- Greater London news in brief
- Report on visit to Beckton sewage treatment works
- A visit to the Royal Gunpowder Mills at Waltham Abbey
- The Royal Small Arms Factory, Enfield
- Alan Pearsall's walk in Deptford
- Letters to the editor
- 144news.pdf
Although not in Greater London the recent closure of Tilbury Riverside railway station is of sufficient importance to be of interest to many GLIAS members. With little in the way of public transport left on the north bank the ferry to Gravesend will be threatened. It has been in operation for many hundreds of years.
The street-level buildings of 1905 at Woolwich Arsenal railway station were demolished rapidly without any apparent attempt at retention. The designs for the new station exhibited at the last Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, were a second attempt, the first proposals having been rejected. The exhibited proposals are likely to be implemented. Design work is by British Rail Architecture and Design Group — an outfit somewhat distant from mainstream British Rail. With privatisation likely the group might eventually to be sold off as a separate concern.
At the former Cubow's shipyard now operated by Downtown Marine (GLIAS Newsletter 141/5), on the south bank of the Thames just up-river from the Woolwich Ferry, repair work still appears to be in progress. Opposite on the north bank at Tate & Lyle's Thames Refinery substantial building works are under way with a large new vertical steel cylinder being completed and a considerable amount of other plant being installed. All this work looks very expensive indicating that Tate & Lyle intend to stay on the site. Real ocean-going ships continue to call at the adjacent jetty. These are generally standard bulk carriers of about 15,000 tons gross and are chartered foreign-flag vessels. They anchor off Southend when awaiting unloading at Silvertown.
John Penn's pattern-making shop, recently used by Broomfield the bakers (GLIAS Newsletter June 1992), is reported demolished despite attempts by the local authority to assist retention.
The new East Croydon railway station building in George Street (GLIAS Newsletter June 1992) was officially opened on 19 August 1992.
In the London Borough of Lewisham, on a triangle of land two sides of which are formed by railway lines and the third by Landmann Way (named after a Royal Engineer), work is well under way on the construction of a new rubbish-burning power station (SELCHP). Brighton trains from London Bridge pass just to the south-west. If you travel this way look out for the building work in ferro-concrete from the left hand side of the train facing the direction of travel (towards Brighton). The power station project is a joint venture by the London Boroughs of Lewisham, Southwark and Greenwich.
At Chalk Farm there have been complaints that the well-known Roundhouse (GLIAS Newsletter June 1992) is in a poor state of repair. Despite attempts at rehabilitation, the building is not open to the public and on the hoarding along Chalk Farm Road which excludes people graffiti reads 'this is a disgrace — why is the Roundhouse still empty?' Considering the recent history of the building and the present poor state of the UK property and development market an answer is not hard to find.
In the London Borough of Brent work is starting on the replacement of the canal aqueduct over the North Circular Road near Stonebridge Park. Built of ferro-concrete in the 1930s the aqueduct carries the lock-free branch of the Grand Junction Canal from Bulls Bridge to Paddington Basin (GLIAS Newsletter August 1979). Known as the Paddington Arm, the canal was originally constructed through the area in 1801.
Next door in Ealing at the Hoover Factory, now the Hoover Building (GLIAS Newsletter April 1992), Tesco's are already open for business.
The West London Railway from Clapham Junction to Wormwood Scrubs which links London north and south of the Thames is being refurbished and electrified for use by Channel Tunnel trains with a new depot of considerable length at North Pole junction, immediately south of and alongside the Great Western main line near Old Oak Common. The Battersea Railway Bridge of the early 1860s, five wrought iron arches across the river each of 144 feet span, by William Baker (LNWR) and T H Bertram (GWR) is something of a historic structure and its recent poor condition is being remedied for the extra traffic.
At the Musical Museum, Brentford a major reorganisation of the paper music roll collection is nearing completion. Poor storage conditions had been causing considerable concern and a suitable part of the museum has been walled off and converted into a storage room with controlled humidity. Cleaning, cataloguing and inventory work continue. The proposed move of the Musical Museum to purpose-built premises is in abeyance owing to the dreadful state of the UK property and development market.
