Stop 6 - Old Ford Lock

Make sure your volume is on: "Waypoint 6 - Modern Park"

Show transcript

The tides of industry have come and gone in this part of Stratford, but the area across the Lee Navigation still shows some of the original industrial architecture. It is called Fish Island – because all the streets are named after species of fish such as Dace and Bream. Some people still remember the smell of nuts that hung in the air, thanks to Percy Dalton’s peanut roasting factory. If you went to a football match you could buy a paper bag of Dalton’s famous Monkey Nuts (peanuts still in their shell) to eat while you cheered for your team.

There are still some factories operating on Fish Island. The large pink building is H Forman & Sons, a fish smoker and restaurant, and further back is the remarkable Algha Works, which makes spectacles (they made John Lennon’s frames…and Harry Potter’s). But now most of the old workshops are more for crafts, not mass production.

The old lockkeepers house on this side of the water offered a different type of employment. For many years it was the Big Breakfast House, home of the breakfast TV show starring Chris Evans.

Your route continues up the Lee Navigation. In two places the path rises slightly. Stop at the second of these raised areas for the next point.