London has had many heroes throughout its almost 2000 years
of History, many of them very well known, and some of them unsung. Such a hero
was Joseph Bazalgette. He was awarded a well deserved knighthood during his
lifetime, but it’s not that well known that thousands of Londoners owed their
lives to him. It was under his direction that the sewer system was built, which
finally relieved London from the great scourge of cholera.
So, for Water Works I have chosen to draw Bazalgette’s
Crossness Pumping Station. This was a state of the art facility when it opened
in 1859. It was decommissioned in the 1950s. Ironically the building and the
machinery inside the building was only initially saved because the cost of
demolishing it, and scrapping the machinery far exceeded any value to be gained
by doing so. It wasn’t until 1970 that the building became a grade 1 listed
building – if you’re not in the UK, this means that it has the legal standing
of a building of huge national importance and virtually guarantees its
preservation for prosperity. Work on preserving and restoring the interior
began in 2008 and the building opened as a museum in 2015. The elaborate
ironwork restored in the octagon hall is worth a visit by itself.
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