A bit of a shock

Now the reservoirs are officially open as Walthamstow Wetlands, there is nobody guarding the gates and you can just walk or cycle right in. It seems to have made a big difference. I've visited the reservoirs a few times over the years, and got used to being often the only person there, or the only person not fishing or having a job to do. So it's a bit of a shock to find the place suddenly full of people. The last few weekends have been spectacularly busy, the influx of urban hipsters, families with toddlers and even the odd bird watcher drawn by the opening publicity, and perhaps the sense that the site was a bit of a secret until now. In reality there was nothing to stop people visiting before, just a £1 admission fee to pay (except the ban on under-eights obviously put off the young family contingent). I think very few people either knew they could get in or thought it worthwhile visiting. Now with two additional entrances, it's easier to get in and I have to admit, it's also more tempting. I was expecting something much more regimented, like the smart new walkway where you enter the site from Forest Road. But that is the only place where visitors are confined to a walkway, and the rest of the site still has the character of a working reservoir with very little in the way of intrusive barriers and notices.

Passing the untidy billboards on Forest Road near the entrance.

The site is unfinished and today there are many signs that things are still being worked on, things being put in place and maybe strategies being developed. The engine house is finished but the Coppermill is still a construction site. There are photocopied signs taped up asking people not to run or cycle except on the designated concrete track. The old rusty bridge is still rusty but it has a nicely-designed new handrail bolted to it. Bits of old machinery, unrestored, are dumped anyhow on the grass next to the engine house. Big concrete blocks sit among the trackside weeds here and there, awaiting their proper place. Next to the cafe, temporary rope barriers and cones block off a big expanse of bare soil to give new grass a chance to grow. Bedraggled wildlife illustrations in plastic sleeves are flapping in the breeze along the cycle track. There are no bins except the big ones at the entrances - will that work? I rather like all this, and for this visit I want to focus on photographing that rather than the birds and empty expanses of grass and water.

The new walkway...

...with holes in the metal deck for trees to grow through.

The old brick railway viaduct was replaced with this concrete structure a few years ago.

The engine house, the showpiece of the new visitor infrastructure.

Unnecessarily bright bollards...

...and various temporary barriers.

Smart new railings by the new cafe contrast with old steel barriers.

Work on the Copper Mill is still being finished but you can just make out the new lift that will give access to the open viewing deck.

There are two electricity pylons on the site. This one in particular is known as a perch for peregrine falcons.

A wet day at the reservoirs

On a rainy Sunday in October, a tour of the future wetlands site at the bracingly early hour of 10:00am. The place is lush and green in an autumnal way, dead seed heads and late flowers set against grey skies, everything covered in a film of cold water. We spot a hawk hanging out near the top of an electricity pylon, see abandoned waterways covered with bright green duckweed, trout fishermen casting flies (no floats involved) and an intriguing robotic strainer that collects rubbish and dead leaves out of the water, creaking into action every half hour. The reservoirs are gearing up for opening to the public next year, but activity is low key - the only noticeable change is lots of new reed beds around islands and edges. They grow on mats of coconut fibre and are fenced in to let them get established. There will be a visitor centre in the Victorian pumping station, but there is nothing to see there yet except scaffolding.

One of our tour guides was Silvia Krupinska, artist in residence, who explained a bit about her involvement with the wetlands project, which doubles as her MA Art and Science degree project. Her work is a nicely offbeat take on the natural life going on there. We also heard some vague talk about public art, which I hope doesn't mean well-meaning art installations dotted around the place. Art is good in the right place, but it's not necessarily a good thing to confuse matters by making little art experiences mixed in with nature appreciation.

The reservoirs still have a wild feel, more so than they will when they are inundated with visitors and all that goes with that, the designated routes, the wayfinding signs and safety features, and my pet hate, 'interpretation'. Actually, it will probably be great, but catch it now just in case.

Above: the robotic cleaner dumps floating debris on the bank every half hour.

Above: new reed beds.

Although it's a year until the wetlands open, you can visit any time - pay £1 at the entrance opposite the Ferry Boat Inn.

Regulating the Marshes

Coppermill Lane used to be an unsurfaced dirt road when I came to live here. Once you got past the water board houses, it was like a country lane with no street lighting and no car park, and you could drive right down to the marina because the gate wasn't there either. I have to say I liked it that way and was rather sorry to see the tarmac go down. The place is much more popular now, but the marshes were a nature reserve back then and people certainly drove down there to walk their dogs, watch birds or whatever. I used to take my kids cycling there on their BMX bikes and a bit of mud was all part of the experience. I'm not sure what exactly has changed that the whole unregulated thing is no longer the way things go. Yes, there used to be burnt-out cars now and again, presumably dumped in the middle of the night, but never anything threatening in the daytime. Are things safer now that we have a bit of lighting and some barriers? The recent spate of violent muggings suggests the complete opposite.

