River Lea Culvated River, LUTON - March 2009

The River Lea starts in the small town of Leagrave and eventually ends up in London joining the Thames at Bow Creek. It flows under Luton through quite a long culvert. We first walked the length of the culvert taking pictures on our return trip. A nice, relaxed explore with plenty different types of culvert construction to look at. I suspect the brick arches were built by the Victorian railway engineers and the more modern sections by building developers as the river was further culvated. We walked past some curious basements that had windows at the same level as the river. Peering through the windows we could see that the rooms were completely filled with rubble. In some places the metal girders holding up some sections where almost completely rusted through. I went for another visit around 2014 so I've added a few extra pictures from the visit.

Note the reflectors to measure the movement of the bricks. Looks like some displacement going on here...

The wall to the right is the basement of the pub at the bottom of Bute Street.