Confederacy of a Dunce - Sights of east London

Friday, September 23, 2005

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It's time for another photo post, this time a few images loosely connected by the east London theme. In a previous entry I mentioned an impressive Hindu temple in the middle of a very ordinary neighborhood. As promised, here is a picture of the top of the London Sri Murugan temple (whose website is now working!), which has been built from granite and marble (carved in India, then brought to East Ham):

The lower part of the building is still covered in scaffolding, so it's still not quite complete. This picture was taken from just across the street, so it's not quite as gigantically impressive as the Shri Swaminarayan Mandir. But seeing it unexpectedly in the middle of such an ordinary neighborhood was a very pleasant surprise.

The rest of the photos come from a bike ride a few weeks back, in which I wandered around the River Lea valley (future site of the 2012 Olympics, and thus due for some serious regeneration work). Here is a view of the path, looking north. Although cycling is permitted, the conditions are not ideal as the path is quite narrow, popular with cyclists and walkers, and the edge of the path is the bank of the river (I am paranoid about falling or being knocked into the water). On the right you can see some of the many narrowboats that occupy this section of the river (as a hoarder, I can't imagine living in such a small space).

In the next picture I'm standing on a high(ish) footbridge across the river looking south. To my left is the Springfield Marina, and to the right is Springfield Park (I've never stopped there, but maybe I should ["built on the grounds of three 19th century houses (one of which still stands and has a rather nice café). The old glasshouses belonging to the buildings have since been turned into a tropical conservatory and are home to a pond and ornamental carp. All in all, a good place to visit on a sunny morning"]).The path alongside the river is just as narrow as before.

The east side of the Lea Valley at this point is full of water treatment facilities which lie just beyond the railroad crossing pictured here. The underpass is exactly five feet high (at the highest point), and just wide enough for two crouching cyclists to pass each other without contact if neither of them are wobbling. The pavement is also in rather poor condition here; just after I took this photo (before I got back on the bike) I was crashed into from behind by a tumbling jogger who tripped over a hole in the pavement and fell down.

After the underpass you can continue straight (past the water treatment plant, reservoirs and so on) and back into built-up areas (Walthamstow), or turn right and enter the marshland paths. As usual I did the latter, following the power lines through an otherwise natural landscape, at least if you select your location carefully and keep your eyes straight ahead, as in the picture here:

Eventually I reached the entrance to the Eastway Cycle Centre, a small island in the middle of a mess of industrial/road/rail landscape. A good impression of the area comes from this frustrated comment on the website of the British Human Power Club: "Access is actually from Quarter Mile Lane, which can be found on the southern side of Ruckholt Road, the A106. Fairly close to the New Spitalfield Market, if that's any help. More detailed directions are a bit pointless due to the perpetual construction of the M11 Link Road; the situation on the ground doesn't look much like any map, and changes quite frequently.". It currently includes a 1-mile road racing circuit as well as a serious mountain bike/cyclocross circuit. The site will apparently be redeveloped for the Olympics, to include a velodrome but to the possible expense of the off-road circuit (Eastway mountain biking still at risk from Olympic plans; a full set of considerations for a successful cycling facility, compiled by the Eastway Users Group can be found here). The picture below (looking south) shows one entry to the off-road circuit; the parking lot is to the left (it was full of serious roadies warming up for some sort of race event). I'm standing on an overpass which seems to serve only the cycle circuit, and the towers of the City of London can be seen in the distance:

My ride back took a less-pleasant turn down a highly-industrialized road (albeit with a segregated bike lane), past the construction site for a new ASDA (part of the Wal-Mart family) and many other construction sites. I breathed lots of dust and didn't feel like stopping for any pictures. Until part of the cycle path branched off towards another footbridge. It's a highly overgrown and rather secluded area, with a lot of ripe blackberries (at least when I went there). Here's a picture looking back south at the path, from the top of the footbridge. Somewhere in the underbrush to my left is my lens cap (Whoops! At least it was a cheapo replacement for the one I previously lost). Just across the bridge is a "pitch & putt" golf course; the bike path goes right through the middle of it, semi-protected by giant fences. But I got out of there fast, all I could think of was "target practice".