World Wetlands Day 2009
Report from Lammas Lands Defence Committee.

The theme was Upstream, Downstream—but in our case it was more Instream!! It was certainly very wet on Walthamstow Marshes, where we hoped to take our walk this year. Wet underfoot and wet everywhere else!

The event was brought to an unlikely early end by a cry of "Has anyone got a snorkel?" This proved to be lucky, however, as the weather was deteriorating rapidly.

This was only the Lammas Lands Defence Committee's second public walk to mark World Wetlands Day, last year having attracted over 60 local residents for a walk on a bright, sunny day around the Walthamstow Reservoirs. This year the weather was freezing cold and a snowstorm had been forecast. The occasion still attracted over 40 brave people, but given the difficult conditions and weather outlook, the hopes of discussing the effects of the Prescott Lock blockade on river flow—the formerly tidal River Lea has been stopped up since a year ago due to construction of the 2012 Olympic Games site downstream— were not looking any brighter than the sky.

Despite our usual pleas to walkers to wear waterproof above-ankle boots, preferably Wellington boots, many people had still turned up in footwear more suited to the famous football pitches of Hackney Marshes, which are no longer marshland, than a flooded working marsh with rivers running through it well above the surface at this time of year. To make matters worse, despite reconnoitres undertaken by several Lammas Lands Defence Committee members during the previous week, there had been almost constant rain for many days which had been heavy overnight and the marsh was almost impassable without serious waterproof footwear. We saw dog-walkers in gumboots going across with impunity.

Having given up on our first two attempts to get through, one of our members suggested following the embankment of a railway line which runs adjacent to the 1950s flood relief channel. This seemed a good idea at first, but became increasingly damp and we ended up with several people standing in a pond with water well above their knees! One elderly lady commented "This is the best fun I've had since I was in the Girl Guides!"

At this point a snorkel was jokingly called for by one of the participants, but the walk's leaders—David and Katy— decided that under the circumstances a hot drink or a nice pint of good winter ale was even more called for! We decided to abandon the attempt to cross the Marsh and take paved routes around it instead.

David led half the party back northwards and down the Sustrans route on the line of a former aqueduct. Those further in the mire, not being able to see them as they had crossed underneath the railway line, took a westerly route with Katy round through a semi-flooded willow thicket to Sandy Lane, a footpath beside the River Lee Navigation. As we made our way back to civilisation it began to snow quite heavily and the wind got up. Those who were not suitably clothed will have learned a lesson from this, but luckily we had no cases of frostbite or hypothermia. The following day London was blanketed in so much ice and snow that the city's Mayor cancelled all overground public transport!

We had intended to end the walk at the Lee Valley Regional Park's new Waterworks Visitors Centre, but the very wet conditions and the unpreparedness of walkers for this had defeated us, and the Centre would already have been closing by the time we decided to turn back. Inevitably the two groups ended up at two different pubs, but comparing notes later it seemed that despite the adverse weather everyone at least claimed to have had an enjoyable time, and hopefully the historical and explanatory notes that were handed out to participants will have been read by them later.

Walthamstow Marsh is a small fragment of the once extensive marshes of the Lower Lea Valley, and the reservoirs represent the first major change to the landscape since drainage began following the Danish invasion in the year 894.

From then until the coming of the Eastern Counties Railway line, which opened in 1840, the marshes were grazed under the Lammas rotation system - cattle grazing in common from Lammas Day (August 1st) until Lady Day (25th March, which was New Year's Day until 1752). During the summer the land was demarcated into "Lammas Strips" and the valuable hay crop gathered during the year was mostly taken to London for sale.

Lammas Grazing ended on Leyton Marshes in 1904 and on Walthamstow Marshes in 1935.

Most of Leyton and Walthamstow Marshes are now owned by the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority and fall within the Lee Valley Regional Park boundary. The exception is Marsh Lane Fields in Leyton, which is outside the boundary and vested in the London Borough of Waltham Forest - the provisions of the 1904 Act under which Lammas grazing rights were commuted to (meaning given up in exchange for) the right of free access in perpetuity are still in force at Marsh Lane Fields. These rights were extinguished within the Regional Park by virtue of the compulsory purchases of the rest of Leyton Marshes and Walthamstow Marshes by the LVRPA after it was created in 1967.

The New Lammas Lands Defence Committee is a cross-borough local interest group, based in the Borough of Waltham Forest but drawing a considerable proportion of our membership from the Borough of Hackney and to some extent from further afield. We were founded over ten years ago and now have over 30 active members and a mailing list of nearly 200 supporters. The organisation monitors planning applications, carries out historical research, liaises with various users' groups and organises regular public walks and other events of local historical interest. We are not a practical conservationist or environmental improvements group, but do encourage active participation in such activities.

The New Lammas Lands Defence Committee are particularly concerned with preserving the wildlife habitat importance and unusually still-rural character of these former grazing meadows. We exist primarily to maintain Walthamstow and Leyton Marshes as green open space for relaxation and recreation and to help make local people more aware of their special historical value. However, we are also concerned with the historically and environmentally important former Lammas Lands of Hackney Marshes. We strongly wish the entire former Lammas Lands to remain as green open space, accessible to all, and also a contiguous whole within their historical context - unique in the London area.