Abbey Mills Pumping Station

About this record

By the time the sewers have made their way across London to Abbey Mills they are 40 feet below ground. The system uses gravity to move the waste water down to Beckton so somewhere along the route everything needs to be lifted. Joseph Bazalgette built one of his “Cathedral of the Marshes” on what was open land in east London.

Victorian sewermen. Courtesy Thames Water.

Working with architect Charles Driver and engineer Edmund Cooper they created what is believed to be a way of announcing to the world one of the great feats of Victorian engineering that would otherwise remain mostly hidden below ground.

I was lucky to spend some time with Gerry Sullivan who looks after the building and he took the time to tell me the history of the site and how 150 years after it was built Abbey Mills is still in operation today.