Nearby at the Kew Bridge Steam Museum the steam hall, formerly the first boiler house dating from 1838, is having its grade 2-listed roof rebuilt. Restoration work is funded jointly by English Heritage and the National Heritage Memorial Fund. The interesting and unusual trussed rafter roof truss construction consists largely of wrought iron flats with support by cast-iron pillars and beams. For further information telephone 020 8568 4757. At Dock Road, Brentford the barge repair works of E C Jones & Son is reported to be in receivership and work there has ceased. This was one of the very last examples of a working yard up river. Bob Carr
Report on visit to Beckton sewage treatment works
Except for occasional open days, I do not recall a previous GLIAS tour of a sewage works. Our guide, Mr Pat O'Reagan of Thames Water Utilities Ltd, amply remedied this omission when a group of our members visited Beckton on 24th October.
When Joseph Bazalgette's Northern Outfall Sewer was completed in 1868, it discharged raw sewage into the Thames on the ebb tide, via holding tanks. Only after 1887 were the solids settled out as sludge, with the aid of chemical precipitation. This untreated sludge was loaded onto ships and dumped at sea. The immense volume to be handled defied any treatment of the liquid effluent until the 1930s, when the aeration process was applied. One of the large paddle wheels installed to aerate the sewage at that time is preserved on a plinth at the site entrance.
The original aeration plant had inadequate capacity. In the 1950s, new aeration tanks were installed, fed with air through pipes and diffusers laid on the bed, and in 1975 this plant was doubled in size. Also in the 1950s, anaerobic digestion tanks were built to treat the sludge, the methane generated by this process helping to drive gas turbines in the power house.
Whereas, until the 1950s, the effluent was highly polluting and used up all the oxygen in the river, with modern effluent treatment the river retains 30% dissolved oxygen under the worst conditions, sufficient for migratory fish such as salmon to pass. The discharged effluent still contains some organic material and bacteria, but at a level which is considered acceptable in the estuary.
After an introductory talk, our tour started where the sewage enters Beckton along the Northern Outfall Sewer, five brick-lined sewers 9 feet in diameter enclosed in an embankment high above the former marshes. From this vantage point we had a good view of the gas-holders and abandoned retort houses of Beckton Gasworks. Also here is an assemblage of little pillars erected by the Greater London Council to test the long-term weathering of concrete specimens in an 'industrial' atmosphere. The incoming sewage passes first through six parallel Detritus Channels, where grit settles out and is eventually spread on adjacent land. Each has huge cast-iron penstock gates to shut off the flow for periodic cleaning by scraping machines. Then to the 6 screens in the Screen House, where toothed scrapers on sprocket chains remove the floating debris. The sewage then flows rapidly along open flumes, stirred with air bubbles to keep them clear of silt, towards the Primary Settlement Tanks. We visited the 1970s plant, having eight parallel channels each 259 feet long, 150 feet wide and 11 feet deep, which the sewage takes 3 or 4 hours to pass through, while 70% of the suspended solids settle out as sludge. Scraper blades on rail-mounted gantries take an hour to move from end to end, pushing the deposited sludge towards submerged outlet hoppers.
The settled sewage continues slowly through the Aeration Tanks, some 18 acres seething with air bubbles. One of the diffusers had become damaged before our visit, creating a spectacular 'blow' of escaping air. The organic matter is broken down by aerobic bacteria, and after 6 hours here the sewage passes to the Final Settlement. Tanks. These are placid ponds, each 113 feet in diameter, discharging over weirs around the circumference. A submerged scraper moves round almost imperceptibly, cantilevered from a frame at the centre of the tank. 'Activated sludge from here, rich in the bacteria that break down the sewage, is fed back to the aeration tanks. Next we visited the Monitor House. A solitary man watches VDU displays and TV monitors, in an elaborate 5-sided room designed probably 20 years ago for much more bulky computer equipment. A particular concern is the increased flow in the event of a rainstorm. Beckton receives the sewage of more than 2 million people in North London and, because of the combined drainage system, most of the rainfall upon an area of 100 square miles extending from Acton and Highgate to Barking. The dry weather flow is about 200 million gallons per day, while the maximum capacity, if all plant is available, is 600 m.g.d. Beyond that, storm water must be allowed to overflow into the rivers, before it reaches Beckton.
