February 2020

78 Wanstead Village Directory
RESTORING
Wanstead
Park
In the ninth of a series of articles looking at the developing plans for
restoring Wanstead Park, Richard Arnopp of the Friends of Wanstead
Parklands reflects on the recent River Roding flooding
This winter, nature gave Wanstead Park
an unexpected but very welcome
Christmas present. On 21 December,
after days of very heavy rain, the water
level in the River Roding rose to its highest
level for some years and inundated the
Ornamental Water. Within hours, the flood
began to recede, but several years of low
water levels had been resolved at a stroke,
with the lake filled to capacity.
The River Roding sits in a huge valley, the
relic of its past as a seasonal torrent during
the last glaciation, carrying vast volumes of
spring meltwater from the ice sheets just to
the north. Nowadays, for most of the year, it
is a placid little stream, but sometimes during
the winter months, it shows something of its
old mettle, with significant flooding occurring
every decade or so.
The Roding and the Ornamental Water have a
close historical relationship, which looks likely
to be revived in a new form, as I shall explain.
Prior to the creation of the lake, the natural
course of the river as it ran through Wanstead
Park isn’t altogether certain, though an
engraving of circa 1708 suggests that part of
it roughly followed what became the eastern
arm of the later Ornamental Water behind
the islands. At this stage, there were also
two artificial canals, which were later partly
subsumed into the lake as it developed.
The Ornamental Water as we know it first
appears on a plan of 1725, though construction
may have begun up to a decade earlier.
The new lake utilised elements of the water
features already present and was directly fed
by the river.
The water level was sustained by a system
of weirs. The original plan of the lake was
modified at various times, most radically by
2nd Earl Tylney of Castlemaine, but probably
reached something like its present form
around 1760.
Around this time, or slightly later, the
Ornamental Water was severed from the river,
which was canalised behind it. The average
water level in the river is now about eight feet
lower than in the lake when it is full, and the
lake is retained by two brick-faced dams. The
owners of Wanstead Park retained the right to
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