Ep. 6 Rewind: A River Used to Run Through It

What a crazy week! Share Your Care campaign is in full swing and Restore the Coves has received over 150 votes in less then a week’s time!!! Thank you everyone for supporting, let’s keep it going through till August 14^th and really do something great for London and the Coves. Keep voting everyday and share with everyone how he or she can support the cause and help! To close out the week here at The Cove Life, I felt this would be an appropriate time to provide a brief history (or rather geography, I suppose) lesson in the creation of the special area we now know as the Coves.

So what brought the coves into existence? How did London become graced with this horseshoe shaped collection of three small bodies of water? Today, walking along the banks of any of the coves ponds you can see a collection of wildlife, flowers, insects and various habitats all made possible by this particularly special and unique landform. What, however was the means of its creation?

Made up of the East, West and South ponds, the Coves are the remains of what was a large looping meander in the Thames River. Referred to as oxbow ponds, these 3 small bodies of water were once one oxbow lake, abandoned naturally by the flow of water and left to form the specialized communities that now lie in south London.  

The formation of the oxbow lake that would later form the Coves is the result of erosion and deposition over time by the actions of the water flowing through the Thames. At bends in the rivers course, the effects of erosion on the outside bank and deposition on the inside bank of the curves cause the change in the rivers shape over time.  In the case of the Coves, the loop of the meander over time became wider and wider as the neck narrowed, eventually to where it disappeared all together and the water cut a straight path across what was the neck of the meander.

For a time the land inside the former bend in the river was an island completely surrounded by water. The original meander now connected at the neck then begins its transformation to an oxbow lake.

To become its own independent body of water the central branch of the Thames had to abandon the old course all together from the main flow of water. This was accomplished again by the action of deposition of silt and material by water passing through on the new and more efficient course the river had cut itself.  Silt deposition at the start and exit of the oxbow built up over time, closed off and isolated the U-shaped oxbow lake. Separating it from the main river flow.  This is where we first see the creation of the coves we see today. A U-shaped body of water isolated from the main branch of the Thames.  The further transformation to the 3 ponds we see today is the result of continued silt collection from land run off and human involvement & land development; development for recreational space, homes and roadways.  This process has taken over 200 years to bring the Coves to where they are today, a unique and important part of London both geographically and historically for not only the people of London but for the ecological and environmental community.