Reclaimed land where the Effra meets the Thames.
Big changes have taken place on the Thames at Vauxhall. A new chunk of land has appeared right in front of the MI6 building.
They're calling it the Isle of Effra, a reference to the long-buried river that once met the Thames at this point. Effra Road in Brixton follows part of its course.
The Isle of Effra is not an island. Rather, it's a landscaped nodule on the Vauxhall embankment, as shown in this Google satellite view:
The protuberance is one of several new pieces of embankment created in the wake of the Thames Tideway supersewer project (see also Putney and Chelsea). It sits above a 16-metre-diameter shaft used in construction of the sewer. The footprint of the shaft is marked on the pavement in darker tiles (see top image).
The island is otherwise fairly featureless, save for a handful of benches. Lower, inaccesible terraces are greenified with marine plants.
This is actually one of a pair of embankment embiggenments in this area. Effra Quay, a couple of minutes' walk downriver, is the second. It features similar paving and a pair of curvy ventilation pipes, seen at all these developments.
Isle of Effra and Effra Quay both sit at points where, historically, sewer water would be dumped into the Thames during storm conditions. The new supersewer, which was 'switched on' in February, will now intercept the effluent and thereby improve the water quality of the Thames.
Tideway is calling its new 'Isle' and 'Quay' a 'riverside destination', which is somewhat optimistic. No one, other than a slightly desperate blogger or instagrammer, is going to make a destination of these spits of land. Rather, they are bonus chunks of embankment for passers-by and nearby office workers to catch a five-minute rest.
Still, the place has some history when it comes conquering the foreshore. Nearby, archaeologists once found jetty timbers dating back to 4,500 BC, the oldest known structure in London. In a more recent age, James Bond powerboated out of the MI6 building above Effra Quay in the opening of The World is Not Enough.
