London's forgotten river and the barrister who saved it

I knew this was going to be about my friend Paul even before I clicked on it! He’s a really lovely guy who does so much good for the world.

I don’t really have much of substance to add here, but yeah, he really is working to make the world a better place.

Very interesting article that would have been even better had they included a picture of the river and/or the boat!

I've walked many times along the Roding, at various points from Chigwell to Barking, where it joins the Thames. For some of that length, it's a typical rural river, with wildlife and clear water.

A high point was discovering a wild bee hive! Sadly, the bees were dying off, and it was gone the next time I went there... Another high point was cycling there when it had flooded and innundated the footpath. Trying to remain dry, I accidentally stumbled in. So I resigned myself, and cycled through the water up to my thighs - and discovered that it wasn't as difficult (or cold) as I'd imagined!

But when it gets to Ilford - that's when the garbage builds up. Urban rivers are typically disgusting. Barking (mentioned in the article) once had a thriving river trade, and it shows... Housing estates, small industry, neglect and contempt all combine to make it a rather grim stretch of river.

I'm really glad someone's taking action to clean it up...

For some reason I assumed this would be about the River Fleet[1] which was buried over in 1769.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Fleet

No one asked, but that never stops me, the river gauges for Roding:

https://check-for-flooding.service.gov.uk/river-and-sea-leve...

What an amazing project.

Looks like there's a clean up day scheduled for Sunday 27 November, if anyone's free?

https://riverrodingtrust.org.uk/2022/11/09/aldersbrook-clean...

For the Americans: "barrrister" == lawyer who does court work, "soliciter" == lawyer who does contracts, title transfers, etc

I’m not sure who’s forgotten my school was next to the Roding Nature reserve, and parkland area.

There are several villages at its head. High Roding, White Roding, Leaden Roding, Abbess Roding, and Margaret Roding. I believe a Saxon tribe called the Rodingas settled there.

There are a couple of sewage facilities upstream that look to have a habit a habit of releasing raw effluent.

Finally I noticed a few months back that someone was about to excavate a Roman villa next to the river, I’m guessing it is likely to meander into the site.

It would be interesting to track the old Mediaeval road that passed by from Newmarket to Mile End, there are marooned pubs that I think may have lined it.

And Feagal Sharkey is someone else with a passion for restoring rivers to health:

https://twitter.com/feargal_sharkey/status/10449401617448509...

Reminds me of this old article on London waterway names: https://londonist.com/2014/08/how-londons-rivers-got-their-n...

Upstream works on the River Roding:

https://consult.environment-agency.gov.uk/hnl/the-river-rodi...