Maps « West Ham and the Lower Lea River

The River Lea
Humans and nature

"In this actual world there is then not much point in counter-posing or restating the great abstractions of Man and Nature. We have mixed our labour with the earth, our forces with its forces too deeply to be able to draw back and separate either out." - Raymond Williams (1980)
Favourate Quote:

We end, I think, at what might be called the standard paradox of the twentieth century: our tools are better than we are, and grow better faster than we do. They suffice to crack the atom, to command the tides. But they do not suffice for the oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without spoiling it." - Aldo Leopold (1938)
Lea Valley and River Photos

More Photos

Maps

These two maps demonstrate the rapid industrial and suburban development between the 1850s and the 1890s in the West Ham section of the Lower Lea Valley.