Although the newly constructed Limehouse Cut could save vessels time navigating down Bow Creek and around the Isle of Dogs, its performance was suboptimal.
 Unusually, it was a tidal canal.
 It could be short of water and liable to shoal.


At the northern end of the Cut was a conflict with a property called Four Mills: in fact, a group of five tidal water wheels.
 Nathaniel Beardmore, the Lee trustees' engineer, described the conflict as it was in early Victorian times:
The Four Mills Head has always formed part of the navigation of the River Lee, but as the water was the common property of so many [other] mills [as well], it became, systematically, a race, after each period of high water, which of them should draw the fastest, and practically, the result was always in favour of the Four Mills, which had five large wheels, with the greatest fall and the largest head-channel ... Under these circumstances, the interest of the proprietor of the Four Mills was entirely adverse to any regularity of navigation below Old Ford Lock; for in the Four Mills Head, unless barges could travel during about one hour of high water, they were constantly liable to take the ground when the water was lowered by the working of the mills; and, as the Limehouse Cut depended entirely on the tidal water, and was not navigable at neaps, there were frequently intervals of some days, during which there was no means of affording a passage to the Thames.

 At an 1850 inquiry by William Cubitt it was explained that because the Cut was unnavigable for four or five days at neap tides, barges had no way out to the Thames except via Bow Creek (which was toll free).
 Hence the tolls were lost.

The Cut had no locks except at either end—despite the fall in the land, which was 17½ feet.
 The shallowest point was therefore critical.
 "Limehouse Cut had always occasioned a great deal of trouble", added Beardmore, "on account of the water falling short, and of the slipping of the moving sands and gravel, which lay where the London clay was denuded".
 No systematic attempt to improve the navigation was made until the Victorian era.
Although the newly constructed Limehouse Cut could save vessels time navigating down Bow Creek and around the Isle of Dogs, its performance was suboptimal.  Unusually, it was a tidal canal.  It could be short of water and liable to shoal.

At the northern end of the Cut was a conflict with a property called Four Mills: in fact, a group of five tidal water wheels.  Nathaniel Beardmore, the Lee trustees' engineer, described the conflict as it was in early Victorian times:
The Four Mills Head has always formed part of the navigation of the River Lee, but as the water was the common property of so many [other] mills [as well], it became, systematically, a race, after each period of high water, which of them should draw the fastest, and practically, the result was always in favour of the Four Mills, which had five large wheels, with the greatest fall and the largest head-channel ... Under these circumstances, the interest of the proprietor of the Four Mills was entirely adverse to any regularity of navigation below Old Ford Lock; for in the Four Mills Head, unless barges could travel during about one hour of high water, they were constantly liable to take the ground when the water was lowered by the working of the mills; and, as the Limehouse Cut depended entirely on the tidal water, and was not navigable at neaps, there were frequently intervals of some days, during which there was no means of affording a passage to the Thames.
 At an 1850 inquiry by William Cubitt it was explained that because the Cut was unnavigable for four or five days at neap tides, barges had no way out to the Thames except via Bow Creek (which was toll free).  Hence the tolls were lost.
The Cut had no locks except at either end—despite the fall in the land, which was 17½ feet.  The shallowest point was therefore critical.  "Limehouse Cut had always occasioned a great deal of trouble", added Beardmore, "on account of the water falling short, and of the slipping of the moving sands and gravel, which lay where the London clay was denuded".  No systematic attempt to improve the navigation was made until the Victorian era.
Limehouse Cut