The current 'quietway’ proposals will replace the speed cushions with sinusoidal humps. The speed cushions make cars move into the middle of the road, where they can drive as fast as they like because the cushion has no effect if you straddle it accurately. But for cyclists, the cushions mean going too close to the edge of the road to avoid being jolted, and making it impossible to ride at the recommended distance from parked cars (about 1.2 metres) so they don't get hit by someone opening their car door without looking. The new humps should have been an obvious move ten years ago. But that isn't the only change. It will become illegal to park in the lane (if that proposal goes ahead) so the only time you would be able to visit the nature reserve by car would be when the car park is open. There will be an entrance to the new 'wetlands', the reservoirs which are currently inaccessible from Coppermill Lane, but that will be open even shorter hours than the car park. I know it will be unpopular to argue against regulation and safety culture. Yes I'm aware of the issues, safety for women and disabled access etc. but I’d question whether any of the so-called improvements make any real difference. I can't imagine, for example, that anyone can ride a wheelchair on the appalling shingle paths in the marshes. I think a minority at least sees it the same way - a gain for regulation means something lost in the way of wild-ish nature on our doorstep.

Wetlands official tour

On Saturday I joined a tour of what will eventually be Walthamstow Wetlands, currently just the reservoirs. At the moment the place is quite freely accessible from 7:00 am until it gets dark, you just pay £1 in the honesty box. You can't cycle, children and dogs are not allowed (plus points unless you own one or the other) and there is only one way in or out, but you can walk around pretty much anywhere on the site. At the moment the place is mainly used by fishermen. Only two people on the tour had ever been there before and I think few people visit just to appreciate the wonderful semi-wild landscape. The Wetlands project is going to change that rather drastically.

Our guide, Rachel from the London Wildlife Trust, met us at the entrance on Ferry Lane and took us on a circular tour, explaining the proposals as we went. The project is a collaboration between Thames Water and the Trust: the reservoirs will remain functional but public access and nature conservation will become more of a priority. It's easy to see there is an inherent conflict there. The conservation side works best if you don't have visitors disturbing the wildlife and trampling vegetation, but public access will do just that, introducing more people, noise and litter. So there will be some new public facilities and defined routes, and various tactics and deterrents to stop people wandering off the beaten track.

The big engine house will become the Marine Engine House Visitor Centre, a cafe and education centre, hopefully more La Delice and less National Trust. The Coppermill engine house will have a lift and viewing platform within the existing Italianate loggia. There will be new entrances on the north side, at Lockwood Way off Blackhorse Lane, and to the south at Coppermill Lane, with a new concrete bicycle / pedestrian path linking the two, all of which is already constructed but won't open until 2017. There must surely be a new zebra crossing to get from one side to the other, because Ferry Lane is impossibly difficult to cross without one. So, a couple of weekend destinations on the edges of the site and a path that won’t be muddy however bad the weather.

But unrestricted access will no longer exist, except for the fishermen, who will still be able to camp out and stay there all night on the current basis (twice a month) and maybe the bird watchers will get some special privileges. For the general public, the plan is for the place to open 9 to 5, which places it out of the orbit of anyone working full time, and rules it out as a pleasant and safe cycle commuting route. There will be boardwalks, areas out of bounds, and no doubt litter bins and instructional signs all over the place. Children will be allowed in for the first time, but not dogs. Possibly the main financial driver on the project is education, so the place will be geared towards positive risk assessments for school visits - which does mean they will be able to happen. After five, the birds will be able to breathe a sigh of relief and settle down on their nests peacefully.

Like everyone else, I hardly ever go to the reservoirs, but when I do it's exactly how I want it to be. I expect the new wetlands will be quite pleasant, but can’t help feeling a little sad that the place will change into something tamer, more regulated. Quite honestly I would prefer the functional working landscape and the honesty box.

The new concrete cycle path, going nowhere until it opens in 2017

Horsetail harvest?

Thousands of these fungus-like things are growing on the banks of the Lea Navigation at this time of year, alongside the spring flowers. Fascinating but slightly sinister, they shed little clouds of spores when you tap them. They are in fact horsetails, a primitive plant that is an invasive nightmare for allotment gardeners, along with the equally unpopular marestail. It's easy to mistake them for fungus, and I wasted some time looking up fungal identification characteristics until I posted this photograph on Facebook.

