Crossness Pumping Station

It might look more like a grand old library or train station from the outside, but this surprisingly beautiful building is actually home to am amazing feat of Victorian engineering: a former sewage pumping station that was part of Sir Joseph Bazalgette’s revolutionary waste system. Quite a far cry from the sewers of today, inside this ‘masterpiece of engineering’ you will find what has been called a ‘cathedral’ of spectacular ironwork. The Crossness Pumping Station offers guided tours on select Tuesdays and Sundays, where you will discover how Bazalgette invented the sewer system to save London from the Great Stink of 1855.