A Walk Along The Limehouse Cut Canal

The Limehouse Cut - Overview:

The Limehouse Cut was the first navigable canal to be dug in London and provides a pleasant and interesting green walk between Limehouse Basin in the west and the River Lea to the east.

The scenic towpath passes under roads and railways providing an unusual viewpoint of an area which is full of history. In the 18th and 19th century the canals were the freight arteries of the country and are still lined with industrial buildings from this period.

The walk is about 2.5 kilometres in length to the Lea Navigation at Bow Locks and 3 kilometres in length to Three Mills.

The Limehouse Cut - Using the Canal to Get to the Olympic Games:

The Limehouse Cut can be used as a part of a walk between Canary Wharf and the Olympic Park. The walk will probably be quicker than waiting for a train during the Olympic Games. From Canary Wharf walk west to the River Thames and then continue northwest along the river bank until you reach the Limehouse Basin where the Limehouse Cut begins (see the walk along the Limehouse Cut below). When you reach Three Mills carry on along the Lea Navigation until you reach Old Ford Lock where the western entrance of the Olympic site is located.

During the OLympic Games waterbuses will run between Limehouse Basin and Old Ford Lock (see the Limehouse Basin page for more details).

The Limehouse Cut - History:

The Limehouse Cut was built as a short cut between the Lee Navigation at Bromley by Bow in the east to the River Thames at Limehouse in the west. It was authorised under the River Lea Act 1767 and took 3 years to build.

Before the canal was built sailors on the Lee Navigation wishing to travel towards London would wait for the outgoing tide to sweep them around the many convoluted loops of the River Lee to its mouth at the River Thames. They would then wait for the incoming tide to take them up the River Thames around the horseshoe shape of the Isle of Dogs and towards London. The Limehouse Cut reduced this protracted tidal journey of about 12 kilometres to a straight line route of less than 3 kilometres.

The Limehouse Cut became so popular that in 1772, two years after the canal opened, a passing place had to be added to allow barges to get by each other as the canal was only wide enough for one barge at a time. However this was not enough for the demand and by 1777 the whole of the canal had been widened so that barges could pass each other at any point.  

In 1968 a new link between the Limehouse Cut and the Limehouse Basin was built and the Thames Lock was filled in.

The Limehouse Cut - Today:

The canal is now a tranquil place to walk along with parts of the banks semi-wild and it is a home to wildlife including swans, ducks, geese, cormorants, moorhens and coots. Access along the towpath is excellent since a section of floating towpath has been installed to cover the section under the A12.  

Limehouse Cut no longer has any locks to call its own. At its western end it is connected directly to the Limehouse Basin which has lock gates at its entrance from the River Thames and at the mouth of the Regent's Canal. At the eastern end the Limehouse Cut connects directly to the Lee Navigation which is a canalised river with Bow Locks linking to the tidal Bow Creek. When it opened 1770 the Limehouse Cut had two sets of locks - Bromley Lock sealed the eastern end of the Limehouse Cut and Thames Lock the western end. 

Many of the old working buildings on either side of the Limehouse Cut are still present interspersed with more modern houses and apartment blocks.

The Limehouse Cut - The Walk:

You can start your walk at either the Thames Lock near the Limehouse Basin or from Three Mills in Bromley by Bow (where you can park in a supermarket car park). I will describe the walk starting from Limehouse.

Find 48 Narrow Street. This Georgian house is on the site of a pub which traded at the entrance to the Limehouse Cut until 1914.

Cross the road and walk into Albert Mews opposite, this is the site of the old Thames Lock. The lock houses are on your left.

Continue along Albert Mews and cross Northey Street. A few metres further on is Limehouse Basin. Turn right and walk a few metres parallel to the basin's edge until you come to a canal entering the basin from the right which has a footbridge over it. This is the new part of the Limehouse Cut built in 1968 to connect the canal to the basin.

Walk along the Limehouse Cut. After a little more than 50 metres the canal turns sharply to the left. After the turn you are on the old canal which originally carried straight on to the Thames Lock through the area where the new flats have been built behind you.

Continue along the towpath and under the railway line.

The arches of the railway were engineered by Robert Stephenson and G P Bidder in 1840 to form the second oldest urban railway viaduct in the world. It was built to carry the London and Blackwall Railway between the City and the Blackwall river ferry. The carriages were originally rope hauled by stationary engines at either end of the line. Within 9 years the line was using steam engines and provided goods and passenger services until 1962. The viaduct was unused for 25 years until passenger services returned on the Docklands Light Railway.

After passing under the railway bridge on your right you will see the tall clock tower of Hawksmoor's St Anne's Church. The church has the right to fly the White Ensign which is normally reserved for ships of the Royal Navy and the clock is a special maritime timepiece. To visit ascend the stairs at the Commercial Road Bridge in front of you and turn right into Newell Street, the church is a few metres along on your left.

The main gates of the Britannia Lock built in 1853 used to be at either side of Commercial Road Bridge. The year after the lock was built the Regent's Canal Company took control of the Limehouse Cut and built a connecting link into the Limehouse Basin. This connection was filled in again in 1864. The Britannia Lock gates were removed because, according to a report of 1893, they were "useless". On the left just after the bridge the remains of a sluice gate can be seen. This vertical guillotine gate was added by British Waterways in 1948 but was removed in the 1990s. 

After Commercial Road the canal curves gently to the right to orientate itself for its straight stretch to Bow Locks. On your left you pass old council flats, Our Lady's School and then the new flats of Copenhagen Place. In front of the new flats are moorings for houseboats. The canal soon passes under Burdett Road (maps show that Burdett Road was constructed somewhere between 1861 and 1868).

