Millfields Park comes to an abrupt halt at the Lea Canal. It’s as if the city drops away. Across the water is a builders yard consisting of concrete, weeds, and a corregated fence crested with wire. A variety of bird life gathers on this peninsula: crows, swans, geese, cormorants, ducks, seagulls, pigeons, herons. Occasionally the...
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At the Middlesex filter beds, the river Lea divides into two routes. Under the bridge of shit and out towards The Ghost Factory flows the artificial channel – known as the Hackney cut. Over the precipice of the weir crashes the natural channel, called The Old River Lea. This detour round the back of...
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On the corner of Hackney Marsh, where the A12 crosses the Lea Canal, there once stood the factory of Lesney Industries Ltd, manufacturer of Matchbox toy cars. When I first came across the factory in 2008 I couldn’t tell immediately that it was abandoned. A river-barge bobbed expectantly against the wharf. A giant hook...
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When you pass over the Bridge of Shit you come to a low brick wall running the length of the tow path. Pass though a set of iron gates and you’ll find yourself in ruins of Middlesex Filter Beds, a Victorian water treatment plant. Concrete pathways rise from circular beds of twisted briar and...
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The evolutionary cul-de–sac is located in Entropy Junction. It’s the stretch of park between the Lea Bridge and Footbridge Portals. Here’s where people come to throw away food. Residents fling it from the balconies of the flats overlooking Millfilelds – pasta, rice, fried onions, noodles, chicken bones – they come out and scrape it...
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Yes, yes, so Hackney marsh is famous for football matches. They come here in droves on Saturdays and Sundays and kick balls in a maelstrom of cockney natter and REF-A-FUCKING-REE’s. There must more than fifty pitches tessellated across the arena. Look up anything about Hackney Marshes. Google it. You’ll always get some boring tidbit...
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