The original Abbey Mills Pumping Station, in Abbey Lane, London E15, is a sewage pumping station, designed by engineer Joseph Bazalgette, Edmund Cooper, and architect Charles Driver. It was built between 1865 and 1868, housing 8 beam engines by Rothwell & Co. of Bolton. Two engines on each arm of a cruciform plan, with an elaborate Byzantine style, described as The Cathedral of Sewage.[1] Another of Bazalgette's designs, Crossness Pumping Station, is located south of the River Thames at Crossness, at the end of the Southern Outfall Sewer.

Contents [hide] 1 History2 Purpose3 The modern pumping station4 Lee Tunnel5 As a film location6 References7 External linksHistory[edit]The pumping station was built at the site of an earlier watermill owned by the former Stratford Langthorne Abbey, from which it gained its name. It was first recorded as Wiggemulne in 1312, i.e., "the mill of a man called Wicga", an Old English personal name, and subsequently became associated with the abbey.[2] The Abbey lay between the Channelsea River and Marsh Lane (Manor Road). It was dissolved in 1538. By 1840, the North Woolwich railway ran through the site, and it began to be used to establish factories, and ultimately the sewage pumping stations.[3]

Purpose[edit]

An entrance to A station

Inside C Station Pump HouseThe pumps raised the sewage in the London sewerage system between the two Low Level Sewers and the Northern Outfall Sewer, which was built in the 1860s to carry the increasing amount of sewage produced in London away from the centre of the city.

Two Moorish styled chimneys unused since steam power had been replaced by electric motors in 1933 were demolished in 1941, as it was feared that a bomb strike from German bombs might topple them on to the pumping station.

The building still houses electric pumps to be used in reserve for the new facility next door.

The main building is grade II* listed and there are many grade II listed ancillary buildings, including the stumps of the demolished chimneys.

The modern pumping station[edit]

The new Abbey Mills Pumping Station (F Station)The modern pumping station (F Station) was designed by architects Allies and Morrison. The old building (A Station) has electrical pumps for use as a standby; the modern station is one of the three principal London pumping stations dealing with foul water.

One of world's largest installation of drum screens to treat sewage was constructed as part of the Thames Tideway Scheme. The site is managed and operated by Thames Water.