Completed in 1868 after just three years of construction, Abbey Mills Pumping Station is an iconic, Grade II listed Victorian masterpiece in East London. Designed by the visionary engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette, this "Cathedral of Sewage" remains a marvel of the London Main Drainage system. It was built on the site of an earlier watermill once owned by Stratford Langthorne Abbey, from which it takes its name.
The pumping station was originally constructed to lift wastewater from two Low Level Sewers up into the Northern Outfall Sewer. Built in the 1860s, this massive outfall network was designed to transport London's rapidly growing waste away from the city center to the Beckton treatment plant.
While the historic building is now largely closed to the public—superseded by a modern facility built nearby in the 1990s—the original Abbey Mills station remains fully operational and is still used today to handle high storm surges.
