The Lea Rivers with Griff Rhys Jones

'We are a watery nation.

'Rivers shape our landscape and they made our history,

'but today they seem like forgotten highways into the back garden of Britain.

'This week, I'm going to explore an ancient love affair between the city and the river.'

We're going to regulate the flow of water into London

using this pole, ladies and gentlemen.

'I'm going to make a pilgrimage to a temple of cleanliness.'

Why is it so big?

'And I put my back into it in the East End

as I take a hidden waterway to the greatest city in the world.'

'Almost all towns in Britain,

including London, were originally founded on or by rivers.'

They played a huge historic part in their growth.

They provided supplies for people to eat, water for them to drink

and they carried away a lot of their bodily waste.

Today, we tend to just try and hurry along,

to get across them as quickly as possible.

But I want to explore one waterway that did a lot to help create this great metropolis.

But it's not the Thames.

'I'm off in search of a little-known river.

'An almost forgotten little sister to the Thames,

'but it was a key source of London's development.

'The concrete sprawl of Luton, some 37 miles north of London,

'may seem an unlikely place to begin the hunt for the lifeblood of the capital.

'But its proximity to the city is one reason why the River Lea was so important.'

Luton, the name, means "Lea town."

So if I want to find the source of my river,

this is the place to come.

Hello.

Excuse me, do you know where the source of the Lea is?

Yeah, it's at the bottom of the hill where those trees are.

Is it? Thanks very much.

Supposed to be anyway!

'I feel like a Victorian explorer, discovering the origins of the Nile,

'as I meet up with conservationist Trevor Tween.'

I've been talking to locals

and they've been implying that this is the source of the River Lea.

As you can see, there is a bit of water trickling down

at the moment but that is just run-off from the local roads.

The real source is a little bit further along, where we call it the five springs.

'I see - I've discovered the source of a car park!'

This is the traditional site of the five springs

that are the original and genuine source of the River Lea.

And have you actually counted them?

I've managed to count four of them. I've never found the fifth one.

We think it might have been filled-in in Victorian times.

There's not a lot of "ye olde Luton" left around here, is there?

Not a great deal, no. This is the last section of the River Lea before it disappears.

Not wanted in the city any more, though.

No. Not needed and not wanted.

'The Lea, like so many town rivers, seems to become quickly forgotten and ignored.

'How does such an unregarded stream

'affect the great city of London?

'That's where I am going to go to find out - across Bedfordshire, rural Hertfordshire and Essex

'before the streets finally close in around us

'and we find ourselves back on the Thames.'

I'm starting to get really interested in the idea of when I might be able to get on the river

and start moving on it instead of just walking alongside it.

'But not yet. Not here, because the river is either privately owned or cluttered with weirs.

'Use of the river is key.

'It led to the creation of the first ever map of the River Lea,

'which I can get a look at a few miles downstream,

'here in the library of Hatfield House.'

'One of the chief advisors to Queen Elizabeth I

'was a man called Lord Burghley.

'He had the map made to resolve an argument, as Robin Harcourt Williams explains.'

The River Lea had had a new cut made in 1571, which meant the introduction of a tow path

for the men who pull the boats along.

They had to be able to walk through the fields,

and the farmers alongside the bank who farmed those fields weren't happy about it,

so there was a bit of a conflict.

Lord Burghley, in his own hand, has added this extension here and has drawn in,

not only the trees, which is very close to his own palace,

but also this heronry with the birds up in the trees,

who, I imagine, had no relevance to the quarrel.

But he just felt we should keep a note of the fact that there were herons.

They're very pretty. The whole map's very pretty.

The whole map is utterly delightful!

'Charming though the drawing is, it actually served a very practical purpose.

'It's a legal document,

'showing who had the right to use which parts of the water - mills or boats.

'As the Lea was the fastest and most direct trade route into London,

'Lord Burghley knew how important it was to keep it open.

'That's why he commissioned the map.

'Two miles downstream, I come to the beginning of the great goods way

'which Lord Burghley helped to create.

'Though I have to say it's pretty quiet now.'

-What are you catching here?

-Crayfish.

Are those the American crayfish or the...

Yeah.

The invasive crayfish.

-The ones that aren't supposed to be here at all.

-That's right.

They're delicious though, aren't they? More delicious than the English ones.

-And they're cheaper!

-And how many crayfish are you going to get out?

Well, we had 76, when was it?

-Last week.

-We was here four hours, I suppose.

