The Barking Flood Barrier is one of the most impressive sights in the Creekmouth and Thames Ward area. Standing tall above Barking Creek, where the Roding meets the Thames, the Barrier was designed and built between 1979 and 1983 by architect G. T. Bone and engineers Binnie and Partners. The barrier itself is 38 metres wide and weighs almost 300 tons, held aloft between two 40 metre high towers – tall enough to allow large boats up the River Roding to Barking at high tide.
If any floods are forecast it would take 45 minutes for the main barrier and the smaller gates at either side to descend, moving at about a centimetre a second. As part of the wider Thames defences, the barrier has been designed to protect from major floods that might be seen once in a thousand years. This would certainly have come in useful when Creekmouth was severely flooded in 1953.
Dominating the riverscape from Creekmouth Open Space, the barrier is now managed by The Environment Agency.