THE OLYMPIC PARK; NINE YEARS ON, IT’S GREATEST LEGACY IS THE PARK ITSELF
I can pinpoint the moment that I knew that the London Olympics were going to be great. James Bond was in Buckingham Palace meeting the Queen. It had to be a lookalike, didn’t it? And then she turned round and it really was the Queen.
On July 27 2012 900 million people worldwide watched the Olympic Opening Ceremony. For the few preceding years we London Blue Badge Guides had been doing tours around Stratford and Bow in east London, where the Olympic Park had risen from the polluted soil. Could a park really be created from the toxic soil where old refrigerators had been sent to die?
The idea of hosting the Olympics in East London wasn’t new. You only have to watch Bob Hoskins in the 1980 film Long Good Friday standing in a derelict Canary Wharf telling a potential Mafia investor “we could hold the 1988 Olympic Games here”. They went to Seoul.
The River Lea was where industrial London began. Raw materials came from all over the world into the nearby London docks and were then transported by train to factories all over the country. The rail lands in Stratford was where everything was made for those railways, the tracks, the tickets, the cutlery for the dining cars, everything and it left a cocktail of pollutants embedded in the soil so toxic that the land became unusable.
This was where industry was at its smelliest. Bow was home to the slaughterhouses; animal by-products were used to make bone china, soap and glue. When the wind was in the wrong direction the smell was unbearable. There were gin distilleries, the sugar bakeries refining sugar, the Bryant and May match factory. And we guides learnt so much from our clients. I’ll never forget one woman telling me of her great grandfather who’d worked at Bryant and May and, like so many, had died prematurely from “phossy jaw”, caused by the yellow phosphorus in the matches. Being Irish Catholics they had a wake; his body glowed in the dark in his coffin.
At the 2012 games it felt like the stars were in alignment. It was the year of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee year. Her granddaughter, Zara Philips, won a silver medal in the horse-riding in Greenwich which had been made a Royal Borough that year. In 2012 Bradley Wiggins not only became the first Briton to win the Tour de France, he also won a gold medal for team GB, presented to him in front of Hampton Court Palace. David Beckham, a local boy and a crucial part of the original bid team, brought the Olympic torch along the River Thames to the River Lea and the Stadium in the opening ceremony. (He went to the same school just a few miles from the park as the present England football captain Harry Kane.) Andy Murray not only won Wimbledon that year, he also won the men’s tennis Olympic gold medal there. The marathons finished in front of Buckingham Palace. Even the beach volleyball had an historic setting on Horseguards Parade, where Henry VIII had once jousted.
The Olympic Park also hosted the most successful Paralympic Games in history with a string of firsts, the first where every event was televised, the first to be totally sold out, the first on a completely accessible park. It was in 1948, on the opening day of the last Olympic Games to be held in London, that a German Jewish refugee, Dr Ludwig Guttmann, encouraged disabled World War 2 veterans to take part in sport. The movement that became the Paralympics was born.
However, the reason we won the bid in 2005 wasn’t so much about a few weeks of sport, it was the promise of long-term transformation that the Games could offer East London, one of the most deprived parts of the country. We were promised a legacy that no previous Olympics had achieved. So what does the Park have to offer today and has that promise been fulfilled?
The legacy of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park (QEOP)
The greatest legacy of the 2012 games is the park itself. It is the largest new park created in Europe in over 150 years and the best landscape and planting designers were involved from the beginning.
Sustainability was at the core of our Olympic promise. When we won the bid in 2005 one of the first things to be done was to wash the soil to rid it of pollutants. The river Lea was cleaned and a new lock built close to the Park to prevent the flooding to which this area had previously been vulnerable. Landscape designer Noel KIngsbury said of it:
“We found the character for the Olympic Park and made it meaningful through rescuing the River Lea from the bottom of a deep polluted channel. We pulled back its banks to make it more visible and accessible, and increased the amount of green space in the Park. It works as an environmental system: reusing and recycling material from previous land uses; creating generous and diverse habitats; saving 4,500 homes nearby from flood risk, and incorporating renewable energy.”
It’s a thoroughly modern park using naturalistic planting with wild flowers and grasses rather than formal beddings. This is a space that invites us all, young and old, to come and play. There are no signs telling people how to behave. There are few fences, not even around the park itself which is open 24 hours a day.
The Park is separated into north and south, the north springing from the old industrialised waterway and south recreating a series of 8 ‘outdoor rooms’ , sort of 21st century pleasure gardens, each with its own distinctive feel. Throughout the park are further innovative and distinctive areas:
· The native wildflower meadows to the south of the park create a new style of planting blending flowering perennials and grasses.
