The Limehouse Cut and the River Lea

Image: © Marathon Taken: 13 Feb 2017

The Limehouse Cut was built in 1770 to connect the River Lea to the Thames and so shorten the journey for vessels travelling from the River Lea to the Pool of London. It did this by cutting out several loops of the lower Lea and the Thames. In the 19th century it was so polluted that "no bargee who fell in had any chance of surviving his ducking in the filthy water". The Limehouse Cut was closed to pedestrians for many years but the towpath has been opened up in recent years so that it is now possible to walk from Limehouse Basin to Three Mills via the new bridge under the Blackwall Tunnel approach road and the path seen here. Here the Limehouse Cut has become the River Lea but there is no physical separation between the two. This view is from the roving bridge at Bow Tidal Locks. The path between the River Lea and Bow Creek, which is out of sight to the right, continues under Twelvetrees Crescent ahead and on to Three Mills. The ornate iron bridge carrying Twelvetrees Crescent over the Lee Navigation was the main entrance to Bromley-by-Bow Gas Works. It had two large pipes level with the road which carried the gas. Bromley-by-Bow Gas Works was built between 1870 and 1873 by the Imperial Gas Light & Coke Company on the site of a former explosives factory. The advent of natural gas from the North Sea led to its decline and gas production ceased in 1976.

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