Major traffic disruption will affect the South Circular for the next two weeks as workers repair a collapsed sewer. The affected stretch of London Road runs between Sydenham Hill and Dartmouth Road – the section containing the Horniman Museum. No cause for the collapse is suggested, though over-imaginative news bloggers cannot rule out a desperate escape bid from the fish of the Horniman’s aquarium.

Descending the ladder at Thames Water’s Wick Lane depot, we waited for the aroma to hit. But we had been accurately briefed. There really was no honk, just a subtle waft of turd. The main unpleasantness was communicated through our feet. Attempting to walk thigh deep in sewerage, over a spongy carpet of gunk, in overly buoyant waders, against the flow of shit was not a simple or pleasant experience. The first tentative steps were a battle not to stumble. We haven’t paid such attention to our personal locomotion since toddling days.

After a while, we found our feet and began our feculent march upstream. Wick Lane is one of the great sewerage meeting points, where the detritus of north London combines into the five parallel chambers of the Northern Outfall, and thence to the epic treatment works at Beckton. These tunnels carry the entire anal output of Hampstead, the urine and flush of every toilet from Tottenham to Fulham and every slip of paper blessed by the bums of north London. Fortunately for us, the system also drains from the baths, washing machines, showers and streets of the city, greatly diluting what would otherwise be an intolerable mulch.

Thames Water flushers – the guys who maintain our sewers – provided an insightful commentary about the history and upkeep of these amenities. One of the biggest challenges is the accumulation of cooking fat. Washed thoughtlessly down a million kitchen sinks, the immiscible waste clumps together in the sewers where it can cause serious blockages.

The 150-year-old brickwork really is in architectural treasure, one that was built at great cost yet is rarely seen. But the current system, still largely Victorian, is inadequate for London’s future. Even now, waste must be pumped untreated into the river several times a year, lest it back up into people’s homes. In response, Thames Water are investing in big projects such as a new tunnel along the length of the Thames and major upgrades to treatment works.

After clambering back up to the surface, we were taken to the Abbey Mills Pumping Station near West Ham. This gorgeous mish-mash of architectural whims is a relic of an era when even the most mundane of civic buildings could be constructed in an ornate, exotic style. Although it has diminished in importance, Abbey Mills still functions as an operational station. Its history has been described elsewhere, so we’ll leave you to click through the gallery above for a photo tour.

With thanks to the staff of Thames Water for taking the time to show us the beauty and the dirt of their unique workplace.

Words by M@ Brown, pictures by Dean Nicholas.

]]> “It’s not really all that smelly,” we were assured, as we kitted up for the sewers. A plastic suit, rubber gloves, safety helmet and a fetching pair of waders might keep our clothes clean, but what of our noses? We were about to descend into the Northern Outfall Sewer, the throbbing aorta of Joseph Bazalgette’s Victorian network of tunnels. You might know it as the Greenway – the pedestrian track that runs through the Olympic site. After wading through the torrent of waste beneath, we now know it as the Brownway.

Descending the ladder at Thames Water’s Wick Lane depot, we waited for the aroma to hit. But we had been accurately briefed. There really was no honk, just a subtle waft of turd. The main unpleasantness was communicated through our feet. Attempting to walk thigh deep in sewerage, over a spongy carpet of gunk, in overly buoyant waders, against the flow of shit was not a simple or pleasant experience. The first tentative steps were a battle not to stumble. We haven’t paid such attention to our personal locomotion since toddling days.

After a while, we found our feet and began our feculent march upstream. Wick Lane is one of the great sewerage meeting points, where the detritus of north London combines into the five parallel chambers of the Northern Outfall, and thence to the epic treatment works at Beckton. These tunnels carry the entire anal output of Hampstead, the urine and flush of every toilet from Tottenham to Fulham and every slip of paper blessed by the bums of north London. Fortunately for us, the system also drains from the baths, washing machines, showers and streets of the city, greatly diluting what would otherwise be an intolerable mulch.

Thames Water flushers – the guys who maintain our sewers – provided an insightful commentary about the history and upkeep of these amenities. One of the biggest challenges is the accumulation of cooking fat. Washed thoughtlessly down a million kitchen sinks, the immiscible waste clumps together in the sewers where it can cause serious blockages.

The 150-year-old brickwork really is in architectural treasure, one that was built at great cost yet is rarely seen. But the current system, still largely Victorian, is inadequate for London’s future. Even now, waste must be pumped untreated into the river several times a year, lest it back up into people’s homes. In response, Thames Water are investing in big projects such as a new tunnel along the length of the Thames and major upgrades to treatment works.