Oh, look, there he is!

That is a monster!

Of course, here he is -

this is the signal crayfish -

but the bit you eat, you only eat this tail bit, don't you?

-And the claws.

-And the claws.

But you can use the rest to make a delicious soup if you were so inclined.

-Well, yeah, you could do, yeah.

-All right, see you again. Good luck.

Don't eat too many crayfish!

Can't get enough!

'I'm now in Hertford.

'The water is still, like a canal.

'Frankly it IS a canal - or canalised as they say.

'This is a river in corsets.

'Because from here all the way to London it's been engineered

'to serve a variety of purposes - some of them in direct opposition to each other.

'On the one hand, you had people who used the Lea to carry cargo to London.

'They needed to keep the river open and clear all the way to the capital.

'But this was also milling country and for over 800 years,

'mill owners used the river as a source of power, which they got by damming the river,

'building up a huge head of water which was then released to drive machinery.

'The conflicting demands of those who wanted to transport

'versus those who wanted to dam turned the river into a battleground.'

The earliest solution to these dams, these weirs across the river

for boats, was a thing called a flash lock.

It was simply a gate and all they did was open the gate,

let a huge amount of water through and the boat rushed through on the water.

And that's essentially what I'm going to do now,

except there isn't a gate - it's just a sort of open weir.

But it is a rush of water.

-Isn't that right, Andy?

-Good test of your stern rudder going through this.

'Good, because Andy Morley is a canoe instructor at the Hertford Canoe Club,

'based here on the banks of the Lea.

'He's going to show me how to shoot this weir.'

You put the paddle in the back and you go in a straight line.

'Yes - simple as that! Andy gets through safely.

'Now, it's my turn.

'Flash locks were originally a compromise, allowing both uses of the river.

'But there are always those who, dissatisfied with compromise, take advantage of the situation.'

What happened was unscrupulous mill owners, having let the boat through,

would then close the flash lock, stop the flow of water and the boat would immediately go aground.

Then they'd say, "Give me more money,

"I'll open the flash lock and you can float off down the river."

This caused endless disputes.

In the end they needed navigation acts.

They needed interests of London bigwigs to ensure that the Lea stayed open, and boats could use it.

Because in London they wanted to use this river.

They had some very vital things to bring down.

'Apart from food,

'the most important commodity for London in the early days was barley,

'because barley is an essential ingredient of beer.

'And London was a beer city.

'It's an extraordinary fact that, even today,

'if you are sipping beer somewhere in America

'the flavour and colour will most likely have come from here.

'Because it's here, on the banks of the River Lea, that they grow the best barley in the world.

'Although these days the barley is transported by road,

'in the past it was taken in and out by river.'

I can just see over here, coming into sight, a massive malting chimney.

And over there a whole selection of old malting buildings.

But the fact that I can smell...

burnt toast means particularly that this is a working malting,

still doing its stuff.

'In the 19th century, there were over 70 maltings around here.

'Now there is just one.

'French and Jupp's is a family-run business, based here on the banks of the Lea for over 300 years.

'Mark North has worked here for 25 of those years.

'Even in his lifetime, the process has changed.

What's happening here?

'The original maltings buildings had many floors with low ceilings

'where they'd lay out the malt for germination.

'People worked bent double to avoid banging their head.'

Where are we going now, Mark?

-We're going up to the steeps.

-All right.

'The actual process of malting - turning the barley into malt - has not changed.

'Today, though, it's all done by machine.

'After the barley is soaked, it's put into huge drums where it germinates.'

This has just gone in.

This is the actual green malt you could see up in the germination drum.

Look at that - there it is. It's still damp,

and you can see there, look, a little sprout.

'It is then roasted to develop different colours and flavours -

'short and pale for lagers, long and dark for stouts.

'Then it needs bagging up.'

-Release the pedal.

-Ah!

-This is going to Korea.

-And they can't make their own?

Not as good quality. Ours is the best quality malt.

-Is it?

-Yes, it is.

-At least it saves him undoing it!

-Damn!

My new glasses!

'As London expanded, its population used the rivers as a dumping ground for all its waste.

'By the 17th century, it was becoming harder to find fresh water for a growing population.

'So, through the malt trade and the London brewing industry,

'the Lea literally helped keep the capital alive.'

Benjamin Franklin went to a workshop in London and he discovered they had a pint of beer for breakfast,

a pint of beer between breakfast and dinner, a pint of beer with dinner,

a pint of beer at tea time and another pint of beer at 6 o'clock before they went home.

