Down the Lea: Tottenham Lock to Lea Bridge

Served by the Victoria line and trains from Liverpool Street and Stansted. Look out for the mural of the old River Lea ferry on the Victoria line platforms, a reminder of the crossing that gave Ferry Lane outside its name.

Leave the station and turn left along Ferry Lane, heading east towards the river. Tottenham Lock is about five minutes' walk away, among the new riverside flats.

Lock No. 17 on the River Lee Navigation is a paired lock: two chambers side by side, big enough for barges of up to 130 tons. It was moved here from nearer Stonebridge when the new cut was dug. Pause on the bridge to watch a narrowboat work through if one's coming.

Turn right down the cobbled ramp onto the towpath and head south, with the water on your left. Over the next half-hour you'll pass under two railway bridges and alongside Markfield Park, with its Victorian beam-engine house. Then come the moorings of Springfield Marina, dug out of an old loop of the river in 1970. Across the water, Walthamstow Marshes stretch away to the east.

Just past Springfield Park, right on the towpath, is one of Fuller's smallest pubs, a riverside beerhouse built in 1851, when this bank was home to watermen, bargemen and dyers. It has been a single room since a dividing wall came down in 1962. CAMRA lists its little interior as being of special national historic interest. Look up at the pub's name carved in stone above the corner door.

It's a proper local, full of regulars and people from the boats moored outside. The tiny bar fills fast, and everyone wants a bench by the water anyway. Fuller's London Pride and ESB are the regulars. A neighbouring pub, the Robin Hood, once ran the High Hill Ferry across the river; it was demolished in 2001.

No food, and on weekdays it's closed until 1pm.

Carry on south along the towpath for about ten minutes, then step off to the right into North Millfields, the northern part of Millfields Park. The fields here were named after the corn and timber mills that once stood by the river, and were laid out as a public recreation ground in the 1880s.

Its past is a mixed one: this part was once a brickfield, where diggers turned up fossil bones of woolly rhino and elephant in the 19th century. Clapton Orient, today's Leyton Orient, played football close by in the early 1900s. Now it's broad, open grass lined with avenues of mature plane trees, and a Local Wildlife Site. There's a playground and toilets in the north-west corner.

Wander across the grass towards Lea Bridge Road and the river; lunch is at the corner.

Where Lea Bridge Road crosses the river stands a pub that has been here since at least 1851. It was the Prince of Wales until 1997, when it was renamed. Lea Bridge Road is the traditional dividing line between Upper and Lower Clapton, and the borough boundary with Waltham Forest runs down the middle of the river right outside.

It's now a Young's pub with a smartened-up interior, but the big draw is its large terrace on the water, by the moored narrowboats. Expect pub classics, burgers and a Sunday roast, with Young's ales plus guests; book for Sunday lunch.

Getting home: Clapton station (Overground) is about 10 minutes' walk west up Lea Bridge Road, or take a 48, 55 or 56 bus.