Bow Creek

For Bow Creek, in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, in the United States, see Bow Creek (Swatara Creek).

Bow Creek (tidal) (far left) meets the Limehouse Cut (canal, right), at Bow Locks on the Lee Navigation (centre); with a view of London's Docklands

Map c1872, showing Victoria Docks, now Royal Victoria Dock, Bow Creek and the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company

Bow Creek flooding at high tide

Bow Creek is a 2.25 miles (3.6 km) long tidal estuary of the River Lea and is part of the Bow Back Rivers. Below Bow Locks the creek forms the boundary between the London Boroughs of Newham and Tower Hamlets, in east London.

This natural channel is accessible from the artificial Lee Navigation by Bow Locks (shown). As this makes a number of meanders before reaching the River Thames, an artificial channel – Limehouse Cut was dug in 1766, running south-west directly to the Thames at Limehouse. This channel now ends in Limehouse Basin.

Ships were built at the Orchard House Yard, in the southern reaches at Leamouth, and launched in the creek where they could travel north along the River Lee Navigation or south to the River Thames. In 1810, an iron bridge was built spanning the creek – just south of the modern A13 bridge. The abutments have been reused for the pedestrian Jubilee Bridge.

See also

• Bow Creek Ecology Park
• Samuda Brothers
• Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company

External links

• The Iron Bridge and Ironbridge Tavern — A Chronology — Bow Creek/River Lea
• British Waterways history of the Bow Back Rivers
• The Lee Navigation - Intro and Bow Locks to Old Ford
• Tuesday Night Club