Report (Permission Visit) Abbey Mills Pumping Station, East London, September, 2011 - UK Urban Exploration Forums. I visited the Abbey Mills Pumping station after I was kindly given a ticket to visit this place.
It was one of Joseph Bazalgette’s sewage pumping stations built after the Great Stink of London in the Victorian age in an epic Byzantium design. Built in East London to deal with North London’s waste, it has a twin pumping station south of the River Thames at Crossness. A Grade 2* listed building, it still operates after 150 years after it was constructed. An impressive building to visit inside and outside, some of it was used in Batman Begins and for a music video for a-ha! Pictures:Outside and around the main building: Inside the pumping station. Abbey Mills Pumping Station. London sewerage system. The new Abbey Mills Pumping Station The London sewerage system is part of the water infrastructure serving London, England.
The modern system was developed during the late 19th century, and as London has grown the system has been expanded. It is currently owned and operated by Thames Water and serves almost all of Greater London. History[edit] River Thames around 1840 Interior of the Octagon at Crossness showing its elaborate decorative ironwork, which was heavily influenced by Moorish imagery The original Abbey Mills pumping station During the early 19th century the River Thames was an open sewer, with disastrous consequences for public health in London, including cholera epidemics.
The intercepting sewers, constructed between 1859 and 1865, were fed by 450 miles (720 km) of main sewers that, in turn, conveyed the contents of some 13,000 miles (21,000 km) of smaller local sewers. Modern development needs[edit] Thames Tideway Scheme[edit] 285 - London's Lost Rivers. LOH Building Details. Underground London. Hering_lon-sewer_1882. London-sewerage map. 1882 from Rudolf Hering, Sewerage Works in Europe.
Abby Mills Pumping Station. Abbey Mills Pumping Station A fun part of living in England is finding obscure and interesting places to visit that would not be on the itinerary of most tourists (and, indeed, not visited by most English folks either.)
A recent visit was to the Abbey Mills sewage pumping station, pictured above. I visited on a class field trip in a course entitled "The Slum and the Sewer in Victorian London". It was a fascinating class, and my fellow students were a most interesting, convivial lot, genuinely interested in the subject. I could go on about London sewers (and will, at the slightest provocation), but I won't now. This building, built by engineer Joseph Bazalgette to pump sewage, was nothing less than a temple of sewage. Subterranean London…Mapped! View Larger Map Cold War bunkers, abandoned Tube stations, buried rivers, deep level shelters…London’s concealed features are among its most intriguing.
So, in age-old Londonist tradition, we’ve created a map to try and show what a hollow city this is. And we need your help. We’ve plotted the more obvious features – the Fleet River, Zone 1 ghost stations, the Kingsway telephone exchange, etc. But we know there’s a lot more down there. . (1) We only plot places that the general public cannot normally gain access to. (2) Working Tube and train lines are not shown. (3) Only spaces big enough to comfortably accommodate a person are included – ruling out some sewers and telecommunication ducts. (4) A few other places we know about (e.g.
London Sewers and how they were built - Marion Hearfield. This is the story of how 18th century London tried to keep its streets clean and its houses fragrant.
I came across the newspaper reports when researching Swaledale dairy farmers - it is astonishing where the internet will take you - and I thought 'I didn't know that! '. There were also some reports which made this normally clean-living grandmother think 'I wish I hadn't know that' but I kept going. It was getting too good to miss. Until now, my research has been about Swaledale in the 19thC, and I have written a series of essays investigating the decrease in the dale's population.
I then started tracking down the cowkeepers who moved from the Yorkshire Dales to supply milk to Liverpool households, towards the end of the 1900s. London's super sewer plans - map of the route. 1930_bmm302.