· The 2012 gardens are a celebration of 4 biodiverse plant habitats where ‘plant communities’ rather than a series on individual and segregated plants.
· The Waterglades, a wetlands walk, is one of my favourite areas where a large wetland bowl has been created out of the river path allowing the harvested water to be cleaned, treated and reused. It has an extraordinary diversity of wildlife such as dragonflies, water voles, herons, goldfinches and ducks.
· The eight outdoor rooms near the London Stadium include a wonderful and well used water labyrinth, stadium style wooden steps and inventive children’s play areas.
· The Great British Garden, in the shadow of the Stadium, was designed by 2 amateur gardeners, winners of an RHS competition with a planting scheme of bronze, silver and gold.
· A new addition in 2021 is the Blossom Garden. It has 33 tree representing each of the London boroughs and is planted with cherry, cherryplum, crab apple and hawthorne trees that will blossom in the Spring. This is London’s memorial garden to the victims of the Covid pandemic.
· The Tumbling Bay has a gradually graded series of naturalistic children’s play areas, stunningly and imaginatively designed.
· Climbing walls are just some of the outdoor equipment available to anyone.
· The Olympic Bell, struck by cyclist Bradley Wiggins to mark the beginning of the 2012 Opening Ceremony now has a permanent home on the park. It was forged at the nearby Whitechapel Bell Foundry where Big Ben and the Liberty Bell has also been cast.
The permanent venues on the park are very much in use for elite and grassroots sport and the connectivity of Stratford makes the QEOP one of the best connected public transport hubs in the capital. During the Games every visitor was given a one day travel card along with their ticket and all travel was by public transport alone.
Zaha Hadid’s Aquatic Centre is one of the stars of the park. This is the pool were Michael Phelps became the most decorated Olympian of all time. Its three pools have some of the best community swimming facilities in the country at the same price as leisure centre pools. Sessions are held for all levels from total beginners of all ages to swimmers at competition level. You can learn to dive in the same pool where Tom Daley trains and in term time the pools are used by local schools.
The Velodrome and the Velopark. The velodrome is such an elegant building. Designed by Michael Hopkins, the double curve of the roof mirrors the bulge and drop of the racetrack. It has natural light and ventilation and in keeping with the sustainability stategy of the rest of the park, the rainwater is harvested from the roof. All skill levels from absolute beginners to elite cyclists can book to use the Velodrome track, the BMX and the cycling track. Or you could have a coffee in the 42 degrees café and watch the track in use. Take a look at the 2012 medals tables by the lifts and you’ll see that cycling was one of the great successes of the Games starting a cycling revolution in London.
The Copper Box was built for the handball and many of the Paralympic sports in 2012 and the first ever Invictus Games in 2014. The most versatile of the venues, today it is a state-of-the-art gym and fitness centre and is home to the London Lions basketball team, the Lonodn Titans wheelchair basketball team as well as local netball, handball and futsal teams. It’s also used by 20 local sports clubs,20 local schools as well as many local community groups.
The Lea Valley Hockey and Tennis Centre, just to the north of the park at Eton Manor, offers sessions for all levels.
The London Stadium was the site of Danny Boyle’s incredible creative tour de force, the opening Ceremony. It’s on youtube in all its inventive and eccentric glory. Today it home to local team West Ham or the Hammers, named in reference to their origins as the team of the Thames Ironworks.
Future Projects
2022 will see the opening of the first phase of an ambitious cultural and educational collaboration between the BBC, University College London, the V&A, UAL’s London College of Fashion and Sadlers Wells called East Bank. Construction is well underway and the project will add to the many bit names that have already moved to the Park. This will get a blog of it’s own as it’s a fascinating project the like of which hasn’t been seen in London since the Great Exhibition of 1851 and its legacy in South Kensington.
Visit
The QEOP is a real success story of urban regeneration, using a sporting event as a catalyst for lasting and thoughtful change bringing huge benefit to the local community. There’s so much more to tell you and show you but I have to stop somewhere! A visit to the park works on so many levels. It’s a stunning, 21st century park that’s great fun to visit because it was designed with users in mind. It’s also an inspiring example of urban regeneration in action. There are so many things I haven’t mentioned, not least of all the housing but watch this space. In the meantime, just go and enjoy the park.
With thanks to proof-reader and Blue Badge Guide Liz Rubenstein and Garden Designer and Planting Consultant and Blue Badge Guide Isabel Wrench of lovingyourgarden.com.
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