| Mud |
 The centre of the marshes. |
Before the Lea Valley Park started to put fences all over the place and manage the area, doing things like putting absurd bullfrogs on the marshes, which soon died out, there was a kind of natural balance. Floods occurred, periodically, that's what marshes are for. Most of the time, even in the winter, the area was accessible. Not now. Much of the area next to Porter's Field (on the other side of the line of Black Poplars) is fenced off and used by ornamental cattle.
The remainder is dominated by a boardwalk, which in the winter is virtually useless since as soon as you get off the boardwalk the path is a quagmire, totally unsuitable for normal pedestrian traffic. The small triangle is sometimes used by people with highly specific interests making it generally unsuitable for many people. |
| Walk underneath the railway bridge next to the Lea and there is yet another bloody fence and gate leading to what some call the triangular path (between the Horseshoe thicket and the Lea railway bridge). In the old days this path used to be accessible most of the year and there was a wonderful newt pond right in the middle. The pond was the key to this area and enabled the rain to drain from much of it, making the path usable most of the year. Not any more. Thanks to the removal of the pond and the extermination of the poor newts, much of the triangular path is a quagmire every winter. |
That leaves the tiny Horseshoe Thicket and the two major paths, Sandy Path and the Sustrans route, as the only areas which are genuinely accessible.
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| It does not have to be that way. Just down the road is Epping Forest, managed by the Conservators, who fight tooth and nail for every single square inch of open, accessible land. Why isn't the Lea Valley Park run along similar lines? |
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