|
< A drop of London Thames Water
"The silent highwayman, your money or your life." Punch's view of
disease on the Thames in July 1858, as MPs debated the cost of
Bazalgette's mains drainage.
Bazalgette built 82 miles of main intercepting sewers, eleven
hundred miles of street sewers, four pumping stations and the two
treatment works at Beckton and Crossness which Thames Water still
operates.
Joseph Bazalgette (1819-91) was one of the greatest of engineers of
the time. Between 1856 and 1889, he built more of London than anyone
else.
The sewers, pumping stations and treatment works that he built are
still keeping the capital clean. Before Bazalgette's time London's
sewage flowed into the Thames from which it leaked into adjacent
springs, wells and other sources of drinking water.
He also built the Victoria Embankment, Re housed forty thousand
Londoners from tenements which he demolished to create famous London
streets like Charing Cross Road, Garrick Street, Northumberland
Avenue and Shaftesbury Avenue.
Toilets Romans
Medieval Tudor
Georgian
Victorians
Cesspit
London's Drains
Thomas Crapper
Mullein |