After clambering back up to the surface, we were taken to the Abbey Mills Pumping Station near West Ham. This gorgeous mish-mash of architectural whims is a relic of an era when even the most mundane of civic buildings could be constructed in an ornate, exotic style. Although it has diminished in importance, Abbey Mills still functions as an operational station. Its history has been described elsewhere, so we’ll leave you to click through the gallery above for a photo tour.

With thanks to the staff of Thames Water for taking the time to show us the beauty and the dirt of their unique workplace.

Words by M@ Brown, pictures by Dean Nicholas.

]]> http://londonist.com/2010/05/a_tour_of_abbey_mills_pumping_stati.php/feed 5 http://londonist.com/2009/05/the_saturday_strangeness_48.php http://londonist.com/2009/05/the_saturday_strangeness_48.php#comments Sat, 23 May 2009 15:00:00 +0000 NeilA http://londonist.com/?p=12860 109. All Creatures… Bizarre, Great & Small

It is said that in London you’re never more than five feet away from a rat at all times, a rather ghastly statistic if ever there was one. But consider the legend of King Rat, as mentioned in Rickard & Michell’s fascinating book Living Wonders, in which they mention:

Workers in London sewers tell of rare sightings of the King Rat,a huge creature, paler than the rest, attended by a bodyguard of other large rats. On his appearance the ordinary rats become silent and motionless.

A scary thought indeed that some monstrous rodent lurks beneath our city conducting armies of thousands of pesky vermin to take to our streets, but goodness knows what lurks in the darkest corners. Consider the tale of strange tale from 1717, when a J. Petiver described a peculiar butterfly that had been captured on Hampstead Heath. It became known as Albin’s Hamsptead Eye, a beautiful butterfly discovered by a Mr Albin. Such was this extraordinary find that many experts believed the insect to be a freak or hybrid until it was then discovered, living in huge numbers many years later, in East Asia and Australia! Proof that a variety of strange creatures can roam the capital despite the human congestion.

Scorpions have been found living healthily at London Docks. No real mystery when we consider that the rabbit, grey squirrel and domestic cat have over many, many years become settled inhabitants of our woods and homes.

As the natural world becomes engulfed by the shadows of concrete jungles, we should always require the need for mystery within the animal kingdom, and hope that out there somewhere, even in the hustle and bustle of London, there lurk creatures we know nothing of.

Photo by _PaulS_ on flickr

67. Subterranean Dwellers

As a child I was always peeping from the stairs at the latest horror movie my mum and dad had hired. One such shocker was the 1972 Brit-flick ‘Deathline’, also known as ‘Raw Meat’, which concerned the horrific rumour that a race of cannibals were existing under the streets of London, and their acts of carnage taken out on all manner of victims such as tramps, drunks, city workers and pets. Author Michael Goss looked into the legend on several occasions and concluded that although primal or neglected humans may not be loitering in the underground, belief in such dwellers was indeed once rife.

The sewers and disused tunnels beneath the capital are a world away from the hustle and bustle of the city. As tourists flock to commercialism, workers rush to their towering blocks of business, and shoppers scuttle like rats to their next retail high, below their feet is alleged to exist a seedy, brutal world beyond the imagination of mundanity.

As Goss stated with regards to whispers of underground dwellers, “They are not representatives of the desperate, homeless poor, nor are they thrill-seeking interlopers indulging in the frisson that comes from being where they are not supposed to be… the London subterraneans are real troglodytes, born and bred down below and seldom if ever coming to the surface.”

Of course, these secretive souls, who feed on the food we don’t want as well as animals such as mice and rats, and as eerie murmurs have it, the occasional human victim, have never been sighted. Is that because they exist as mere urban legend, or because the London above them is completely oblivious to their existence?

No-one knows exactly when the rumours began to circulate with reference to these underbelly prowlers. What we do know however is that such ‘people’ are known to roam the sewers, the London Underground, railway tunnels and just about any black hole they can find to shelter and conceal themselves. They have their own guttural language, they are known to be aggressive when encountered… even though legend states no-one has seen them, but such ideas tweak at our fears, because we know that despite travelling on ghastly, claustrophobic tubes, we are not folk accustomed to the dark, dingy confines of London, or indeed any other city’s grimy underside, and that’s where these cultural dreads always hide, and sometimes… but only sometimes… they crawl like vermin into the backs of our minds and cause panic, until once again they sink below, where we first created them.

Image by Mr. J Doe on flickr

• Thames Water chase quick buck with luxury flats over super sewer

Image courtesy of Stu_Egan via the Londonist flickr group.