Coppermill Lane, East London intake

Walthamstow Reservoirs

Previously named 'Ferry Lane, East London intake'

The building in the background is the Coppermill with its distinctive tower. Location is now in the park at the western side of Coppermills WTW.

We believe the photo is of the outlet from the Walthamstow and the Racecourse reservoirs into an aqueduct that went south across Walthamstow marsh to supply the Lea Bridge waterworks. That would make sense of the names, as indeed it would have been the intake to the East London waterworks. The Racecourse reservoir now contains Coppermills WTW (you can still see the banks), but sadly no trace of this intake exists. Lea Bridge as a site is still there, but not as a WTW.

In the 1898 OS map (surveyed 1894) the aqueduct was just an open channel from the Coppermill Stream. By the 1915 OS map (surveyed 1913) the structures in the picture had appeared. So the photos were taken in that timeframe, probably at the grand opening of the new structure.