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Rivers
The Brent is a Thames tributary, which is canalised in its lower reaches as part of the Grand Union Canal, rises as several smaller streams in Barnet in north London. Its prettiest parts are downstream, as it approaches the Thames, passing through golf courses and small parks. It flows out of Brent Reservoir also known as the Welsh Harp, near the beginning of the M1. This body of water is a wildlife reserve protected by a conservation group.
The Lee(or Lea) runs from the Thames to Hertford and has been canalised in stages since the first millennium. The Danes took advantage of the Lee navigation to move a large fleet twenty miles north of London and establish a base in 894. The following year Alfred the Great and his army of Londoners, having failed to destroy the Danish settlement, dammed the Lee at Ware and penned in the Danes, who abandoned their ships and fled overland to the Severn.
In 1766 the passing of the River Lea Act marked the start of the modern canal era. The Act authorized improvements, new sections and locks on the Lee and the construction of Limehouse Cut. The Stort branch to Bishop’s Stortford opened in 1769, and in 1830 the Hertford Union Canal connected the Lee at Hackney with the Regent’s Canal.
Boats can be hired at Broxbourne and the route flows through the open countryside of the Lee Valley Park, a landscape of lakes, islands, reedbeds and marshes that’s a haven for birds, including great crested grebes, kingfishers, cormorants, sparrowhawks and wintering bitterns.
The Wandle flows from its sources at Waldon Ponds in Croydon and at Carshalton Ponds to the Thames at Wandsworth. The Wandle was used by the Romans for transport and was heavily industrialized in the 17th and 18th centuries, the main industries being tobacco and textiles. At the turn of the 19th century it had 40 working water mills along its banks, one of which was owned by William Morris.
Before industrialization the Wandle had been regarded as the best trout river in Britain. In 2003 it was restocked with the brown trout for which it had once been famous, raised from eggs by local schoolchildren. There are also carp, barbell, dace, chub, lamprey and even salmon. Anglers can be seen at spots all along the Wandle, including behind Wimbledon Stadium bus park and under the Earlsfield to Wimbledon railway line.