Although how they got home, I have no idea!

But they drank beer because it was safer than drinking the water.

'But man cannot live by beer alone.

'There was a constant search for "sweet, fresh water".

'They roamed ever further afield to get hold of it.'

The building I can see up there,

the New Gauge, is all part of that.

'The New Gauge takes water from the Lea and directs it

'into a channel called the New River,

'which runs all the way to north London by a separate route.

It looks quite an ingenious sort of Victorian invention.

-Does it still function?

-Oh, yeah, absolutely.

This is set so it will always

and only take 22.5 million gallons of water

-per day from the River Lea. Now, I'm gonna show you how to do that.

-Oh, right.

We're going to regulate the flow of water into London using this pole, ladies and gentlemen. That's great.

-It's a bendy piece of metal.

-It's a sacred pole.

It is, it is, we mustn't lose it.

Right, so, first thing we need to do is take out the locking plate, which is this one in the middle here.

Whoa.

You're letting in a small amount of water, about half a million gallons there.

Now, if we go for the big one here...

-if you want to have a go at this, Griff.

-I do.

I feel like Neptune here, if I really wanted to I could unleash,

oh, getting on for about...

12 million gallons into the system, but I'm not gonna do that.

That's adequate for our needs at the moment, is it?

-That'll do nicely.

-It's not drinking water?

No, no, no, no, no, no.

That'll follow the course of the New River.

It will be treated, put into service

and you'll all be drinking it by the end of the day.

'The New River, which the gauge links up to, is not Victorian.

'It's an astonishing engineering feat created by a Welsh gold miner

'called Hugh Myddleton in the time of James I.

'This little island and its memorial are a tribute to him.

'Myddleton's challenge was to take water from springs near the Lea

'and by using gravity,

'and the odd pump house along the way,

'keep the water flowing 38 miles to London, which explains its meandering route.

'Construction took four years and was completed by 1613.'

When they finally finished, they had a bit of a party.

Just by Sadlers Wells, at the new river head, just up there

where they built a great big pond

and the King came and this being the age of Shakespeare and Milton,

40 labourers appeared wearing matching green hats and they recited a poem.

Long have we laboured long desired and prayed this great works perfection

Now by the aide of heaven and men's good works

'tis at length happily conquered

by art and cost and strength.

Still works!

'Meanwhile, 30-odd miles away, dirty old London continued to grow.

'Eventually it would even kill all the fish in the Thames.

'What could a gentlemen angler do?

'Well, he could try this river.

'One of the earliest to was Isaac Walton.

'A city ironmonger by trade, he wrote the first

'and still the most famous book on fishing, The Compleat Angler, in 1653.

'The opening chapters of that great manual are set on the sylvan banks of the Lea.

'Today the gentlemen of Amwell Magna Fishery cast into the same waters.

'They specialise in fly-fishing.

'Robert Dear is a master fly-maker.

This is a black cock hackle.

-Off a chicken?

-Yes, a specially bred rooster, bred in America for the extremely long hackles.

There are enough of you people around to have a special breed of chicken

-bred for you in order to use bits of feather for this.

-Yes.

Do they make good eating, these cockerels, as well?

-They're not bred for the food market.

-I shouldn't imagine they are! It'd be too much to ask.

We lay down a bed of silk,

just come back from the eye, probably a millimetre or so.

Take three pieces of peacock hurl.

This fly was invented by a man called Tom Ivans in the late 1950s,

early '60s, but some flies go back centuries.

It's a nice one for somebody who hasn't tied a fly before, to start with.

It's the beginner's fly.

Basically, this is the body of your fly.

Effectively, when it's fishing, you're imitating the legs

or any appendages that the insect might have.

How many flies have you made, do you think?

I probably tie 1,000 flies a year.

We'll swap round and I can come over and sit down...

'Well, that looked simple enough.'

How many hours of tape have we got?!

I'm glad I'm not doing this against the clock, eh, Bob?

A nice, furry body.

Oh, no!

Have you got a comb or anything?

One of Bob's.

One of mine.

# Gone fishin'

# There's a sign upon your door

# Gone fishin'...#

'The gentlemen of Amwell Magna are wading out today to show me the joys and art of fly-fishing.

'They're not in disguise - the dark glasses help them see the fish.'

Ah, masterly.

My fly is sinking.

Yes, it's a sinking fly.

