How you can help protect Lea Bridge's heritage

The 'Lea Bridge Waterworks' once stretched across the eastern and western banks of the River Lea, south of Lea Bridge Road, including the Middlesex Filter Beds Nature Reserve; the Thames Water Depot; and the Waterworks Nature Reserve and Golf Centre. 

These sites together form a single historic industrial development area that  played an early and significant role in the development of London’s water supply from at least 1707.

The development of the Waterworks is of industrial, technological, economic and social significance in the story of London's growth over 266 years.

Many of the mill buildings, waterwheels, giant engines houses and soaring chimneys are long gone. Some of the filter beds, reservoirs and aqueducts have been drained or filled in. But what remains is all the more precious.

Except for the locally listed 'red house', the Waterworks has no heritage protection. 

A request to list the Waterworks as of national architectural and historic significance was therefore recently submitted to English Heritage.  

A research paper supporting the request, 'Lea Bridge Waterworks: A narrative history and the case for statutory listing on the grounds of historic and architectural merit' has been produced and will be available shortly.

If you treasure the heritage of this area; if you: 

• know something about the history of the Waterworks or the people who worked there; and/ or
• have mementos, old photographs or press cuttings,

then your views and insights will count when English Heritage consider whether or not to recommend listing.

You can write in or email  English Heritage in support the Lea Bridge Waterworks listing request.

The reference details are:

• Lea Bridge Waterworks Listing Request

• Reference Number 466306.

Email address: london@english-heritage.org.uk