3-016-968 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

London Main-Drainage Works: Aqueduct at Abbey Mills, Stratford, 1864. 'The Illustration shows the manner in which the numerous waterways and branches of the Lea River are crossed by the aqueducts of the main drainage-works. These are generally wrought-iron tubes and girders, supported at each end by piers and abutments of solid masonry. The example shown in the Illustration is that which crosses the canal immediately below Abbey Mills, at West Ham. When the whole of the main-drainage scheme is carried out, which it will be when the Thames embankment from Westminster to Blackfriars Bridge is completed and the new street thence to the Mansion House made, there will be erected at West Ham the largest pumping establishment of the entire work. It will require engine-power to the extent of 1140 horses to give the accumulated drainage of the metropolitan low-level district on the north side of London its final lift into the great outfall sewer, through which it will flow by gravitation into the river at Barking Creek. The engine-power proposed to be erected at this point will consist of eight double-acting condensing engines, with cylinders 54 in. in diameter, with a stroke of 9 ft., and working pumps, two to each engine, of 46½ in. diameter'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.