Ooh, I can see the fish right by it, actually.

This is exciting. At least what we've been doing hasn't completely scared the fish away.

-Oh, oh, oh!

-Oh, look at him.

That's good. Now slow.

Coming right by my...

Massive, he is.

Massive.

Good gracious me.

Well, I'm going home empty-handed again.

I'm afraid my fly didn't prove up to the trout.

'I'm wonder if I agree with Isaac Walton.

'He thought fly-fishing would encourage the contemplative life,

'and I found it completely frustrating.'

I've just come down now,

south of Roydon, Hoddeston is somewhere over there and Nazeing is over there.

On the map

there are an extraordinary number of cross-hatched oblongs here.

Map readers will of course know what that means!

It's the symbol for greenhouses.

There are hundreds of greenhouses around here.

'In fact, the symbol on the ordnance survey map was created specifically

'because of the vast numbers of glasshouses in this region.

'At its peak in the 1920s, they covered an area ten miles long and eight miles wide.

'Its nearness to the city made Nazeing one of the prime market gardens for London.'

I'm in cucumber country.

'Giuseppe Cappalonga has been growing cucumbers in this area since he arrived from Sicily in 1966.

'The industry is actually much smaller now, than when he arrived

'but improved propagating techniques mean the yield is bigger.'

I can see a big one over there. OK, I'm just going to try and do this.

I catch it, I've got one hand...

-Put the knife the other way round, the knife.

-That way round.

Not with the two hands, with one.

I'm frightened of injuring myself.

I can't do it.

That's it, there we are, good.

So, at the rate of one cucumber every 20 seconds...

-You won't go far that way!

-I won't go far in the cucumber picking business, will I?

Who are we picking these cucumbers for?

-A supermarket?

-A supermarket, yes.

-And they want them to be straight, do they?

-Otherwise they are second class.

Oh, look there's quite a bendy one.

-Because they touch.

-But I can cut it?

-Yes.

-Big enough?

We're talking about an inferior, second-rate cucumber, which has touched a leaf and taken on a bend.

Once you've sliced it up, and put it in your sandwiches...

-It's no different.

-How would you know?

We can't actually keep up with Giuseppe, he's moving down the row so quickly.

This is productivity now, getting them by the bushel.

Now, I'm going to do two with one hand.

I don't think so.

It's impossible. It's impossible to grasp two of these cucumbers

with only one hand,

but Giuseppe does it as a matter of course.

'Two thirds of the nurseries in this area are run by families of Italian or Sicilian descent.

'Every Saturday the extended Cappalonga family eat together.

'And naturally, cucumbers are always on the menu.'

Mmm, delicious.

'Not far away, the usefulness of the River Lea to London is reflected in a slightly different way.

'I'm heading away from the river towards Nazeing Common.

'A mile or so from the glasshouses, on land reclaimed for agriculture,

'lies a hidden survivor from the Second World War.

'Most people around here are unaware of its existence,

'which is ironic, because during the war its job was to make itself as conspicuous as possible.

'It was a dummy airfield.

'The purpose was to attract enemy bombs away from the real airfields

like North Weald, four miles away.

'Did it fool the Germans?'

It attracted quite a number of bombs in the area to this airfield,

away from North Weald.

There was a study done after the war said

that 50% of the bombs aimed at North Weald

actually fell in the fields round here.

'The dummy operated 24 hours a day.

'Shepperton Film Studios supplied the model planes for the daytime.

'Lights and flares added to the illusion at night.

'There was actually only one occupied building on the site

'where the operators had to remain like sitting ducks.'

This was the control room. From this room the lights were operated.

They could simulate an aircraft taxiing, so to all intents and purposes, at night,

to a German bomber crew, this was an operational airfield.

Is it significant, that it was near the river?

The River Lea was a good navigational mark for German aircrew.

Once they'd bombed, a lot of them would exit north from the city.

They picked the Lea up as a navigational point straight away.

'And moonlight reflected on the river led them to Nazeing Common.

'Without these decoys, historians believe we would never have won the Battle of Britain.'

I think it was a very important part of the defence of London.

It served its purpose well in the short time it was operational.

'Just a mile further down the river, paddling into Essex, I'm about to uncover another explosive secret.'

We're coming up a little canal now where...

..essentially, no boat has been for about 100 years...

because it was a secret research establishment...

based on an area where there had been old gunpowder mills.

'This is Waltham Abbey and these are the Royal gunpowder mills,

'for 300 years the centre for research and development of high explosives.

