Graffiti Art – Hertford Union Canal & River Lee Navigation

Great place to walk the dogs, especially at night when you may be treated to a display of bats (although these aren’t right by the graffiti they are close by).
The canal boats around the area are lovely as are the inhabitants.
The only thing that lets the canal down is there are no dog bins, and too few litter bins. Unfortunate given a lot of rubbish ends up chucked in the canal.

I enjoy this area very much too and luckily stay just down the road. Its great for long walks when the weather is good and you can also pop in to Fat Cat’s at Bow Wharf for a beer.
The way I normally get to the canal is from White Post Lane. Although they’ve closed the road/​bridge to traffic, due to the Olympic development, you can still access the canals by foot.
As a matter of interest, two of the pieces you put pictures up of were done by a local artist called Mantis. The one is the bird seeing a vulture as his reflection and the other is the one of Ronald McDonald eating a human. there wasn’t the question mark on mcdonalds head before– that’s new. Its in pink so might have been SweetToof?

The junction of these two canals, close to Victoria Park, is another hot spot for Street/​Graffiti art. Some has been there for years (Banksy’s Baby With Blocks is here), but this year a lot of new stuff has gone up as well, so there’s usually something new whenever I go by. Please look at the pictures: I’ll give location details on each.
Access isn’t straightforward. For one thing I usually come quite a distance along the canal so I’m not too sure of where you can get on around here, especially with the work for the Olympics closing off vast areas to the East. I usually drop onto the Hertford from Victoria Park via the gate at Gunmaker’s Lane. The park side of this will only be open during daylight of course. Also right by the junction of the two canals there’s a bridge over from the new housing developments around Roach Road (lovely name). I think there’s access from the East side of the bridge at White Post Lane (close to Hackney Wick Station). The West side of this bridge (Carpenters Lane) is now closed as part of the Olympic site development. Finally you can walk down from Hackney Marshes.
Though a little inaccessible and down on a canal side, it’s actually a very nice place to walk with a well-​tended towpath. You do have to watch out a bit for speeding bikes but folks are friendly and include families and oldsters taking a stroll. You may also find lots of barges tied up waiting for the locks on Hertford Union.