You’ll find activities provided as part of the boat festival (Friday evening river-side barbeque / Saturday afternoon themed boat parade and boat handling competition / Saturday evening quiz / Sunday river-side boaters’ service and “coffee and cakes”) but plenty else to see and do as the boat festival runs alongside the wider Ware Festival activities. The river has played a key part in the development of the town, in particular providing a means of transport for agricultural products – especially malted grains from the 140 malthouses of the 19thcentury – into the heart of London, but before then represented a boundary between the Danelaw and Anglo Saxon lands and – further back still – provided a crossing point of the River Lea for the Roman Ermine Street.