'After the mills closed in 1991, they were completely abandoned and the whole area was left derelict.'

It was like coming into the Peruvian jungle,

and discovering extraordinary buildings.

'In the 19th century, this was one of the most important centres

'for gunpowder manufacture in the whole of Europe.

'This leafy enclave in Epping Forest produced the fire power for Great Britain's battles,

'thorough the Napoleonic, the Crimean and the First World Wars.

'The site was ideally situated - close to London

'and surrounded on three sides by water, so it was easy to defend.

'But in the Second World War the manufacture of explosives was moved to Scotland,

'away from risk of invasion and airplane attack.

'The site is now a museum.

'Gunpowder is unstable stuff.

'There were frequent unscheduled explosions.

'This was one of the most dangerous places to work in Britain.

'And because it was top secret, who knows how many people died here?

'Who knows how many people died as a result of its success?'

The first job is to put powder into this pan. Put the frizzen down.

Put the powder down.

Then you put the paper to make sure.

The paper is now going to wad it down and hold it in place.

-It needs to be compressed in order to do its work, does it?

-Exactly.

And a rifleman in action, how quickly

could he put another round in?

A maximum, two a minute, a musket would be...

Three to four.

This rifle could kill at 300 yards, and once you've fired you're covered in smoke.

After a few rounds you wouldn't even see the enemy any more.

What a wimp I am.

I had to close my eyes before I fired it.

'Particular consideration had to be given to the transportation of gunpowder.

'It was a deadly cargo.

'Specially-designed wooden barges were used to carry it away down the Lea,

'and they were powered by sail.'

This is the Lady of the Lea.

She's the last remaining gunpowder barge,

a Thames sailing barge, she's got her spritsail up at the moment

and she's just trying to turn around in a very narrow space indeed.

This is the mother of all three-point turns going on here.

'I was supposed to just jump on board and set off down the river,

'but since she last came up here in 2000, the Lea has silted up.'

Normally, in the old days, they'd have kept a dredger here to keep it clean and free

so that barges could come up, but notably,

we notice that there is just about enough room to turn her round.

They are jammed completely

across the river.

Athwart the river, you might say, to use a bargeman's term.

-Are you taking the rudder off?

-Yeah.

'While the crew took the rudder off to gain us a few more precious inches,

'members of the public were roped in to lend a hand.'

Yeah, it's moving!

'And with another barge bearing down on us keen to access the lock,

'we finally swung round.'

It's going, it's going!

Yes! Fend her off here,

fend her off, yes!

'With her sails up, The Lady of the Lea is a magnificent sight.

'Before the Great Depression, there were hundreds of thousands of sailing barges,

'all as beautiful as her, serving the rivers around London.

'Now, one of the last has to take her rigging down to get under the lock bridge.

'It's like a ship in a bottle.

'At this point, the River Lea divides.

'The navigation channel flows west, while the old river goes east

'to make way for a chain of reservoirs, 13 in total, sitting in what was once marshland.

'The first of these was built at Walthamstow in 1852.

'We are now less than six miles from Piccadilly Circus as the London pigeon flies.

'Such is this city's voracious demand for water,

'this seven-mile stretch of reservoir still only supplies 10% of its needs.

'Today, the water is chemically treated, but in the past it used to come straight out of the river

'and it was cleaned by a primitive method of filtering on this very site,

'which is now a nature reserve.'

Tamzin, I haven't got my glasses on, which I should have, there's nothing there at the moment, is there?

There is.

There's a fox at the back on the top of the kingfisher bank.

Have a look.

Where's the kingfisher bank?

SHE LAUGHS

Hidden behind the reeds...

that are overgrown.

-What does it look like, a bit?

-Start again.

At the back, at the back of the collection of reeds there, you can see a glimpse of a sand bank.

On the top of that, just to the left, is a small fox, curled up sleeping.

So get looking.

I'll take your word for it.

I can see something which is sort of ginger.

Yes, that will be it.

But are you worried about that fox, then, coming down and eating your ducks?

No, because we don't let mammals such as foxes, get on to the beds when birds are breeding.

'I'm not really here to watch the wildlife. I'm here to see how this filter bed system once worked.

'So we'll get a little of the water which still comes here just as it used to, straight from the Lea.'

-And then try to scoop up as much of this.

-Is that dirty enough for us?

That looks great.

OK, so I've got the dirty water.

-You have the dirty water now.

