2-913-680 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Billingsgate New Market [in London], 1854. 'The New Market is covered with semicircular roofs of galvanised corrugated iron, supported on light iron columns and girders...a glass roof also runs from north to south...A plentiful supply of water is insured...by means of a fountain...which is ornamented with figures of dolphins, from whose mouths water is continually flowing. For the purpose of cleansing, and assisting in the ventilation both of the Upper and Lower Markets, a continual flow of water is supplied through a series of iron gutters in the pavement, covered with trellis gratings, the water in which being stopped at the outlets when the Market is cleansed, rises over the surface of the paving, which is then swept, and the water allowed to escape into the drains. The water is supplied from a large brick tank beneath the pavement...filled from the river at the rising of each tide'. From "Illustrated London News", 1854.