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Old Abbey Mills Pumping Station (Station A)

Remains of one of two large minaret-like chimneys of Abbey Mills Pumping Station (Station A) that once towered over the engine house leading to the name "The Mosque in the Swamp" in Victorian times. In WWII the towers were dismantled as their collapse during a bombing raid might damage the engine house. Located in Abbey Lane, London E15, the building is a sewerage pumping station, designed by engineer Joseph Bazalgette, Edmund Cooper, and architect Charles Driver, it was built between 1865 and 1868 after an outbreak of cholera in 1853 and "The Big Stink" of 1858. It was designed in a cruciform plan, with an elaborate Byzantine style, described as The Cathedral of Sewage. The pumps raise the sewage in the London sewerage system between the two Low Level Sewers and the Northern Outfall Sewer, which was built in the 1860s to carry the increasing amount of sewage produced in London away from the centre of the city.

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Filename
ThamesWater_QL-05.tif
Copyright
Quintin Lake
Image Size
2186x3286 / 11.0MB
Contained in galleries
Thames Water Northern Outfall: Abbey Mills Pumping Station & Beckton Sewage Treatment Works
Remains of one of two large minaret-like chimneys of Abbey Mills Pumping Station (Station A) that once towered over the engine house leading to the name "The Mosque in the Swamp" in Victorian times. In WWII the towers were dismantled as their collapse during a bombing raid might damage the engine house. Located in Abbey Lane, London E15, the building is a sewerage pumping station, designed by engineer Joseph Bazalgette, Edmund Cooper, and architect Charles Driver, it was built between 1865 and 1868 after an outbreak of cholera in 1853 and "The Big Stink" of 1858. It was designed in a cruciform plan, with an elaborate Byzantine style, described as The Cathedral of Sewage. The pumps raise the sewage in the London sewerage system between the two Low Level Sewers and the Northern Outfall Sewer, which was built in the 1860s to carry the increasing amount of sewage produced in London away from the centre of the city.
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