-And what have you got in there?

This is our mini filter-bed system, if you like, so we've got our sand,

then we have our gravel or hoggin, which is the mixture of gravel

and sand, and then we've made a sort of perforated base by putting some holes in the bottom here.

Look at that!

Almost instantly.

There we are, and that's magic, folks. You see?

River water and crystal clear...

Well, not quite crystal clear but filtered water.

Looks absolutely fantastic.

No, I shouldn't do that, actually.

And the reason is because

in 1866 water around here was already being filtered by this method.

But it didn't stop the last big outbreak of cholera taking place

quite near here, in Whitechapel.

-Died the 21st July, 1866.

-Aged 10.

-Aged 10.

'The rivers of London did a lot to nurture the metropolis.

'They supplied it, washed it, and watered it.

'But as the city grew more populous, they also started to poison it.'

Whether you were rich or poor, if you drank the wrong water, you died.

You could be healthy at breakfast time and dead by the time you went to bed.

What was the cause of it?

A man called Hedges went to the lavatory about half a mile from here.

He flushed the loo. He had cholera.

His cholera germs entered the River Lea.

From there they passed into the reservoirs of the East London Water Company,

and 5,500 people died in an area of less than one square mile.

If the infection had passed throughout London, we could have seen 100,000 deaths,

which is more people than died in the Blitz.

Did they know at the time that it was related to water?

Most people believed it was caused by breathing in germs rather than by drinking them.

And you can understand why, I think.

It seems foolish now, but if you're walking around London

and there's a terrible smell of sewage and people are dying of cholera,

and then you go home and drink a glass of water,

which looks clear unless you happen to have a microscope, it's a reasonable conclusion to draw.

'For over 100 years, the spectre of cholera terrorised the city of London.

'What put an end to it was the biggest civil engineering project

'of the 19th century - the separation of sewage from the drinking water supply.

'The system took seven years to complete

with the East End the final section, connected in 1866.

'It cost £6.5 million.

'That's in old money.

'And the man responsible for designing and building the thing was engineer, Joseph Bazalgette.

'And here on the banks of the River Lea is the centrepiece of that miracle of engineering.

'It's a building that changed the fortune of London's population.'

I feel like a pilgrim who's made it to the holy shrine

of London waste water.

This is Joseph Bazalgette's great temple of sewage.

'It's a monument to cleanliness built out of Victorian civic pride.

'There isn't a single utilitarian brick in the entire building.

'Inside it's been completely modernised and it's still working, doing the same job today,

'albeit electronically.

'But just a few miles away on the other side of the Thames is its twin, at Crossness.

'And this one's had its original interior workings carefully restored.

'It's a thing of rare magnificence.'

-Why is it so big?

-It has to be this size to give the momentum to the engine,

give it the energy to keep itself turning.

This engine would have lifted near on 12 tons

with every rotation, so there was a lot of force trying to stop the engine.

A 52-ton flywheel gives you that momentum to keep the whole process turning.

-And then pumping out the old sewage.

-And ultimately just pumping, yes, pumping the South London sewage

into the culverts and the reservoir behind us.

'There's a change in the river's personality now.

'It's starting to feel more urban as I get closer to the centre.

'This is the East End, the working-class back yard of London town.

'It's not somewhere you'd associate with the genteel sport of rowing,

'but there's been rowing here since the early 1800s.

'At that time, the working life of this part of London revolved around the river not surprisingly,

'working men were strong and adept on the water.

'This was much to the annoyance of the rowing clubs,

'who were of a different class, according to Jimmy O'Neil.'

I always thought that rowing was a bit of a posh sport.

It was up until about the early '50s.

It was separate. We, as working-class people, we were not allowed to row at places like Henley.

-You weren't allowed to row?!

-We weren't allowed.

because Henley was what they called the Amateur Rowing Association.

But because we worked with our hands

and things like that we were classed as professionals.

Were you unfairly favoured by being tougher and working harder with your hands?

Well, not all of us, obviously not, but there was, in them days, a lot of watermen,

a lot of people that earned their living by rowing up and down.

And of course there was a disadvantage then.

Because you might have got, say, four professional...

Tough rowing guys who did it every day of their life!

Yeah, and they were entering some of the big regattas against some of the bigger clubs,

like London rowing clubs and so forth, that were all made up of, say like, bankers

and solicitors and things like that, that only went out about once a week.

And so consequently they wasn't very pleased when they used to get thrashed.