Maps of the first half of the 19th century show a long "Cable Manufactory" running north of the canal where Burdett Road is now, and parallel to the canal to the right of the towpath was a ropewalk. Ropewalks were common in the days of sailing ships, they were long straight narrow pathways where long strands of material were laid before being twisted into ropes. The work was dangerous as the fine hemp fibres had a tendency to form a mist and explode. The standard length for a British Naval rope was 1,000 feet (305 metres) and a sailing ship required over 32 kilometres of rope. The "Cable Manufactory" and ropewalk shown on the old maps would both have been capable of making a British Naval Rope as they were both about 350 metres long.

The next bridge over the canal is at Bow Common Lane. As you walk towards the bridge you can see that the area on your right, where the ropewalk was, is now taken up with old warehouses. Further along is a more modern office development and recently constructed apartments. A short inlet halfway between Burdett Road and Bow Common Lane provides shelter for a handful of houseboats. To the left on the other side of the canal is the rear of the Thomas Road industrial estate.

On the far side of the Bow Common Lane Bridge the areas on both sides of the canal are in the process of regeneration and consist of a mixture of old and new warehouses and modern housing. The housing is slowly replacing the industrial buildings. In the 19th century this would not have been a very pleasant place to be, on the north bank of the canal were tar, varnish, manure, ammonia, pot ash, rubber and bone works and on the south side a tar and resin distillery and a felt works.  Somewhat bizarrely, at the time of writing (April 2012), there is a collection of old military vehicles including armoured cars, tanks and missile launchers under a prefabricated roof on the other side of the canal close to Violet Road which crosses the Limehouse Cut on the next bridge that you come to.

The Violet Road Bridge was opened in 1890. Violet Road was constructed at the same time as the bridge and connected Bromley to Poplar via the existing Morris Road which is the road south of the bridge.

On your right after the bridge is the Spratt's Pet Food Factory which occupies 6 orange-red brick warehouses built around 1899 on the south bank of the canal. In the early 20th century this was the biggest dog food factory in the world. Barge loads of fish heads would be transported along the canal for processing into pet food. The factory also made ship's biscuits and supplied biscuits to the troops in the Second Boer War (1899-1902). The warehouses were converted to live/work units in the 1980s and are now an extremely popular location for media based artists.

On the other side of the canal from the Spratt's factory is the new Caspian Wharf residential development. The wilderness area on the canal bank with its Willow trees and undergrowth is one of the rapidly diminishing natural habitat areas along the canal and is fiercely protected by residents of the Spratt's development. The wilderness is connected to the green corridor of the railway and provides a potential breeding ground for wildlife using the railway line as a nocturnal foraging route. It is also a feeding place for herons and kingfishers and a home for coots, ducks and moorhens.

When the wilderness area is not in full leaf you can see behind it a number of timbers and next to the railway bridge a dilapidated concrete structure. These are all that remains of an old wharf where barges were loaded with coal from railway sidings. The barges were pulled up the River Lea and the Regent's Canal by horse to gasworks and later to coal fired power stations.

The railway line which crosses the canal in front of you was the North London Railway which ran from North London to East and West India Docks and Poplar Coal Depot (where Poplar Business Park is now). It is now a part of the Docklands Light Railway.

Between the railway and the Spratt's factory is a long strip of land used by the residents of the Spratt's development as a garden. This was for many years the site of a rope factory.

Beyond the railway bridge is a section of canal with an industrial estate on the left and new, low rise residential developments on your right. In the 19th century two enormous railway engine sheds occupied the area where the brightly coloured warehouses are now and further along the canal on the same side was a match manufactory.

The tower block in front of you is the 10 storey Tweed House which won an award in the 1960s for clever use of land on a challenging site. Planning permission has recently been granted to demolish it and build a wider thirteen storey slab block in the 1970s style.

The next bridge carries the A12 Blackwall Tunnel Approach Road across the Limehouse Cut. The towpath is literally floated under the bridge by pontoons.

This was the location of the Bromley Lock. In 1888 a report stated that that both the Britannia and Bromley Locks were  so full of rubbish, including old pans and kettles [presumably lost by people for taking water from the canal], that they weren't working properly. Soon after, the more westerly gates of Bromley Lock were removed. The remains of one of the gates can still be seen on your right next to the floating towpath.

On the far side of the A12 bridge the Limehouse Cut ends and becomes the River Lea Navigation.

To your right are Bow Locks which provide access from the tidal Bow Creek (and the River Thames) to the Lea Navigation. Bow Locks were originally semi-tidal - during high spring tides water would flow over the top of the locks and raise the level of the Limehouse Cut and the southern part of the Lee Navigation. In 2000 a flood wall and an extra pair of flood gates were added stabilising the water level in the Limehouse Cut.

From Bow Locks cross the pedestrian bridge to the isthmus between Bow Creek and the Lea Navigation. The horizontal bands on the path over the bridge are to allow the horses that towed the barges to cross without slipping. Walk north between the two waterways and you will come to Three Mills with its old tidal mills and pool.

The Limehouse Cut - Extending the Walk:

A walk along the Limehouse Cut can be extended to a 9 kilometre circular walk by including a section of the Lea Navigation, the Hertford Union Canal and the Regent's Canal - see the Limehouse Basin page for a description.

Another walk which can be reached from the Three Mills end of the Limehouse Cut is the Greenway. This is an elevated but secluded footpath and cycleway from Bow to the area of the Royal Docks at Beckton to the east.

The Limehouse Cut - Getting There:

Nearest Underground/DLR stations: Limehouse DLR (5 minute walk from the Limehouse Basin); Bromley by Bow (3 minutes walk from Three Mills)