Within minutes there was a positive identification, along with some fascinating if useless facts about these plants. They are poisonous to horses but allegedly have numerous medicinal uses. In Japan, I discovered, people go looking for them in springtime with a view to eating the tender new shoots - something like asparagus I guess. Noriko Honda-Powell's comments deserve to be shared (but try this entirely at your own risk, I cannot vouch for the fact they really are edible):

"You have to choose the right size ones, the one should be longer and fatter than a cigarette. After picking them, get rid of the skirts as they are old leaves and they are tough and unpleasant to eat. Your fingernails get very messy and this puts lots of people off nowadays.... You rip a bit of the skirt vertically while you hold the root of the skirt with the other thumb and the skirt should peel nicely around the stem. Take all the skirts off but keep the tops. Wash very well and get rid of all the soil and dirt. Branch them in the boiling water. The water will turn green because the colour runs from the top bits. Better not to boil them more than 5 minutes. When the stems turn light brown, they are ready to be used as ingredients like other vegetables. I think they are nicer when you can see a bit of whitish colour left though they are kind of brown. Popular dishes in Japan with this is chawanmushi, tamagotoji and pilau. But I personally prefers and recommend tenpura. If you use it for tenpura (tempura), make sure you get rid of water well before you mix them with butter. You chuck all the prepared ones in a butter and drop the in the hot oil. They can be quite bitter but that's what we like for early spring forage. You can make the sauce with soy sauce, dashi, and mirin. I didn't know they grow here and this post made me feel very nostalgic! Oh, if you find them too bitter, you can get rid of the top! Good luck!"

A walk on the wild side

This is the wild side of the reservoir sites. Unlike the reservoirs on the north side Ferry Lane, Walthamstow Reservoirs are almost like natural lakes, with green walks and mature trees, natural earth banks, reed beds and birds everywhere. Nobody except fishermen visit the place. We saw one bird watcher and one couple just enjoying the sunshine, otherwise the place was deserted on a Sunday afternoon. Rusty machinery and Victorian engine buildings coexist with the mundane and unobtrusive purposes of Thames Water. Not least fascinating are the well-equipped fishermen, dressed like members of some east European militia, camped out for the day (or night) with vast amounts of olive-green equipment - the management thoughtfully provide metal trolleys to carry everything. Pay the £1 admission charge and you can walk for hours exploring and discovering.

One of the two cormorant islands, home to hundreds of breeding pairs of these strange-looking birds - you sometimes see them flying over Walthamstow, long necks stretched ahead. The trees On this island are practically dead,over-fertilised by the weight of bird droppings.

Greylag geese with a new brood of yellow goslings. Fascinating to watch how the adults manage to keep all six of them rounded up. These were on Reservoir No. 5, along with a few men fly fishing for trout, and hundreds of cormorants presumably also fishing for trout.

Walthamstow Wetlands

Yesterday I finally got around to visiting the reservoirs on the north side of Forest Road, inspired by the news that the reservoirs are to be opened up for public access. They are of course perfectly accessible already, but there is just the one entrance opposite the Ferry Boat Inn on Ferry Lane. There is a quaint honour system whereby you go into the signing-in room, write your details on a slip of paper, put it into a tiny brown envelope with a pound coin and post it in the metal box. After that you're free to go wherever you like. Possibly even in the middle of the night, like the all-night fishermen.

On this side of the reservoirs, north of Forest Road, we have the Lockwood reservoir and the two Maynard reservoirs, Low and High. It's a huge site. I walked all the way round Lockwood, but ran out of energy before I got as far as Banbury reservoir at the far end. The place is functional, not a nature reserve, which is exactly what is so good about it. The reservoirs have sensible concrete edges, there are giant pipes and octagonal Victorian towers, concrete platforms with Kee Klamp railings, and a lot of grass. It's bleak in a way - bleakness in a good way, a rare commodity in London until you go out east on the Thames. And the views are a completely different perspective across Walthamstow, Tottenham, and across to the City in the distance.

More another time about the more obviously interesting Walthamstow reservoirs. Here are some more photos from the walk.

Thames Water clearly don't know anything about trees - everywhere 

the willows are hacked about in an appallingly amateurish fashion.

New concrete access road.

 Pumping gear.

New apartment blocks at Tottenham Hale.

The Gherkin, Shard and Natwest Tower in the distance.

Down Coppermill Lane

"We hope that you enjoyed your visit." Do we really need this, as if the marshes were a commercial tourist attraction? Walthamstow Marsh is as far as I know public property, managed or mismanaged on our behalf by the Lea Valley Regional Park Authority. Yes I enjoyed my "visit" which was actually just the most direct cycling route to Homerton, as well as being the most pleasant. I came back the long way by the Lea Valley riding centre because it was a nice day and all the trees and bushes were putting out little green buds. As always I rode through the railway underpass and felt mild surprise that the murals remain graffiti-free. It was a while since I went out on my racing bike (racing frame originally anyway, now a little more sedate) but on such a nice day it made sense to ride slowly and enjoy that springtime feeling. Seeing this sign added nothing to my enjoyment, quite the opposite in fact. They should think again and turn it into a community graffiti board or something. Or just spend the money on picking up rubbish.

There's a very similar sign outside Tesco Express in Forest Road which somehow fails to annoy in the same way, although come to think of it that is quite patronising too.