[title]
Comedian Jon Pointing, best known for his Bafta-nominated starring turn in Channel 4’s ‘Big Boys’, has revealed his London tourist attraction of choice. And it’s not an obvious choice (sorry London Dungeon fans).
‘I would say the Crossness Sewage Works,’ he says on this week’s Love Thy Neighbourhood podcast. ‘You can book it and you get a tour around these sewers that were built near Abbey Wood in Victorian times. An unnecessarily beautiful cast-iron interior that’s being slowly restored by die-hard retired maniacs. They’re down there scraping rust off iron bars.’
The Crossness Pumping Station was designed by legendary British architect Charles Driver in 1865. Described as a ‘masterpiece of engineering’ the Grade I-listed sewers are the subject of ongoing restorations.
‘Look,’ he says. ‘There is a smell. But you learn a great bit of history, about water. It’s all connected to clean water and cholera. People used to come off pleasure cruises on the Thames and die because the layer of air above the water was so incredibly toxic. I learned all that down in the sewer.’
Want to hear Jon chat about his favourite neighbourhood of Deptford? Tune in to this week’s ‘Love Thy Neighbourhood’ podcast.
Subscribe on Spotify
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts
Subscribe on Google Podcasts
Subscribe on Amazon Music
Each week on ‘Love Thy Neighbourhood’, someone interesting gives Joe a personal tour around a neighbourhood that means a lot to them. Four locations, with a bit of chitchat en route to each one, always finishing up in a pub. Interested in what Bimini makes of Bankside? Need Derren Brown to justify his abiding love of Hoxton? Fascinated by the prospect of Joe and Doc Brown drinking four pints of Guinness on the Kilburn High Road? This is very much the pod for you.
Sponsored by FREENOW, the mobility super app, ‘Love Thy Neighbourhood’ will show you sides to London you never knew existed. Subscribe now for a new guest and a new neighbourhood every single week.
New episodes of ‘Love Thy Neighbourhood’ are available every Tuesday.
Stay in the loop: sign up for our free Time Out London newsletter for the best of the city, straight to your inbox.