Old Father Thames
When the first people arrived here there was no River Thames and there was no British Island, we were just a part of Europe connected by land that our ancestors strolled over to find food and shelter.
The water from the west that now flows down through London, used to flow further north up and we will cross its parobable path on our long walk. It flowed across what is now Essex and joined the Rhine flowing north across “dogger land” and into the north sea.
It was only during the Ice Age when the ice spread down south as far as what are now the northern fringes of London, that forced the Thames to force its way over the chilterns an erode the Goring Gap.
And the tributaries that we cross as we head north out of her basin …
The Lea
The river Lea rises in Luton whose saxon place name means town on the Lea and no runs into the Thames just south of Leyton whose saxon place name also means town on the Lea.
Big rivers provided fresh water to drink, fish to eat and barriers to people and animals. No doubt when people settled down near them and cleared the trees nearby they named their settlements after the rivers that they had wandered along and used to direct them when dense woodland covered the land.
The Ash
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