Monday, March 18, 2019

Alexandra Lake Wanstead Flats

Photo from run on Sunday (stylised). The Lake was named after the wife of King Edward VII and dug in 1905/06 to improve drainage and provide work for "unemployed men under the control of the West Ham Distress Committee".

3 comments:

Unknown said...

We always knew it as the sand hills

John Gray said...

Yes and I read somewhere they used to be much higher but were used to fill sandbags during the second world war. Not sure if true

Rockford said...

The Alexandra Lake was originally named after Queen Alexandra, but it is more commonly known as "The Wanstead Flats" due to its use by the unemployed during The Great Depression. It's located in East London and was dug around 1905/06 when improvements were needed for drainage systems following industrial revolution advances which caused flooding issues on lands surrounding this area resulting from storm water runoff combined with heavy rainfalls causing soil erosion leaving large concrete cylinders called 'vent pipes' spaced apart along each side of river Thames connecting them into one underground pipeline in order to prevent any possible floods overrunning other areas near rivers where low lying land became prone too devastating ravages including eroded hillsides stripping off topsoil exposing rock.