London sewerage system in the context of "Joseph Bazalgette"

Sir Joseph William Bazalgette CB (/ˈbæzəldʒɛt/; 28 March 1819 – 15 March 1891) was a British civil engineer. As Chief Engineer of London's Metropolitan Board of Works, his major achievement was the creation of the London Main Drainage, the sewerage system for central London, in response to the Great Stink of 1858, which was instrumental in relieving the city of cholera epidemics, while beginning to clean the River Thames.

According to the BBC, "Bazalgette drove himself to the limits in realising his subterranean dream". The first modern sewage system, which began construction in 1859, was described by The Guardian as "a wonder of the industrial world". With only minor modifications, Bazalgette's engineering achievement remains the basis for sewerage design up into the present day.

The Northern Outfall Sewer (NOS) is a major gravity sewer which runs from Wick Lane in Hackney to the Beckton Sewage Treatment Works in east London. Most of it was designed by Joseph Bazalgette, as a result of an outbreak of cholera in 1853 and the "Great Stink" of 1858.

Prior to the work, drains in central London were built primarily to cope with rain water, but the growing use of flush toilets frequently meant that they became overloaded, causing sewage and industrial effluent to flow into the River Thames. Bazalgette's London sewerage system project included the construction of intercepting sewers north and south of the Thames. The Southern Outfall Sewer network diverts flows away from the Thames south of the river.

Abbey Mills Pumping Station is a sewage pumping station in Mill Meads, East London, operated by Thames Water. The pumping station lifts sewage on the London Main Drainage sewerage system into the Northern Outfall Sewer and the Lee Tunnel, which both run to Beckton Sewage Treatment Works.

The pumping station was designed by the architect Charles Driver for the Metropolitan Board of Works Chief Engineer Joseph Bazalgette and was built between 1865 and 1868, housing eight beam engines by Rothwell & Co. of Bolton, two on each arm of a cruciform plan. The architecture is an eclectic style related to Driver's railway station designs. Another of his designs, Crossness Pumping Station, is located south of the River Thames at Crossness, at the end of the Southern Outfall Sewer.

Crossness Pumping Station is a former sewage pumping station designed by the architect Charles Henry Driver for the Metropolitan Board of Works's chief engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette. It is located at Crossness Sewage Treatment Works, at the eastern end of the Southern Outfall Sewer and the Ridgeway path in the London Borough of Bexley. Constructed between 1859 and 1865 by William Webster, as part of Bazalgette's redevelopment of the London sewerage system, it features spectacular ornamental cast ironwork, described by architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner as "a masterpiece of engineering – a Victorian cathedral of ironwork". It was decommissioned in 1956. Subsequently the building has been extensively restored and was opened to the public in 2016.

It is adjacent to Erith Marshes, a grazing marsh, the northern part of which is designated as Crossness Nature Reserve. This provides a valuable habitat for creatures ranging from moths to small amphibians and water voles.