(Ad 1)
The Lee or Lea Navigation ( spellings are interchangeable
“Lee” tends to be used by Acts of Parliament and OS maps ) is a canalisation
of the River Lee between Hertford Castle Weir and the Thames at Bow.
The River Lee
is a tributary of the Thames reputedly used by the Vikings and remembered in
an incident where King Alfred reduced the water level to strand Guthrum’s
fleet of Longships, which had presumably come visiting on less than peaceful
business, the Vikings not being known for social niceties.
The canal was one of the earlier ventures in improving the
UK’s rivers the first relevant Act of
Parliament being passed in 1425, with a second granting privileges to charge
Tolls for improvements being made in 1430.
1577 saw the innovation of the first “Pound Lock” (as in
use today) which was built at Waltham Abbey, which heralded a new age of
canal development, leaving behind the dangerous and wasteful “flash locks”
which were the precident. An Act of parliament in 1739 drew attention to the
increasing shortages of water for mill-owners and other users, but it was
not until 1767 that a remedy suggested by John Smeaton was authorised by
another Act and then implemented in the form of replacing the staunches or
flash locks with more modern Pound Locks. At the same time the “Limehouse
Cut” was built, to straighten the route near the junction with the Thames.
The overall effect being to both shorten the route and
conserve water, leaving the waterway far less vulnerable to the vagaries of
seasonal change or consequences of heavy usage. General improvements
continued until the early part of the 20th century, the Lee
Conservancy Board which was responsible for the waterway being instigated in
1868.
The Navigation was nationalised in 1948 passing to the
control of the British Transport Commission and then onto British Waterways
in 1962. The last Horse drawn barge passed the waterway in the 1950s, though
commercial traffic continuing to use the waterway as late as 1980 with one
tug the Vassal regularly working the waterway carrying Timber from bow to
Edmonton.
Commercial traffic may still be in evidence , serving the
Edmonton incinerator.