HE LAUGHS

'This little club has been the nursery of many Olympic rowers.

'Although they welcome all ages and abilities,

'the serious rowers are here seven days a week, two sessions a day.

'And not just on the water.'

They're all doing another five.

But I'm just a beginner

so I get to...

I get to die quietly in the corner.

Imagine if you had to get 14 sessions a week

and do your job, that's incredible dedication. Incredible.

Incredible.

'Jimmy, 75, is convinced that you're never too old to row.

'I'm not so sure.'

I'm utterly exhausted now.

I think that rate was a little bit too high.

Was it? None of you are puffing!

But anyway, what's a good rate?

For you, about 18.

What is a good rate for you?

No, that's a good rate.

I'd say a good eight out of ten.

People think you're saying that just because it's the television.

Well, I'm well known for never telling a lie,

so if I say it was good...

All right, I'll believe you.

The Lea has continued to surprise me all the way down.

I don't know why, I didn't think it would be green.

I suppose I expected it to be more mundane.

And it's around this area where we're...

right in the heart of London.

It's here that we've seen almost tame herons,

and I love this back-garden feel to the river,

as if you're sneaking into London.

Not by a well-known route at all, but by a hidden, secret route.

Bow locks,

I guess that's Bow Bridge,

so we're in Bow.

Where Bow bells are and where cockneys claim their origins,

as long as they can hear those bells, they're cockneys.

So we must now be in the centre of London.

# It's a wonder as the landlord doesn't want to raise the rent

# Because we've got such nobby distant views

# Oh it really is a very pretty garden... #

# And Chingford to the eastward can be seen

# With a ladder and some glasses

# I can see to Hackney marshes

# If it wasn't for the houses in between... #

This is one of the lowest-lying regions of London,

which is the reason that Gus Eden, when he wrote that song,

couldn't see anything out of his back garden.

'The area is reclaimed marshland, flat and in those days not a very desirable place to live.

'The River Lea has been split into five channels around here,

'the water meeting the various demands of numerous businesses.

'For in the 19th century, this was the centre of London's heavy, dirty industries.

'It's not really an accident that the East End

'became the other side of the tracks as far as London was concerned.'

The prevailing winds blow from west to east, and the carry all the pollution, and the river

carried all the effluent downstream and this was a sort of marshy bog-like wasted area.

And in the middle of the 19th century,

the city fathers decided to move all the noxious industries over here.

All the tanners and the things that made smells.

One writer wrote that "the area around the Lea pleases none of the senses" in 1876.

Although there were some factories for which smoke was positively useful.

'100 years ago, there were 15 Salmon smokeries in the East End,

and this is the last remaining.

'The others died out in the mid 1970s when salmon-farming started in Scotland.'

It's very much a bespoke operation.

'Lance Forman is a fourth generation London Smoked Salmon artisan.

'His family originally came here to escape persecution in Eastern Europe.

'They developed a smoking process they called the "London Cure".'

Take the salt.

'The secret to the quality, according to Lance, lies in the freshness of the fish.

'These ones were swimming around yesterday.

'The salt cures the salmon over 24 hours, and then it's put into the smoking kilns.

'This used to be the filthy bit of the process,

'generating the unwanted pollution, but not in the 21st century version.'

What we used to do in our old factory was just burn sawdust, and it was just a little bit inconsistent

and you had to dampen it down and sometimes it would burn out and sometimes it would burn too quickly.

But here you have perfect control and the smoke is gorgeous.

This machine literally makes the sawdust and ignites it in one action?

Essentially, yeah.

Sharp knife, absolute key...

And now for the test - the carving.

How thin are you going for here, Lance?

Some people say that you should be able to read a newspaper through it.

Why you would want to do that, I don't know.

But I tell you what before we go any further...

-Yes.

-Why don't we just try a little taste of that.

Are you actually allowed to eat on the factory floor?

Well, we'll, er... There's no cameras, are there?

That's delicious. That's fantastic.

You're tasting the fish, not too much smoke, a little salt, just enough salt to preserve it.

-But you're tasting the freshness of the salmon. Do you want to have a go?

-I do.

So we'll start with a fresh one.

What you need is also a little bit of the right equipment,

you need to have one of these lovely knives,

nicely sharpened that does the job...

..for you.

Look at that. Can you see the knife through it, Lance?

Beautiful.

'Two years ago, the factory moved to its present site

'because of a new arrival on the banks of the Lea - the Olympic Games.'

