Hackney Cut

The River Lea (or Lee) has a long history of use for navigation, with records indicating that the Abbot of Waltham was authorised to make improvements in 1190,[1] and evidence for tidal gates at Bow from the reign of King Edward I, when Henry de Bedyk, the prior at Halliwell Priory and owner of the nearby tide mills, erected a structure some time before 1307.[2] River levels were managed by flash locks or sluices, and as the volumes of traffic using the river increased, there was friction between the bargees and the millers, since use of a flash lock affected the head of water available at the adjacent mill. In 1765, the commissioners responsible for the river asked the engineer John Smeaton to survey the river and make recommendations for its improvement.[3]

Smeaton produced his report in September 1766, in which he recommended that the flash locks should be replaced by pound locks with two sets of gates, and that a number of new cuts should be built, including what became known as the Hackney Cut from Lea Bridge to Old Ford.[4] The commissioners advertised in the London Gazette and other newspapers that they wanted to borrow £35,000 to finance the improvements, to which there was a huge response. Some £161,500 was offered, and subscribers had to be picked by a ballot. Work on the whole scheme progressed quickly, and the contract for the Hackney Cut was awarded to Jeremiah Ilsley on 18 January 1768. He was probably acting as a public works contractor, since he also had contracts for the Waltham Cut and part of the Limehouse Cut, and so must have been managing a large labour force. He was to be paid 3 old pence (3d, 1.25p) per yard for the Hackney Cut, considerably less than the rate for the Limehouse Cut, which was 7d, and was given four months in which to complete the excavations.[5]

Contracts for the construction of the locks were separate to the excavation, and the work on the two locks of the Hackney Cut was given to Henry Holland, a bricklayer from Piccadilly, on 23 April 1768. Despite tight schedules, the work seems to have been completed on time, and the Hackney Cut opened for traffic on 7 August 1769.[6] At the northern end of the cut, the river flowed to the east, through a weir now known as Middlesex Filter Beds Weir. Beside it was Hackney Waterworks Lock, the third pound lock to be built on the Navigation in 1762. It was tidal, as the course of the Old River Lee was affected by tides from the Thames up to this point. The new cut was protected by Lea Bridge Half Lock, a single set of gates just below the junction.[7] Homerton Lock, which was also known as Hackney Brick Cistern Lock, was about one-third of the way along the cut,[8] while Old Ford Lock was located just above where the cut rejoined the old course of the river. The lock was semi-tidal, as the level on this section of the river was maintained by Bow tidal gates, but spring tides often flowed over the top of the gates and the locks which supplemented them after 1850, continuing to do so until the installation of extra flood walls and higher flood gates in 2000.[9]

The Hackney Cut is 2 miles (3.2 km) long from Lea Bridge road bridge to Old Ford Locks.[18] Excess water from the Navigation passes over the weir into the former natural channel of the River Lea that passes in a large meander to the east of the modern water course, forming the boundary with the London Borough of Waltham Forest. The old course used to rejoin the Navigation below Old Ford Lock, but this route was modified by the construction of Carpenter's Road Lock on the Bow Back Rivers in 1930. Prescott Channel was built at the same time to provide a bypass around the tide mill at Three Mills, allowing the water to reach Bow Creek and the River Thames.[19] A lock was built in the Prescott Channel in 2009.