3-012-006 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Commencement of the Thames Embankment works near Westminster Bridge, 1864. View of '...piles being driven in, and scaffolding of an extensive character being erected to support and carry the heavy cranes to be used in sinking caissons. This work is preparatory to forming a cofferdam, and thereafter proceeding with excavations for a solid foundation, which must necessarily be laid very deep...The caissons are twelve feet by seven, and the coffer-dams...are remarkable for being constructed, not of timber...but of iron, which, it is thought, will afford great advantages over the old-fashioned material...the chief attention of the contractor is at present confined to...its so-called "special" works for a handsome steam-boat landing-stage...Mr. Furness...has undertaken the contract with the Metropolitan Board of Works...for the sum of £520,000. The works comprise, beside the open roadway and the approaches to the river, two distinct subterranean features - a subway immediately below the road in which gas and water pipes and telegraph wires will be laid, so as to avoid the necessity of breaking up the road whenever repairs of these are needed; and beneath the subway a great sewer, forming part of the system of low-level drainage lately planned'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.