A visit to the Power House followed. Designed to architectural effect by the London County Council, with concrete shell roofe and three circular brick exhaust stacks, it was opened in 1959. The plant has recently been renewed. Two Ruston gas turbines driving 4 MW alternators are entirely encased in sound insulation, finished with red painted sheet metal. Gas turbines driving air compressors are similarly encased. There are two smaller gas-turbine generators of circa 1969. A waste -heat steam turbine generator will soon be added.
Next we saw the Sludge Digestors, 32 free standing concrete tanks 80 feet in diameter and 33 feet high. Maintained at 34°C by hot water from the power house, the sludge is digested here by anaerobic bacteria for 4 weeks, destroying 95% of the pathogens and generating carbon dioxide and methane. After thickening in two 10-foot high centrifuges, the digested sludge is pumped to Storage Tanks, 18 feet deep with grass growing deceptively on the top, and then to Sludge Boats berthed at the jetty, which sail to Barrow Deep beyond Foulness. The European Community requires marine dumping to cease by 1998, and thereafter the sludge will probably be dewatered by centrifuge and then incinerated, as the volume is too large for disposal on land. The digestion tanks will then be obsolete.
Nearby we glimpsed the former single storey sludge pumping station of circa 1890, with its ornately topped chimney, and the associated riveted steel storage tanks, standing above ground, all now derelict and fenced off. Our last stop was to view the effluent flowing into the Thames, with fine views of Barking Reach and the Barking Creek Flood Barrier, to complete a memorable morning. Malcolm Tucker
A visit to the Royal Gunpowder Mills at Waltham Abbey
This was not a recording meeting, (there simply was not the time), just a pleasant walk round the works. The site covers 190 acres on 2 islands in the River Lee. We walked round the northern end of the eastern island, which carried most of the buildings. It was a little over a mile long, and between 300 and 400 yards wide. The southern part, by the entrance, was mostly open grassland, but studded with trees and several ranges of buildings. Prominent among them was the boiler house, a lofty one with 3 bays. This struck me as high for an industrial boiler house, and I wondered if it had contained tall water tube boilers. Behind it was the water tower, marked on at least one plan as an accumulator tower. There was nothing to stop the building fulfilling both functions.
We walked up 'The Middle Road', between lines of mostly one-storey buildings. The most prominent were the incorporating mills. These each comprised a tall (beam?) engine house, flanked by 3 or 4 compartments in a row. Each had held (in the days of gunpowder) a mill, a pair of granite edge-runners driven by an underfloor shaft from the engine. More recently, these were converted for the manufacture of cordite, and finally, for research space.
At the end of this range, we saw a canal passenger station, like a mini railway halt. It had a covered platform, complete with railway style valancing on the edge, which looked rather incongruous to me. There was no indication of how the boats were driven or towed. It stood on 'The Old River Lee' which, canalised, wound through the site. This was part of 3 canal systems that had served the establishment, though the barges, with semi-circular wooden covers reminiscent of the ones on 'Wild West' wagons, and used for transport of the powder, quietly rotted away in the silted-up canals. Even so, enough remains for recording to be fully possible.
The next landmark was the 1879 Press House. Here, there was a small hydraulic press, supplied by pumps driven by a cast-iron-framed waterwheel. The fall was small, and it was estimated that it was either undershot, or at most, a low breast wheel. It was all rather dilapidated.
By now, we were well into the dense woods that cover the northern part of the island. This held, I estimated, several dozen structures of one sort and purpose and another. They were spaced out so that a 'Blow' in one would not affect the rest. Some were surrounded by earth banks, some had lost their roof. Many bore Victorian dates in their gables, but I was sure that excavation of the many hummocks would reveal evidence of the much earlier history. One sighting was of a little buffer stop, poking up out of the greenery (we had been looking for the railway). 'Excavation' with the toes of shoes revealed 4 or 5 feet of the once-extensive system, quickly measured as of 18 inch gauge. It was presumably, worked by men or ponies.
