A walk along the west bank of the River Roding from Barking to Creekmouth

There was a strong pull back to the River Roding to complete the walk I’d started with Paul Powlesland of the River Roding Trust. Paul had shown me the path the Trust had opened up with volunteers from the Friends of the River Roding, restoring an ancient right of way from Ilford Bridge to Barking Town. A lost world had been revealed of salt marshes and swaying reed beds, as the invasive growth had been hacked back and hundreds of sacks of dumped rubbish hauled up to the roadside to be carted away. That walk had ended at the Trust’s self-built moorings just on the edge of Barking Town Centre, another occluded world of plank walks stringing together narrowboats bobbing amongst the riverside growth, scored by birdsong. It was a complete revelation.

Today I would continue alone without Paul’s puckish energy leading the way, narrating the walk infused with his infectious enthusiasm. He’d set off from the source of the River Roding at Molehill Green near Stanstead Airport in Essex, with another member of the Trust, Jenny, to walk the entire length of the river over the Easter weekend. I’d imagined their quest may have ended by Easter Monday as I made my way to riverbank by Barking Tesco, but dropped him a text anyway.

This first section of the walk is a series of development invoked diversions, pushing me away from the riverside to the North Circular then around Fresh Wharf. The towers have marched along the Thames and are now progressing inland up her tributaries like a marauding Viking fleet. While admiring the calm waters at Town Quay beside one such construction site, a gust of wind blew my 1863 map into the river. I then received a text from Paul saying they’d stopped at the moorings to dump their camping gear and would be right behind me soon. The two events seemed connected in some way.

The Metropolitan Police Detention Centre at Fresh Wharf casts a bleak shadow across Hand Trough Creek, which appears from old maps to be the remnants of the Roding’s Back River. A footpath branches off into a grove of fruit trees in blossom. Heading into Cuckold’s Haven and beneath the A13 Alfred’s Way, epic pylons rise to electrify the sky. The enormous Showcase Cinema enjoys its last month of being dormant before the hoards kick the doors down in May. I hear a voice behind me, ‘Dr Livingstone, I presume’. I turn and there’s Paul and Jenny on the final stretch of their River Roding hike. They wear the tint of three nights sleeping in fields beside the riverbank, jumping hedges to strictly follow the course of the river.

We pass Jenkins Lane sewage treatment works, the end of the Northern Outfall Sewer. The treated water flows along a concrete trench beside the path and gushes out in the Thames beside the River Roding Flood Barrier. Paul and Jenny hop the wall and clamber across the stones to toast the walk at the exact confluence of the River Roding and the Thames. It’s a real treat to witness this special moment, all part of the magic offered up by this beguiling eastern tributary of the Thames – one the enchantments of the River Roding.

Watch my original walk with Paul Powlesland along the west bank of the River Roding from Ilford Bridge to Barking Moorings

llford Bridge to Barking Moorings

Video Description:

This walk takes along an ancient footpath beside the River Roding from Ilford to Barking moorings that has recently been opened up by the Friends of the River Roding. This previously overgrown, inaccessible strip of land between the North Circular and the Roding is hoped will form part of an ‘Edgelands Park’ linking together existing green spaces near the river with this riverside path which will then connect with the Roding Valley Way at Ilford. Paul Powlesland formed the River Roding Trust with a group of people living on narrowboats who work on maintaining the river and the riverbank. Due to their efforts the River Roding is now navigable from Barking Wharf to Ilford Bridge for the first time in 50 years.

This River Roding walk starts at Ilford Bridge and picks up the path on the west side of the river, passing through the edge of Ilford to Little Ilford. Here we see the Saltings formed by the semi-tidal waters of the River Roding creating a beautiful wetlands environment of swaying reeds. There are also a number of concrete bases stretched along the riverbank that appear to be part of its industrial past. Across the river we see the housing development built on the site of a chemical works, which had been built on the site of Uphall Camp – an Iron Age enclosure and possible hillfort that had also been used by the Romans.

Old Map Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland https://maps.nls.uk/index.html