Originally Posted by
STDragon 
Sao, your pictures remind me of Winnipeg in 1950. (This is why Duff's ditch was built).
Attachment 32006 The Thames Flood Barrier (the photo below which is not mine) was open about 33 years ago and it was said that it would only be needed once in a blue moon but thanks to global warming it is now raised several times every year and a new one will be needed soon.
The regents canal was built to satisfy London's voracious appetite for coal at the beginning if the 19th century. Unfortunately for its owners the railways were invented soon after completion but coal barges, although slower, could carry a lot more so it survived but was not the financial bonanza its owners were hoping for.
For many years - up until the mid 1990s it was semi derelict and the haunt of drug users and dealers. You would not have seen me running along the towpath.