River Lee - Lee Navigation - Broxbourne Mill

Thames Tributary River Lee
The River Lee flows south west and the River Lee Navigation flows south west. They join and flow south.
TL 37364 06292

Riverside area of Broxbourne with the mill and associated buildings

Post to the east Nazeing Meads
Post to the north Broxbourne
Post to the south Wormley

Keysers Road
“Keysers Estate” is the name given to this whole group of roads and it relates back to the 16th when the land was owned by the Keyes family.  The Estate was built between the two World Wars.

Mill Lane
Broxbourne Mill. This is a Domesday site and the mill was working as a corn mill into the 1890s.  The first known owners of the mill were the Knights of St John of Jerusalem and at the reformation it was passed to a local miller.  From 1919 it was used to produce auxiliary power through the use of a water turbine, The mill and its cottage were burnt down in 1949 when it was being used by an engineering firm.  A stretch of wall in 16th brick survived - - the only such known in Hertfordshire. There are also some remains of the water turbine. Lee Valley Regional Park Authority commissioned Mill Green Forge, at Hatfield to repair the low breast mill wheel and the wooden paddles were replaced with plastic and two old oak sluice gates have been replaced.
Old Mill Retreat café
Leabrook. 17th timber frame house covered in stucco
Level crossing for the railway.  Until 1909 when the new railway bridge was opened all traffic between Broxbourne and Nazeing had to come this way
Broxbourne Bridge. This carried the Old Nazeing Road over the Lea Navigation and was a toll bridge. The Hertfordshire and Essex boundary ran down the middle of it.

Nazeing New Road
Dogleg brick viaduct built in 1909.  From the east the road approaches it over 14 brick arches and at the top it is met by another road on brick arches coming from Broxbourne Mill  - which was required because of grazing rights. The roads then corss the mill stream (the River Lea) and the Lea Navigation, then two railway lines alongside the station, and then the New River.  Along its length the road is narrow and has high brick parapets. This road was built to replace the old tolled crossing on the bridge by The Crown pub.
Lafarge Broxbourne. Readymix site at Dobbs Weir Pit.
Lee Valley Park, Riverside Car Park entrance, Dramatic with a series of brick half circular edifices.
Nazeing Glass. The works was opened here in 1928 by the Kempton family relocating from Southwark. In the 1880s the family had owned The Albert Glass Works in Vauxhall Walk and after the First World War various branches of the family had glass works, mainly in south London. The factory specialises in glass pressing and glass blowing in clear and coloured glass – including glass pavement blocks, bulkheads, wall blocks, railway signal lenses, marine lighting, runway lenses, exterior light fittings, street lighting, laboratory glass, and there is an onsite glass museum.
Rusheymead

New River
The river flows past the church yard and there is a sluice gate past a transformer station which is in Station Road.  It goes under an iron bridge of 1868, under another in front of the church and then another from 1841.

Old Nazeing Road
Broxbourne Lido. Opened in 1971 as a part of the Lea Valley Park leisure complex. I was built on a gravel mound but was an indoor pool despite the name. It was renamed Lee Valley Leisure Pool and closed in 2008 and has been demolished.
Lee Valley Boating Centre. This was The Old Mill Boathouse and Boatyard which belonged to Harry Sykes but is now run by the Regional Park
Broxbourne Rowing Club. Founded here in 1847 but after the Second World War there was a decline in rowing so the club merged with the Sailing Club and became known as the Broxbourne Yacht Club. But the sailing section grew and when the clubhouse caught fire in the late 1960s they built a new clubhouse for themselves on their new gravel pit site. The rowing section and the cruising section combined and built a new clubhouse and again became Broxbourne Rowing Club incorporating Broxbourne Cruising Club. This was opened in 2011.
Crown Pub. The current building dates from the 1930s although it was an 18th pub site. The previous building had extensive gardens, a masonic lodge and other attractions
St Augustine's parish church. This dates from the 14th and is a large plain church of stone and flint with a battlemented tower and an octagonal turret with a clock and eight bells. Around the parapet it says “Pray for the welfayr of Sir Wyllyam Say knyght wych fodyd yis chapel in honor a ye trenete the yer of our Lord God 1522." And it is thought that Say rebuilt the earlier church on the site. It was ‘restored’ in the 1880s by J.Clarke. Inside are memorials to John Macadam, roads builder, and to Edward Fletcher, brother of Fletcher Christian, of the Bounty.
Churchyard. There are at least 1,500 graves – some of which are of architectural interest. There is an ornamental gate thought to have been built in 1856-7 by J Clarke. It is part of a flint wall and over wooden gates is a large wrought iron lamp arch spiralled with scrolls.

River Lee
Known as the Mill Stream on this stretch – this is one of the remaining loops of the natural river.

River Lee Navigation
A sluice separated the Mill Stream from the Navigation

Sources
Broxbourne Rowing Club. Web site
Carr and Smith. Industrial archaeology of Hertford and the Lea Valley
Crown. Web site
Essex Lopresti. The New River
Lea Valley Park. Web site
Lewis. London's Lea Valley
St. Augustine's. Web site

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