AF01 Lee Valley and Finchley Ridge.pdf - Greater London Authority

Project Identification – Clusters
1.1 Rammey Marsh to Enfield Lock
Among large areas of new housing, a
pattern of isolation is still apparent
from the area’s history of munitions
uses. Farming and market gardening
continue to shape the land, and it is
still possible to discern the character
of a small market town, set within large
area of marshland. The presence of the
M25 and an abundance of flat land has
brought a new topography of big sheds
to these marshes.
1.5 Olympic Park
The Olympic park sits between the
large scale parkland to the north and
the working river to the south. Industry
is interspersed with allotments
and pockets of wildlife bounded by
residential neighbourhoods and
domestic leisure.
Major-scale infrastructure forms a
landscape of connections and disconnections,
changes in level and
smaller scale pockets of ‘lost’ ground.
Aerial photography: Cities Revealed © The GeoInformation Group 2003
1.2 Big Reservoirs
An area that is both characterised
by the extent of its reservoirs and
disconnected from them as they
remain both invisible and inaccessible
from the ground. Rather than
generate an extensive recreational
area, the reservoirs create a series
of green corridors or long spines of
infrastructure dwarfed by water, or
bounded by the channelised cuts of the
Lea.
1.6 Lower Lea Valley
An important territory where London
has incubated new ideas. It has a
continuing polar history of innovation
and wealth versus extreme deprivation.
Historically this is a territory of
constant change, evident in the
complex overlayering and imposition
of infrastructure. The result is a
fragmentary valley landscape, severed
from the communities on its borders.
1.3 Walthamstow Reservoirs
These smaller reservoirs – the
southern of which are lowered to
ground level – include islands of
natural woodland and scrub traversed
by pathways and linked to a more
permeable urban boundary. The Lea
and its tributary Dagenham Brook begin
to take a more natural turn as they too
head south, giving way to pockets of
fishing and boat moorings.
1.7 Valley Fringe Lowlands
Between the Lea Valley, and the rising
topography of the Finchley Ridge lies a
tract of flat land threaded north south
by rail and road routes, as well as the
New River. The near continuous high
street of the A1010 supports a variety
of retail, industry, leisure, and diverse
housing types. West of this artery
suburban housing dominates, with a
sequence of associated local parks.
1.4 The Middle Marshes
This is where the large water bodies end
and river valley wildlife overlaps with
industry. The Lea river splits with the
Navigation to create a wide recreational
island and an amateur football pitch
for the whole of London. The biggest
collection of football pitches in the
world.
1.8 Finchley Ridge
Along this broken ridge, a series
of Victorian centres surounded by
interwar housing is provided with good
rail connections to the city centre.
Three main brooks rise here and,
flowing east towards the Lea, connect
areas of linear open space amidst larger
parks, cemeteries and golf courses.
To the north, the suburban landscape
gives way to the farmland of the green
belt traversed by the M25.
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