Bow Locks
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Bow Locks is a set of bi-directional locks in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The locks link the tidal Bow Creek to the River Lee Navigation which is a canalised river.
Bow Creek is a 2.25 miles (3.6 km) long tidal estuary of the River Lee and is part of the Bow Back Rivers. The complex network of Bow Back Rivers near the mouth of the river Lea can be traced back to at least the 11th century when they were developed as millstreams and transport routes.
The greatest alteration to the channels of the Lea at Stratford was carried out between 1931 and 1935 to improve drainage and navigation. The Bow Back Rivers, linked with a network of open ditches, had for centuries drained the area north of Stratford High Street. In the later 19th Century they had been polluted by domestic sewage from Leyton and West Ham. By 1931 all the foul sewers of the two boroughs were linked with the northern outfall sewer but the Back Rivers were still vital to storm drainage and they had become derelict and choked with rubbish.
Bow Locks were first built in 1850 and then rebuilt in 1930, at the same time as the Prescott Channel was cut nearby. At high tide, the tide from Bow Creek used to flow through Bow Locks to raise the level of the canals, such as the Limehouse Cut. But in 2000 these locks were modified to keep the tide out and to reduce silting in the canal system.
By road: South of A13 near the Limehouse Tunnel
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