Following The River Lee - Rye House Gatehouse to the end of The Lee Navigation at Hertford.

This final section about the the River Lee includes Ware Town and parts of the New River.

Rye House Gatehouse.

Just a short distance from the Weir the Lee Navigation passes the remains of Sir Andrew Ogard's Rye House Gatehouse. This Grade 1 listed building was built around 1443 and is one of the first brick-built buildings in England. The manor house is famous for the Rye House Plot of 1683 - a conspiracy to assassinate King Charles II and his brother the Duke of York.
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The Lee Navigation and The New River - Southern England.

The 20 mile long New River was designed to provide London with drinking water which it mostly took from The River Lee but also from various springs - New River was opened in 1613. New River starts just over a mile away from Hertford at New Gauge Intake House and initially goes at right angles away from The Lee Navigation crossing Meads Nature Reserve and then turns sharp left and follows the contours (and the railway line for a while) as it sets off via Ware, Stanstead Abbots and Broxbourne before eventually ending up at Stoke Newington.
There is generally a good path alongside New River and several nice circular walks are possible particularly between Hertford and Broxbourne by using both The Lee Navigation and New River.

Built in 1856 to control the water flow allowed into New River,

New Gauge Intake House

is a really beautiful building and there are also several pump houses and so on to be seen along this part of the route. Lots of ducks, swans, coots, moorhen etc. live on New River so if going for a walk don't forget to take them some bread. One other inhabitant of interest particularly on the stretch between the start and Ware are the quite large crayfish living in the river and there are often quite a few people with their bits of spam tied to string trying to get them.

Narrowboats over 40 feet long need to do their winding above Folly Bridge by the Basin - under 40 footers need to turn just before Mill Bridge and much smaller craft can turn at Mill Bridge. Hertford Castle (Norman) no longer hardly exists - the Gatehouse is sort of known as Hertford Castle these days and is used by the Town Council for offices. There are however some parts of the old castle walls as well as a nice Castle Gate still to be seen in the grounds (which are mostly grassed but do have some flower beds) and also a few bench seats to use.