, though, because the Greenway had to be resurfaced to turn it into a spectator-motorway for hundreds of thousands of Games visitors. And not just that, but Crossrail too. Stratford-bound train tracks are eventually due to emerge from an underground portal around here, so preparation works are required so that they can safely negotiate the Greenway's enormous overland sewer pipes. A necessary closure, they promised, and only for a year.
A bit further down the Greenway near the Abbey Mills Pumping Station, an even longer shutdown is underway. Three and a half years this time, which is a full two years longer than expected. The plan was to seal off the footpath along Abbey Creek while a whopping great tidal lock was constructed, the lock which would allow Olympic building materials to arrive "sustainably" via the Bow Back Rivers. Failure all round, alas. The lock took longer to build than expected, so didn't open until last summer rather than 2008. Embarrassingly, Olympic Park contractors aren't actually delivering building materials by water because they've found other cheaper methods of transport, so this £20m facility is being used by almost no traffic whatsoever. (An ITN report exposing this shameful white elephant here, my report here) And has the footpath been reopened? Has it hell. (It's a famous footpath, this. It's the footpath which ran along the edge of the compound used for the Big Brother House in series 1 and 2. Until recently a footbridge crossed the river here, the one over which Davina would lead the evictees towards the studio every Friday evening. Alas, building the lock meant demolishing Davina's bridge, and no upstream crossing was possible until the new Three Mills Lock was complete)
At the Clock Mill end, an undated closure notice has been scribbled on by a frustrated rambler. "This towpath has been closed for far too long!" "Get on with it!" Meanwhile at the Greenway end, a fresh new fingerpost points confidently down the path towards Three Mills, although heaven help any passing walker who chooses to believe it. The path's firmly blocked a couple of minutes down, requiring the retracing of steps and a lengthy detour. Meanwhile all the expensive Lea Valley Park tourist maps erected around the area last year clearly show the footpath as open, even though it isn't and shows no sign of ever being. Fancy doing a nice circular walk of the 2012 hinterland, as planned? No chance.
This may look like an ordinary dot-matrix display on a DLR train, but look again. The destination is West Ham, and DLR trains don't go to West Ham. Not yet, anyway. They will do once the extension to Stratford International opens, but as yet there's no definite date for that. Originally this new line from Canning Town was due to open in Summer 2010, but that slipped to September 2010, then late 2010, then January 2011, now probably late spring 2011, maybe even summer 2011. Signalling problems are to blame, apparently, plus local lowlife stealing the new cable. But the line will definitely be up and running by September when the new Westfield shopping centre opens.
This new DLR line is due to connect Stratford International station to the rest of London's train network... and about time! Since December 2009 passengers for High Speed services have had to board a bus from the end of Stratford platform 11 and be driven through an Olympic building site to reach Stratford International's ticket hall. There still aren't many passengers, to be honest, what with Stratford "International" being London's largest transport white elephant, but maybe a DLR connection will help to boost traffic. The photo's showing a scrolling DLR display, by the way, because the station name's too long to fit on the dot matrix screen all in one go.
I wonder how many tourists are going to end up at this station by mistake. Abbey Road will be another new stop on the DLR extension, a short distance north of West Ham, and to the best of my knowledge the Beatles never visited nor marched over any local zebra crossing. There was once a Cistercian abbey, founded in 1135, but Henry VIII had that closed down and virtually no trace remains. So you're unlikely to want to visit this particular Abbey Road, not unless you live nearby. It'll be interesting to see how passenger numbers build up, if indeed they do, and whether the DLR link works as a catalyst for further development.
Here's another new station with an unfamiliar name. Star Lane will be located between West Ham and Canning Town, and sits astride the old North Woolwich Silverlink line (which closed at the end of 2006). The new station already looks shiny and complete, and has done for many months, but as yet there's no sign of the platforms opening, the barriers coming down and DLR services running through. They'll be slow stopping services too, running parallel to the 'express' Jubilee line, so I expect the great majority of passengers to carry on using the latter because skipping Star Lane will be much quicker.
Hang on, what's this? There is no DLR station called Thames Wharf, neither is any such station being built. But there might be one day, on the Woolwich line south of Canning Town, because passive provision was made when that extension was built. The surrounding area's currently one of the emptier bits of Silvertown, where post-industrial redevelopment has yet to get off the ground, so trains won't be stopping here until there's something worth stopping for. Still, if the DLR's scrolling displays have been enabled for stations that don't exist yet, let's applaud the value-for-money that this electronic future-proofing brings.
But this has me baffled. I can find no evidence anywhere on the internet that a DLR station at "Bow Creek" has ever been considered. I can't even work out where such a station would go, unless it's planned for the middle of the Bow Creek nature reserve (and that would be lunacy). There might be additional unplanned DLR stations hidden away in the dot matrix system, but don't expect to see them flashing up in the future. There's no more money for DLR developments, no more funding, so the Stratford International extension looks like being the network's last hurrah. Coming not very soon, to a neighbourhood not very near you.
If you've ever been to the toilet north of the Thames, anywhere between Acton and Bow, then you've contributed a little to the history of this building. The Abbey Mills Pumping Station is an essential link in London's sewage system, built in the 1870s by Sir Joseph Bazalgette and designed to speed millions of gallons of unpleasant liquids downstream. The pumps within raise the brownwater by forty feet into the Northern Outfall Sewer, thence slowly downhill for release into the Thames at Beckton. And the station still functions, despite being superseded by a more modern pumping station nextdoor, such was the genius nature of Victorian infrastructure. Courtesy of Open House, Thames Water allowed a handful of consumers inside the building this weekend, and we all enjoyed a fascinating two hour tour.
Inside (oh yes, the tour went inside), the view's just as amazing. High ceilings, rising to the lantern's symmetrical windowlight at the centre [photo]. A raised level of intricate ironwork, originally installed to access a series of beam engines, until these were replaced by electric pumps in the 1930s [photo] [photo]. The replacements look like Daleks guarding the four corners of the building, and have recently been restored to provide several more years of service. Gaping holes in the floor lead down to thick pipes in chambers below, a curious mixture of old and very new. Around the walls are various dials and scales and chunky electronic cabinets, all now superfluous but part of the charm of the interior [photo] [photo]. Nobody works inside any more, not unless something here goes wrong. In normal circumstances, as and when, the entire station now runs automatically, controlled from elsewhere.
