Abbey Mills Victorian sewage pumping station

Having visited Markfield Beam Engine, Victorian sewage works, earlier this month, I decided to visit another. This time the Abbey Mills pumping station in NE London. However this one can only be viewed from the outside.

Abbey Mills sewage works are located near West Ham tube station and south of Stratford. This is southeast of Markfield.

I walked from West Ham station, using the Green Way. The Greenway is a long footpath and bike freeway in London, mostly constructed on the embankment containing the Northern Outfall Sewer. This sewer runs to the Beckton sewage works, which is further east and close to the Thames.

This is Abbey Creek and it flows into the River Lea (aka Lee) that comes past Markfield and then on into the Thames

The new Abbey Mills pumping station on the left and the old Victorian one on the right -

The gas holders west of West Ham station -

Just beyond are the sewage works, a complex of old and new pumping stations. I'd come to see the Victorian pumping station. As mentioned above, it is closed to the public, but group tours can be booked. See more here on Hidden London. The building is Grade II listed.

The name Abbey Mills comes from the water mills that belonged to Stratford Langthorne Abbey, a Cistercian monastery founded in 1134. This lasted until the dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530s.

The pumping station was designed by Joseph Bazalgette.  It was built in 1865-8, and is nicknamed the "cathedral of sewage". It pumped sewage from the drains of north London and sent it down to the filter-beds at Beckton. It housed 8 beam engines.

The flows from the two low level sewers coming from west London are raised by some 40 feet (12 m) into the Northern Outfall Sewer at Abbey Mills Pumping Station

Some houses with interesting chimneys on the other side of the Greenway -

I'm not sure what this pipe carries

See more on Wikipedia about Abbey Mills Pumping Station.