That blue fence there is the boundary of the Olympic Park.

And our old factory was right in the middle of that.

There were about 250 businesses there,

a lot of printers and galvanisers and food businesses, employing about ten, eleven thousand people.

This area was a big employer, really.

It was a big employer and, you know, after the Olympics, who knows?

Early days yet, early days yet. We'll have to see what happens.

But what's interesting, from my point of view, is that here is the navigable Lea, this bit of the Lea.

We can see a lock up there.

This was very much a commercial route into London, or a commercial route into the docks of London.

It's a hidden gem, actually.

Having all these industrial buildings, you didn't really see the beauty of it

and the beauty of the space with the rivers.

But now it's all being opened out and it will be a very beautiful part of London.

'The brand-new Olympic development is already having an impact on the river.

'The building work will require millions of tonnes of aggregate,

'and do you know how they intend to transport it?

'By old-fashioned water.

'Which brings us to the newest structure on the Lea.

'This is Prescott Lock.

'It will, for the first time in 50 years, enable water transport to navigate this part of the river.'

This is the gateway to 2,200 miles of rivers

and canals in the whole of the UK.

Why is today, then, a significant day for you?

Well, today is the first time we'll have water coming into this lock and the first boat.

-So this is the moment you find out...

-Whether it works or not.

I feel like I'm Prince Charles arriving here to be the first through this gate.

I'm very honoured.

'The lock chamber is 62 metres long and 8 metres wide.

'It can take two huge barges at a time.'

What can I say? Congratulations.

Are you going to let off whistles? Hooray!

We are on the old River Lea now.

Over there, that's the Pudding Mill River,

these were all mill Leas.

They ran water off the Lea to run mills in medieval London.

'This stretch of the Lea is now so secret you won't actually be able

'to explore it, for reasons of security, until after 2012.'

I'm not allowed to bring my canoe up here and bring Cadbury paddling around the Olympic site.

We've got special permission to do this.

This is clearly the way to arrive at the Olympics - in a sort of state barge,

coming up the concrete culvert.

In a way, it's going to be the Lea's finest hour, isn't it?

'The brand new Olympic development

'will have as its centrepiece a concrete drain built originally

'to prevent flooding in Stratford East.

'As the five channels flow back into one looping waterway,

'meandering towards the Thames, this is the final part of the Lea's journey.

'I am struck by the greatness of this river.

'What started as a torpid bog in Luton has grown to encompass the whole of London.

'My journey is nearly over. I'm now in tidal waters.'

The dog has gone a little bit nervous,

and I think I can see why because I feel a little bit

like a baby hedgehog approaching a traffic intersection.

That's right, Cadbury, get your head down. All right, don't, then.

I was going to say "I don't know where I am"

and then I pop out and straight ahead of me is the biggest folly of the last 50 years - the Dome.

'Time to hitch a lift to the end.

'This water's too dangerous for Cadbury and me.

'We are going with Chris Livett, a fifth generation waterman.

'He used to go up and down the Lea and Thames regularly as a boy.

'And he's seen some enormous changes on this river.'

I would come up here with my grandfather and my father in their tug,

and we would physically have to slow down, a bit like a traffic jam.

You just have to look at all those 19th century artists.

They were drawn to river, and one of the reasons was because of the incredible activity.

The theatre of life.

The colours, the sounds, the type of boats that would come up.

The type of people that were on those boats were from the four corners of the world.

I think people now are turning back towards the river because it looks a lot better,

there isn't a putrid smell any more, it's quite nice. You see some brilliant sunsets.

This is one of the few places in London that you can come that you see the horizon, for goodness' sake.

It is.

'It's the emptiness that strikes me most.

'The river has become a new beginning, including potentially a place to live.'

I think I've been in quite a lot of roof gardens in London in my time,

but not one that sways all the time.

I'm only crossing this floating community of 26 barges to complete my own circle.

It would be awful to be capsized by a major tree, wouldn't it?

'I'm back in the watery heart of London,

'brought here by a river which still seems to me to be essential to the understanding of this city.

'It may not be as magnificent or as famous as its big brother,

'but the river is a little marvel.

'So much more even than I was expecting.

'Its gritty character, its stories, its wonders, its secrets are all modestly preserved,

'and it seems to me to be on the brink of an exciting future, too.

'These fireworks mark the end of a yearly festival that celebrates the River Thames.

'Me, I'm going to light a sparkler for the River Lea.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd