Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Wile Away a Sunday Afternoon Where the Lee Meets Old Father Thames
In a serendipitous discovery over the weekend (isn't it great how London keeps giving those no matter how long you live here), we found Trinity Buoy Wharf. It's where our local river gives up and becomes the Thames.
I loved it as soon as I saw it. Situated on Leamouth Peninsula, alongside Bow Creek, it feels like it almost retains a whiff of Docklands past. Sure the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf tower in the background, and I admit there's no missing the dome of the O2 right opposite, and yes it's true that the other half of the island is about to be developed with swish flats, but this wee part of Docklands feels a bit sleepy, a bit like it's almost defiantly hanging on to some remnants of the past.
Shortly after you enter the wharf, one of the first sights to greet you is London's only lighthouse. Built in 1864, it was designed to test lights to be used in lighthouses around England & Wales. Michael Faraday also carried out experiments here. Nearby, there’s a little wooden hut called “The Faraday Effect” which contains little insights into the man’s life work and history.
Going in to the lighthouse itself, you get a pretty good flavour of what the wharf is all about. You'll pay no entrance fee and get a warm greeting from a local manning the information desk upstairs. We got chatting to a couple of locals who were there that day. By all accounts, the wharf seems to share a recent history with places like Hackney Wick and even Harringay. As industrial decline set in, the area was colonised by artists and creatives who both live and work in old docklands buildings or in old shipping containers stacked one on top of the other. Inevitably, as the London propert market wheel turned, the artists have been increasingly priced out and are moving on. I was told that the Harringay and South Totenham warehouse communities are on the main emigration route!
Today the lighthouse is home to the Long Player project, the brain child of one of the founder members of The Pogues, Jem Finer. In collaboration with others, he developed a piece of music designed to play without repeating or ceasing for 1000 years. The first note played out in the lighthouse in the last moment of December 31st 1999 and is designed to stop and then start again in the last moment of 2999.
The music is a piece played by a collection of 234 Tibetan singing bowls which have been specifically played (hit, touched, sung etc.) and recorded. There's more to this, but I'll leave you to dig that up for yourselves if you've the taste for it.
All around the site are scattered post-industrial sculptures of various sorts.
It's great just wandering around. On a pleasant Sunday afternon on a nice Spring day, I think we saw about 10 people. (Though I imagine the wharf is busier on weekdays since an increasing proportion of it is being taken by containers or container-like buildings used as offices.) Crowds are easy to find in London; a bit of tranquility is harder to come by. But you're not in a desert. There are a couple of shops, a great little cafe and a Fatboy's Diner.
Next to the cafe is the red tower of a lightship moored at the wharf that now serves as a music studio.
When you've whetted your whistle with a cup of rosy, walk west back along Orchard Road and you begin to get that Hackney Wick vibe.
Opposite the black cab under a rusty tree is the entrance to East India Dock Basin a peaceful little wildlife park fashioned from more docks.
The Thames NE Extension Path runs through the park and takes you to East India on the DLR. The park's worth a visit if you're down that way - some wonderful and peaceful East London river views.
Well worth a Sunday afternon visit. We'll be going back before the development on the other half of the peninsula changes things forever.
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Sam R on
-
Wow that is definitely worth a visit. Thanks for sharing. Love the photos as always. Sam
-
Permalink Reply by Michele on
-
Thanks for letting us know about this and for the background and pics - London is amazing with so many beautiful spots to discover, but I didn't know about this one and will make a trip there soon.
-
Permalink Reply by Robert Pike on
-
Thanks for sharing with the masses. It is the most fantastic place which on cold weekends can be very quiet. My mate was married in the Chainstore here last year and I was best man. All the guests - most of which came from the westcountry - and loved it. Some of the ex-navy guests including the brides father were amazed that the city that we all adopted can look this good!
If you like lighthouses and don't want to go miles to the coast this is the place for you!
So Hugh you weren't tempted by the parkour centre?
If you are in the area again there is a small nature reserve to the north where the Lea runs past Canning Town. There is also the Canning Town Caravanserai - a form of pop up urbanism defying the developers lack of activity for the last 6 or 7 years.
-
Permalink Reply by Hugh on
-
I saw the building, but think it was closed. SInce you flagged it, I just checked it on Google.....and ahhhh, THAT's what it is!
Thanks for the Canning Town Recomednations. I'll check them out. The Caravanserai looks good.
-
-
Yes that's the one - also known as free running.
-
Permalink Reply by Mike C on
-
I love this place and second the recommendation - in particular the nature reserves (see a satellite photo) and the bits of the lower Lea which you can get to.
Friends rented an office here around 2000, when there was a big cooking oil refinery on the Lea just off the roundabout. Fatboys diner was there then, a haunt of waiting RAC & delivery drivers! There has been much building of luxury apartments since, but this finger of land has at least partially resisted this, and the Trinity Buoy Wharf developers have done what they can to marry the two worlds.
We lost much of the Bow Backs, the amazing little river courses above Stratford, when the Olympic Park was developed but much of the lower Lea survived unscathed by this particular wave of modernism.
The Grade I mill at 3 Mills Island is a great thing to see when it is open.
I also love the Greenway, the long walk from Bow to Beckton which feels like an old railway line but is actually still North London's main sewer.
The Lea has been a great thing for a country person like me living in London. You probably already know all about the Millfields Beam Engine, the boardwalk on the Walthamstow Marshes, The Middlesex Filter Beds nature reserve, Waterworks Nature Reserve and the old course of the Lea along the east of Hackney Marshes. I could go on..
I do have a question though. Have any of you ever heard of Channelsea Island? It's on the lower Lea just below Gainsborough Studios and is privately owned by a religious group who I think have a house of worship in the adjacent tower block. As far as I know you can't get on or off it by land, and it's got some derelict old factories. I read that the island is an 11th century engineering project, and that the Euston Arch was dumped somewhere in the silt around it. Some info exists on the web, but I'm always on the lookout for information or photos!
(Sensible Dad hat on; remember the lower Lea is a tidal river, and don't go down on the mud. I've explored the Lea with boaters and people who know the river well, and they always remain in the boat or on the path. )
-
-
Since my wife took a studio near London Fields I have had much time to walk either by the canal or through Victoria Park up to the Hertford Union and into the Olympic and back around via the Greenway. Great little circular pack full of great off road spaces. I agree great for a non Londoner sometimes in need of a bit of greenery. I also like the View Tube cafe.
As you seem in the know what would be the best way to walk to the Olympic Park from next to Chestnuts Park in N15 as I would like to see those areas on the Lea?
-
-
I either bus it to join the Lea at Tottenham Hale, or do the slightly long walk down St Anne's / Craven Park Rd (always much longer on the way back!)
It's quite a distance to the park, but you could vary the long walk down the towpath by crossing at the first footbridge by Springfield Cafe into Coppermill Lane, and turning right after the railway onto the Nation Cycle Network path, which snakes under the railways and along Leyton Marsh. It crosses Lea Bridge Rd and then the Lea, where you turn left, follow the old river course and cross a wider foot bridge onto Eton Manor Walk. That goes into the Olympic Park by the Velodrome (but do check as I have never been into the park)
The boardwalk, Water Works and Middlesex Filter Beds nature reserves are another day out on their own.
-
-
Okay sounds doable from here. Thanks.
© 2024 Created by Hugh.
Powered by
