Lea Jam

From the Times:

Five minutes from the traffic jams, takeaway chains and crowded pavements of Clapton, in east London, you can slip through a small gate onto the banks of the Lea and feel you’re out in the country. Along a cobbled path are moored a dozen old-fashioned barges, and the only sounds are of water lapping gently at their sides and birds twittering in the trees. Unless, that is, you arrive on a rehearsal night.

Technical point: aren't those "barges" really called "longboats"*? Please advise. Then, read on.

*Update, 1/6/09: I meant "narrowboats". Put it down to stress. 

Comments

[Martin McCallion]

You had me worried there for a minute: I thought it was going to be an article on how great the Lea Valley is, and then all our peaceful haunts would've got filled up with West Londoners. But it's more likely to scare them off. Makes me want to hear the band, mind.

Canal boats, narrow boats or houseboats, we tend to say, but I don't know what the proper term is. Barges certainly sounds too industrial.

Aren't longboats what the Vikings used?