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The primary duty laid upon the Metropolitan Board of Works
was to maintain the main sewers and to construct works to prevent
sewage entering the Thames within the London Area and the following
year the Board's Chief Engineer, Joseph Bazalgette, submitted schemes
for three intercepting sewers on the North side of the river and two on
the South side which were to traverse London roughly from West to
East, intercepting the main line sewers on their courses towards the
Thames and carrying the flow to outfall sewers which in turn discharged
to the river below the County, those on the North side at Barking and
those on the South side at Crossness.
Pumping Stations were built at Pimlico (Western), Abbey Mills,
Deptford and Crossness to lift the sewage. It is interesting to note
that the type of plant at all these stations was Beam engines.
At the time, Bazalgette's work was considered to be a complete
solution to the problem of London's drainage. Normal flow and light
rainfall were to be carried to the outfalls and in times of heavy rain,
the extra storm flow was to flow over weirs and continue down the
course of the old sewers to the Thames. In 1879, however, severe
flooding occurred in many districts on occasions of very heavy rainfall
and the Board of Works proceeded to construct several storm relief
sewers. It seems evident that the Board had begun to realise that a
major problem of London drainage was then, as it still is, the disposal
of surface and storm water.
Soon after its creation in 1889, the London County Council called
for a report on the drainage system and new works of considerable
magnitude were recommended. Some work was commenced, but in
1897 the then Chief Engineer, Sir Alexander Binnie, again emphasised
the urgency stressing the fact that works of considerable size were
necessary if the system were not to revert in a large measure to the
condition it was before Bazalgette's improvements. Extensive flooding
in 1903 led to an enlargement of the original scheme, and by 1914 four
new intercepting sewers had been built, the outfall sewers duplicated,
four storm water pumping stations built and other storm relief sewers
constructed to deal with the increased dry weather flow and storm
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