Middlesex Filter Beds - Wildlife Haven
The cache, a magnetic camo-taped sample tube is hidden at the eastern (Hackney Marsh) entrance to this 10 acre wildlife haven - a great example of how previously industrial areas can become valuable wildlife habitats.
How to reach the cache location: you can reach the Middlesex Filter Beds on foot from either the east via Hackney Marshes, the west - Lea Bridge Road via the towpath (you may find space at the pub parking @ N 51 33.700 W 0 02.728) or from the north (approx 850m/15 minutes) from the car park @ N 51 33.904 W 0 02.176 at the adjacent WaterWorks Centre Nature Reserve.
The MFB are open 08.00 – 17.30 in winter and 08.00 – 19.30 in summer. Entry is free.
Out on the north-west tip of Hackney Marshes, down from the weir and caught between the River Lee and its more navigable bypass the Hackney Cut, lie the remains of the Middlesex Filter Beds.
Built in 1852 by the East London Waterworks Company, they were a response to the repeated cholera epidemics that had held Europe their grip since the 1830s. In 1849, London suffered its worst ever outbreak, resulting in 14,000 deaths, leading physician John Snow to help establish the Epidemiological Society of London the following year to investigate epidemic disease.
His work identified cholera as a water-borne infection, countering the popular belief that it was carried by foul-smelling air or miasma. It wasn't until 1854, when Snow proved that a single contaminated water pump in London's Soho was the source of a local outbreak that his ideas achieved widespread credibility. See here for a short video about him & his work and here for a detailed account of the same.
Built on the site of a much earlier reservoir, possibly dating back to the 15th century, the new Middlesex Filter Beds took water from upriver at Walthamstow (where it was cleaner), filtered it through layers of sand and gravel, and the perforated concrete base of the bed, then pumped the clean water via a reservoir to homes across North East London.
Originally consisting of just six beds radiating from a central well, the facility quickly grew to 25 with the addition of the Essex Filter Beds on the east bank of the river as the expanding Victorian suburbs saw demand boom. Having water piped directly to your home ceased to be something solely for the privileged few and became seen as a public necessity.
The Middlesex and Essex beds were superseded in 1969 by the Coppermills Water Treatment Works in Walthamstow, nearer to the reservoirs. The Middlesex site began to revert to nature until Lee Valley Regional Park Authority took over its management in 1988, creating a public wildlife haven.
Today, the sunken Middlesex beds are in various stages of reforestation, from wet marsh to woodland of poplar and willow, all carefully managed to ensure ecological variety is maintained. The next-door Essex beds are now the popular WaterWorks Centre, with wildlife trails, bushcraft workshops and one of the largest birdwatching hides in London.
Continues with GC800N1: Middlesex Filter Beds #2 - Urban Oasis Hackney