Barge Traffic on the Lee Navigation

Picturing the Past: NarrowBoat, Autumn 2025

Christopher M Jones

Chris M. Jones delves into Jack Parkinson’s photo collection to explore traffic on the Lee Navigation

On a dreary overcast day in 1965 Jack Parkinson and his cruiser Grey Dove pass Enfield Rolling Mills at Brimsdown, Enfield on the River Lee Navigation on the pound above Ponders End Locks. The works was in Millmarsh Lane, and was founded in 1924 as a private company on a 40-acre site, then later incorporated as a public company in 1933. It specialised in using non-ferrous metals like copper, brass, aluminium, zinc, nickel silver and copper alloys, to make products like rolled sheets, strips, wire, coil, cables, rods, bars, shapes and cans, that were bought by customers for further manufacturing into their own finished products. The heavy raw materials needed were brought up by lighters that loaded directly from ships in the Pool of London or in London Docks. In 1965 the company was using lighters from Thames & General Lighterage Ltd brought up by tug, with one lighter shown unloading beneath the travelling crane. On the wharf, a vast number of copper bars and cakes are stacked aw…