3-016-963 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Metropolitan Main-drainage works: machinery for lifting the sewage, 1864. Diagram of '...the outfall of the southern system at Crossness, two miles below Woolwich...[The buildings contain] the engines, boilers, and other machinery connected with the great pumping establishment. The engine-house...has considerable architectural pretensions, the details of the parts that come close to the eye, such as the entrance doorways on the river side, and other portions, having finely-wrought mouldings and other details..., and in it engines of 500-horse power have been erected, for the purpose of lifting the sewage of the low-lying grounds on that side of the Thames...which are estimated to yield a discharge of sewage amounting to 10,400 cubic feet per minute. To raise this quantity to a height of 19 ft. into the outfall sewer, four engines, each of 125 nominal horse-power, have been provided with 48-in. cylinders and 9-ft. stroke...Extensive sheds have also been erected here for the storage of coal, and the creek has been much improved by the formation of a very fine wharf-wall, with a barge-bed in front of it'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.