From the London Stadium to Thames Ironworks

The London Stadium from the Lea Valley Walk

Enjoyed a West Ham-themed birthday promenade last week exploring the Lea Valley Walk. My journey saw me trek from the London Stadium down to Trinity Buoy Wharf at Leamouth, opposite the site of the old Thames Ironworks shipbuilding yard. 

Following the Lee Navigation from White Post Lane at Hackney Wick, I soon found myself in the surprisingly leafy and peaceful environs beneath the London Stadium. Leaving the stadium behind it's on past the twin locks of Old Ford Lock and the lock-keeper's cottages that were converted into the Big Brother house. One link with West Ham is the site of the converted Percy Dalton's peanut factory — as famously sold on the North Bank.

The old Percy Dalton's peanut factory

After going under several large roads in Stratford the river takes us to the historic Three Mills with its working waterwheels. It was built in 1776 and is the world's largest tidal mill. Then it's on down Bow Creek (avoiding the Limehouse turn to the right), with fine views of Canary Wharf, and on to to Cody Dock, which now has a cafe and number of workspaces — though the silted-up old dock reminds us of how important the River Lea once was as an industrial shipway. 

Sadly the riverside path is closed beyond the dock, but an alternative route takes the pedestrian down a Sweeney-esque road of scrap-metal merchants and back to the Lea at Canning Town.

View of Bow Creek from the Ecology Park

It's certainly worth a look in the Bow Creek Ecology Park, an oasis of green opposite the new multi-coloured tower blocks of City Island. The walk ends at East India Dock and then Trinity Buoy Wharf, once used for testing buoys and lighthouses. There's a cafe with a taxi on the roof here and across the Leamouth lies the site of Thames Ironworks, now a metal company. Strangely, this being hipster land, there's also a ship with orange mushrooms spouting from its roof, possibly a reference to West Ham fans sometimes being kept in the dark and fed on manure. You can then return home from either East India DLR or Canning Town tube.

It's a walk that takes in West Ham's current home and the site of the place where it all began. And on a sunny day it's all rather beautiful, in a post-industrial kind of way. 

Looking across from Trinity Buoy Wharf to the site of Thames Ironworks