In the 1600s, the three main rivers that carried London's muck into the Thames were the Westbourne, theTyburn, and the Fleet.
The Westbourne starts between Kilburn and the west side of Hampstead Heath, passes west of Paddington and through Hyde Park, where it was dammed to form the Serpentine boating lake. From there it flows under Knightsbridge, crosses over the platforms of Sloane Square underground station in a steel tube, then round the Royal Hospital to the Thames.
TheTyburn drains the middle part of the city, starting again at Hampstead Heath then south through Belsize Park and St John's Wood to Regent's Park, where it feeds the lakes. Marylebone Lane was originally the path of the Tyburn before it was culverted and if you look at a modern street map you can still see the river's winding route as it crosses the grid of Georgian streets in the West End. The Tyburn then goes across Oxford Street, Mayfair, Grosvenor and Berkeley Squares, Green Park, then across the front of Buckingham Palace. The final route is unclear but research shows that at least part of it went through St James' Park, across Whitehall and out to the Thames at Scotland Yard.
Hampstead Heath ponds are the source of the Fleet, which flows south-easterly past Kentish Town, Camden Town and King's Cross, past the Mount Pleasant sorting office then Farringdon Street and Ludgate Circus, and on to the Thames.
During the 1530s Henry VIII's acquisition of monastic lands included taking control of the roads that went across them. To improve their condition he imposed a tax on roadside properties to pay for surface water to be drained away into the nearest stream. Often these streams were the source of fresh water for cooking and drinking and albeit these new rules helped to improve the awful road conditions, they had a serious knock on effect to people's health.
In large cities deliberate pollution of the water supply was really bad news if you lived down-stream and in 1579 one London Street had sixty houses sharing just three latrines, Henry also made some attempts to create a separate public fresh water supply.
London had to wait almost 300 years before joined-up drainage and sewerage was introduced by Joseph Bazalgette in the 1850s and with his excellent over-engineering, typical of the Victorians, it meant that the system, carrying up to 60 million gallons a day, could and has, lasted largely in use and unchanged up to modern day.
Joseph Bazalgette
In the mid-19th century, London was suffering from recurring epidemics of cholera. In 1853 - 1854 more than 10,000 Londoners were killed by the disease. It was thought at the time to be caused by foul air. The hot summer of 1858 created the 'Great Stink of London', which overwhelmed all those who went near the Thames - including the occupants of Parliament. This, together with the frequent occurrence of cholera, gave impetus to legislation enabling the metropolitan board to begin work on sewers and street improvements. By 1866 most of London was connected to a sewer network devised by Bazalgette.
He saw to it that the flow of foul water from old sewers and underground rivers was intercepted, and diverted along new, low-level sewers, built behind embankments on the riverfront and taken to new treatment works.
By 1870 both the Albert and the Victoria Embankments had been opened. These replaced the tidal mud of the Thames shore with reclaimed ground for riverside roads and gardens behind their curved river walls. The Victoria Embankment protected Bazalgette's low-level sewer, as well as a service subway and the underground railway. The Chelsea Embankment was completed in 1874, reclaiming over 52 acres from the Thames.
Shown on the map is miles of Bazalgette's main trunk sewers which were laid as the 'Grand Plan' north and south of the river Thames. Not showing on these maps are thousands of connecting sewer branches all leading from various side roads and large establishments, some of these spurs have been added since the 1850s but by and large most are survivors of the original Plan.
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A typical 1.2m high egg shaped sewer showing the silt build up in the channel
2011
With time, most of these public sewers need maintenance, mostly consisting of cleaning and flushing the base channel (see the above pictures). This responsibility now falls to Thames Water Utilities who engage their own 'sewer flushing teams' to carry out some of these tasks.
Over recent years many of the large water companies have tendered out, awkward high risk and often challenging sewer cleaning tasks to private contractors. These contractors need to have multi functional high powered vehicles, designed and built to clean and pump debris from great depths and be operated by highly trained crews.
During the early part of 2011 Clearmasters was approached by one of these Thames Water contractors who asked us to submit a plan to carry out some of this London sewer cleaning work for Thames. As a company we were pleased to fulfil all the stringent H & S requirements, supply vehicles and tooling of the right spec, highly trained certificated operating staff/drivers and organise a nightly shift pattern around our normal work. By late February we were jet cleaning and tankering some of these famous sewers, starting at London Bridge.
We moved on to the Soho areas, taking on sewers that run from Oxford Street, Poland Street, Broadwick Street, Soho Square, Old Compton Street, Monmouth, Garrick Street etc. Out of the city we cleaned a large sewer that required certain lanes of the A13 to be closed.
This video shows the type of intense survey report that can be generated with a 'walk through', I have only shown the last 1/5 of this report which was of the sewer in Poland Street W1 up to Oxford Street.
All in all we proved (albeit to ourselves) that from emptying the odd tank with any old tanker, to carrying out main line sewer cleaning work to Water Authority standards, requires a complete new chapter in a waste disposal companies book, but one we have obviously applied and been accredited for.Very challenging tasks which highlighted what all our training had been about.
A demanding job that requires a catalogue of H & S rules to be adhered to and a worker that has not the slightest fear of enclosed spaces.
It really brings it home to you when at 2 a.m. you are 60 meters up a 750mm sewer pipe, you shout to the relay for a spade to be bought down, it arrives the wrong way round and you can't turn it around because the pipe you are in is too small, just then a fresh cargo drifts past your feet, floating on its journey to the nearest STW, followed by a large sewer rat dashing past, looking most indignant that you should be in his normally unblocked through fare..........time to get out I think, lets leave this work to the young ones is what goes through my mind as I overtake Roland on route to the exit, I climb the manhole access ladder quicker than a trapeze artist and within seconds delegate the shoveling task, 60 meters up the pipe, to Matt J. Matt smiles, says nothing and drops down the ladder...............Colin
The following video is of the Soho Square sewer after we had pressure cleaned it.
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Photo Gallery from some of the London work.
Click on smaller images to enlarge picture
To learn all the facts revolving around this famous Soho water pump, John Snow and his research into the terrible Asiatic Cholera of 1854, click on the following link
http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow/broadstreetpump.html
Broadwick Street water pump & the manhole we had to use.
Poland Street, Soho, London.W1
Worktent over m/hole beside pump View 1 of some awkward parking View from the opposite direction
A rat infested side entry to sewer Happy with our work M/hole beside pump pre-cleaned
M/hole beside pump, now cleaned Looking down the steps of side entry Note the rats eyes from the flash
Clubland soho, these GUYS posed Soho Square, view 1 Soho Square, view 2
View down Oxford Street sewer towards Poland Street. Grit from Poland Streets 272mt of sewer
Great Marlborough Street / Noel Street, Soho, W1
Middle of the road parking Pic 1 Middle of the road parking Pic 2 Middle of the road parking Pic 3
A view down the access manhole between the two trucks above.
We feed 60mts of 3" suction hose up the sewer in both directions in order to pump out the static grit.
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