Lee Valley Park

Today I went on a walk in the Lee Valley Park with my mate John. He drove me to the car park at Tottenham Marshes which would take me more than an hour to walk to, so this was a good chance to expand my walks portfolio without having to trudge for an hour in order to start my walk!

We began at Stonebridge Lock which is roughly where I stopped walking when I went to Tottenham Marshes before (see previous entry for that). To begin with therefore this was a walk down a canal towpath on a grey day with just the glimpse of sun trying to burn through the clouds

While many of the barges are looked after as homes, some are in distinctly poor shape, like this seriously listing vessel. Only a pair of coots could love this one.

But we popped off the towpath to go around the Walthamstow Wetlands, essentially a group of reservoirs, some romantically titled things like "Reservoir 1, Reservoir 2"

Edwardian pumping"castle" to the right. I like the way they over-engineered their utilities. You really need battlements on a pumping station...

The new Tottenham stadium across the waters.

By early afternoon the clouds had dissipated and it all looked rather lovely. Although decidedly cold.

This charming industrial building is the Coppermill, a mill which apparently cranked out copper tokens back in the day.

And this was merely signposted as the Engine, but I think was a sewage pumping station, another picturesque remnant of an industrial past.

Reservoir walks complete it was back to the towpath to make sure we got back before the light faded.

Would be interested why the owners of this barge decided to name it "The Widow Maker"...