Not many boroughs can boast a beautifully preserved Victorian pumping station and next week Crossness Pumping Station celebrates 150 years of the site in Thamesmead. HELOISE WOOD plumbs the murky depths.
Victorian pioneer and former railway engineer Joseph Bazalgette helped create a monument which helped transform the sewer system.
A hundred-and-fifty years on, the Crossness Pumping Station - known as the "cathedral on the marsh’ - is still going in Belvedere Road, Abbey Wood.
Polluted sewage in London was leading to around 20,000 cholera deaths a year and Sir Bazalgette was ordered to find a solution to the ‘Great Stink’ of 1858.
He created 85 miles of sewers which needed a network of pumping stations and designed Crossness Pumping Station as well as Abbey Mills in east London (a shell of which remains) and one in Deptford which has largely disappeared.
Crossness is now one of only two Grade I Listed industrial buildings in London and it houses the largest rotating beam engines in the world.
Both the building and machinery are undergoing a huge restoration project, led by the charity Crossness Engines Trust, to restore them to their former glory.
Mike Jones is treasurer and trustee of trust.
He said: "It was opened by the Prince of Wales in April 1865 and exactly 150 years later on - on April 4 - we will celebrate this masterpiece of civil engineering.
"At the opening Sir Bazalgette gave a speech, the Royal party toured the works and reservoirs, and the Prince turned the wheel which started the engines."
At one point the site was earmarked for demolition but thanks to the trust, the station is continuing to wow residents and visitors.
Mr Jones said: "The station is on the verge of a new lease of life, thanks to the efforts of a dedicated band of volunteers and the wholehearted support of Thames Water Utilities and Bexley Council."
The building continues to be appreciated and is often used for film backdrops or events - it was used in the BBC adaptation of The Crimson Petal and the White.
In September last year, News Shopper featured some 300 Steampunk enthusiasts who enjoyed a dancing troupe and an accordion orchestra in the building.
Visit crossness.org.uk
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