Interviews

Vikings and monks are just two of the groups who have shaped the east London we know today

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Stories are important.

They help us make sense of who we are and where we are.

Whether passed mouth-to-mouth or written down, they have been the main conduit for human communication down the centuries. 

Even in the age of social media, where video is the dominant force, we can’t do without explanation – an editorial take on what’s being presented.

Images alone are not enough, we have to tell each other what they mean through captions or voiceovers. 

The world over, the recording and telling of tales about the world defines our species – bees in the hive doing a complicated waggledance to tell others where the honey is and whether it’s any good.

The Greeks and Romans had their philosophical dialogues, their myths and their plays. The Vikings had their sagas and the people of Wessex and England had the Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

Cody Dock, an ecological regeneration project on the edge of Canning Town, is a keeper of many stories. 

first, a bit of context

As part of a £1.6million National Lottery Heritage Fund grant, its Lighting Up The Lea initiative will see a home for history created on the banks of the river. 

The roof of its glass Heritage Pavilion will be the Frederick Kitchen – a Welsh lifeboat that was probably the last vessel built at the Thames Ironworks.

It is currently being restored on-site and has stories of its own to tell. 

When work is finished, its hull will shelter quarterly exhibitions about the history of the River Lea and the lands along its length – stories for the people who are here now, drawing them closer to the past.

As that project sails steadily onwards, Wharf Life will be working in partnership with Cody Dock to dip readers’ toes in some of the extraordinary tales that London’s second largest natural waterway has been a party to over the centuries.

In more recent times the area has been fertile ground for social change and industrial endeavour, but for this article we’re going back a bit further…

Viking aggression on the River Lea

There are ships sailing up the Lea.

It’s 894 AD – 1,131 years ago –  and Danish Vikings from Mersea Island in Essex are progressing up the river.

Their aim is to build a fortress roughly 20 miles north of London.

It’s a febrile time, but for a while there has been peace.

After King Alfred of Wessex defeated Danish warlord Guthrum and the Great Heathen Army in 878, the Lea took on a new significance – it became a border, a line of division through a marshy landscape of wetlands.  

The Treaty Of Alfred And Guthrum – which survives to this day in the collection of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge – officially created that frontier. 

Different gods, different ways of life, but a pledge of loyalty by the Danes to Alfred in return for peace – an accord that included a schedule for “weregild” or man price.

This was a fine that would be paid by one side to the other should there be future killings, with the amounts subject to the status of the victims. 

Alfred also insisted Guthrum convert to Christianity and be baptised as his godson, taking the name Æthelstan. 

For a while the Danelaw, as it became known, worked.

The Vikings had their substantial chunk of England and the Anglo Saxons had theirs.

But change is a constant. It couldn’t last. Guthrum died in 890.

a test for Wessex

Now the Danes are restless and flexing.

Their voyage up the Lea is a test of Wessex and Alfred’s resolve, directly on the border.

Their arrival prompts swift action.

First a local force of Saxons rises up and routs the provocateurs as they are constructing their fortifications.

Then Alfred arrives and messes with the river itself.

Exactly where and how is unclear – he may have dammed it, obstructed it or fortified it – but both banks are likely involved.

This may have been in what we now know as east London or further upstream, the Anglo Saxon Chronicle isn’t completely clear.

Suddenly, though, the Danes find themselves unable to escape in their ships and they flee with the Saxon army in hot pursuit.

Eventually they wind up in Shropshire.

The tale, however. doesn’t end there. Londoners sail some of the abandoned Viking ships back down the Lea in triumph, breaking up any that are unserviceable.

While we can’t be certain, there’s every possibility that these captured vessels provided vital intelligence and inspiration, with King Alfred ordering a series of long ships built just one year later – vessels with 60 oars or more that would prove decisive in naval battles against the Danes on the south coast. 

So next time you take a walk along the River Lea, remember it was once a dividing line between two countries, that its waters are rich with history and that the aftermath of a battle fought somewhere along its length a little over a thousand years ago may have led to what many regard as the birth of the English Navy.  

from Vikings to monks

This story of Viking unrest, religious diplomacy and clever military tactics is far from the only tale of the Lea in pre-industrial times.

In a valley carved out by the meltwater of the ice age, the river has a long and complex narrative, much of which is sadly lost to the passage of time.

We know Old Ford is where the Romans crossed on their way to Colchester.

We know the river’s course has changed radically through human action – the felling of forests, the draining of marshes, the digging of culverts and the creation of fish traps and channels for water mills.

Today it’s part of the boundary between Tower Hamlets and Newham, but it’s also divided Essex and Middlesex and was once fortified as a potential line of defence during the Second World War.

But there’s much to be gained by looking further back.

Few, for example, may know that Abbey Road station on the DLR and the street it serves are echoes of Stratford Langthorne Abbey. 

Little is left, but this institution exerted a profound influence on the area for 400 years some 240 after the Vikings were sailing up and down.

 From its creation in 1135, the abbey acquired much land, farming the surrounding marshes and cutting channels to lessen the risk of flooding. 

It also owned and operated tidal mills on the River Lea that ground flour to make bread for the bakers of Stratford-Atte-Bow who supplied the City Of London.

There are even reports that a small river port was created to serve the needs of both the institution’s monks, lay brothers and other inhabitants.

It served as the court of King Henry III in 1267, where he met emissaries of the pope and made peace with the barons after the Battle Of Evesham.

It was also sacked during the peasants revolt – singled out as a Cistercian abbey for its “acquisitiveness in matters of land and tithes”.

An unpopular landlord, perhaps.

But by the time of the Dissolution Of The Monasteries under Henry VIII, the abbey was the fifth largest in England, easily on a level of importance with its sister institutions at Jervaulx, Rievaulx and Fountains in North Yorkshire. 

a home for the stories

It’s stories like these that will be celebrated and explored under the mahogany curve of the Frederick Kitchen when Cody Dock’s Heritage Pavilion comes to fruition.

Here will be a place where Vikings and monks can come alive, overlooking the curves of the river that shaped their times. 

One of the founding principles of the Gasworks Dock Partnership which is undertaking the ecological regeneration of Cody Dock is to provide engagement for local people. 

By continuing to research and showcase the remarkable history of the area, it adds a further dimension to that work – offering a vessel for the living history of local residents and a way to present meaningful tales from the far flung past.

Today we smile and take photos of a replica Viking long ship sailing up the Thames to take part in a boat festival at St Katharine Docks.

But just imagine the terror and uncertainty spotting a host of Danes from Essex slipping quietly up the Lea must have generated.

What did they want? Why were they here? Who could we turn to? What a sight it must have been.

Additional research by Cody Dock’s Julia Briscoe

key details: River Lea heritage at Cody Dock

Cody Dock is located on the edge of Canning Town right beside the River Lea. The closest public transport is Star Lane DLR station.

The regeneration project offers a wide range of volunteering opportunities and runs regular events and activities aimed at engaging the local community with its work to regenerate the area and protect and record the wildlife of the River Lea.

You can find out more at its Lighting Up The Lea event on Saturday, September 20, 2025, which is free to attend from 11am-6pm.

Find out more about Cody Dock here

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