3-003-967 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

London Main Drainage: section of main-drainage work near Old Ford, 1861. 'The two upper sewers shown are the outlets from the penstock chamber through which the sewage will be conveyed under all ordinary circumstances to the great outfall. The two drains below are those which will carry off the storm-waters to the River Lea...(should the water ever rise higher than the top of the side walls, it would immediately fall over into the lower-level drainage and be quickly discharged into the River Lea)...Below these is the horizontal section of the low-level sewer, the diagram being made at the point where it intersects the line of the other drains. The works at this point are extraordinary, when it is considered that a carriage might be driven through the upper and lower sewers, and that two or three men might walk abreast upright through the middle drains. Above the penstock chamber is a building which contains the necessary machinery for lifting the different penstocks, and the dwelling of the person in charge of them. The northern outfall sewer commences at the down-stream side of the penstock chamber; the point from which our artist has taken his Sketch may be said to be the head of it. Its lower end, or outfall, is at Barking Creek'. From "Illustrated London News", 1861.