London History

Last week we saw how the Lea Valley grew from a defensive bulwark between Saxon kingdoms to becoming one of London’s most important industrial centres. The canalisation of the River Lea and its tributaries saw a huge growth in ’stink industries’ including tanning and brewing, which used the barges for bringing in raw materials and shipping out the finished goods - while drawing on the waters to power the process. But the canals went into decline in the late nineteenth century as the railways rose. The twentieth century saw new growth, however, as new industries used the Lea as their base.

Gasworks and powerstations sprung up along the banks of the increasingly fetid Lea, and the area was even a cradle of high technology - the Silicon Valley of its day. Here, in 1904, Professor Ambrose Fleming developed the diode valve (the basis for today’s electronics industry, without we would have no computers, no internet). The diode valve was the base of the modern wireless, and the UK’s first radio valve factory was built on the Lea in 1916 (the first TV tube factory came in 1936). Henry Robinson Palmer had developed the monorail here as far back as 1821, while India Pale Ale was first brewed by George Hodgson at his Bow Brewery.

To look at the decaying industrial base of the Lea now, it’s extraordinary to realise that BOC, Lotus Cars, Hawker Siddeley, Johnson Matthey, Lesney (Matchbox Cars) and Reuters all built their businesses here. There was the Royal Small Arms factory at Enfield (hence the ‘Lee Enfield’), and a striking and rather beautiful reminder of the former industrial might of the Lee is preserved in the striking Three Mills at Bromley-by-Bow. That building, though, is a standout in what has become an increasingly bleak scene. One of the saddest sights of recent years was the move of Percy Dalton Peanuts, a fixture of East End industry since 1931, moving from its Dace Road, Bow base to Suffolk … it seemed one more nail in the Lea’s coffin.

Decline doesn’t happen overnight of course. The 20th century industries compensated for the fall-off of the canals - which were under threat even as they were being built. By the late 19th century, industrialists were moving goods on the new railways not by painfully slow barge. The rapid industrial collapse of late 20th century Britain took a terrible toll on the Lea. An early plan, in 1967, saw the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority press much of the moribund land back into use as recreational space, and it became an invaluable waterbird and wildlife habitat.

But now the whole area - a vast, sprawling and neglected network of canals, cuts, wharves, rivers and docks could be brought back to life. The impetus, of course, is to be the 2012 Olympics, twinned with the cross-Channel rail terminus. Ken Livingstone and the various local development bodies are desperate that the Games should be merely the catalyst for a larger development of the area. Plans are for a new spine road to connect the five town centres in Stratford, Canning Town, West Ham, Hackney Wick and Bromley-by-Bow. 40,000 new homes would be created, plus 50,000 new jobs, mainly at the huge new complex of Stratford City.

Ken Livingstone has called it a “once in a lifetime opportunity to transform east London and the lives of thousands of Londoners”. The reclaimed waterways would also create a “brand new environment” for them, he added. A new Venice? Perhaps not, but it could certainly prove a new birth for the East End waterways. The draft planning framework, which will guide all future development in the area, is now open for consultation until September 1.