We moved on, passing Newton's Pond, used for the reception of small charges under test. A hole blown in water is quickly self-healing! At the end, we made a U-turn south, and followed 'The Long Walk' all the way back, roughly following the 'Horsemill Stream', the western boundary of the island. We passed the footings of the demolished Tetryl works, better known as C.E. for Composition Exploding, used as a detonator booster in weapons. Near the end of our walk, we passed the site of 18th century mills, the mixing house that went with them, and the last water-driven incorporating mill. Finally, we admired a neat little bridge of cast iron, dated 1832. And so ended our two and a half hour visit. To just LOOK at the site closely, for fun, would take weeks, and I found it rather tantalising. I should like to thank Mrs June Gibson for arranging the visit, and especially Mr. R. Dane, our friendly and very knowledgeable guide. John Parker
The Royal Small Arms Factory, Enfield
Five GLIAS members spent a very wet four hours on November 9th looking round the 90 acre site which lies alongside the River Lea. The factory is best known as the home of the Lee-Enfield rifle; it commenced manufacturing in 1820 and finished in 1988 when the Government sold it to BAE who have since removed all plant and machinery. There are many buildings, all empty, some in good condition, others near derelict.
A major feature of the site is a filled-in water-course which runs from the River Lea in the north to the southern end. In 1820 it was a mill-stream which drove two mills near what is now the main quadrangle. These produced 48 hp and powered turning and grinding machines; they remained in use for some 40 years. Subsequently the stream outlet was blocked and a basin constructed to terminate what became a canal.
The quadrangle with the basin, now filled in and grassed over, is the core of the site, and has large brick buildings on three sides. These were constructed during the modernisation of the factory in 1856 when American mass-production machinery was installed. The factory had an 18 inch gauge railway which extended north to the Gunpowder factory at Waltham Abbey. Also a standard gauge line which ran to the Great Eastern system at Brimsdown. A telpher crossed over the canal and connected two storehouses.
We passed over the Lea to enter the site which had a fearsome security fence fitted with a strain-sensing alarm system. Then to the SE corner past a group of ten concrete munition stores with semi-circular roofing and on to one of the rifle butts. This had an imposing red-brick buttressed wall around 30' high which was demeaned by a small open-ended modern fletton-brick structure in front. This was sand-filled and probably used for testing heavy weapons. Nearby, a tunnel roofed building cl5' nigh and 300 yds long would have allowed test-firing in still air.
Then to the quadrangle with two notable buildings, that on the west is in yellow brick with Georgian sash windows and elegant fan-lights. In front of it is a row of listed decorated iron railings. The Machine Shop on the north is the most important building on site, it is listed and has a flat yellow-brick frontage with a prominent stringcourse decorated in red brick. There is a central Italianate bell-tower with clock and ornate weathervane. Our first impression on entering the shop was one of size, then of the multiplicity of pillars which support the north-light roof. The shop has 200 ft sides and pillars are spaced at 20 ft intervals. These are made of cast-iron with an octagonal section and are marked B.O. Board of Ordnance and a broad arrow. It was not too difficult to imagine the scene as it was reported in 1880 when there were 800 machines driven by overhead belting with a peak weekly production of 3,000 rifles. To the north in the same block, not visited by us, was the Press Shop which occupied the space of the earlier Pistol Shop, Barrel room and Smithy.
Going north beside the canal-course we passed another 1850s building once called the Stocking Shop and on past the Power House to an empty 2-bay Boiler House and further across a fenced-off track. Here we found traces of the railways, an 18 inch gauge turntable and lengths of track, also some of standard gauge. Nearby was a single storey building with an overhead gantry extending outside to a loading deck which seemed to have been used for some finishing process, possibly impregnation of wood. Still further north we found the near derelict remainder of what was once a group of Stock Stores which had nearby a Walnut Timber Store. There are four two-storey buildings, some listed, two with clerestory roofs.
Much of the area is overgrown and some buildings have been reduced to a single storey. We could see remnants of the iron bridges which once connected the two-storey buildings at first floor level.
Finally, through wet undergrowth to the river at Tumbling Bay and Newmans Weir where tests in 1812 showed an 11 foot drop and enough water to power the mills. On the opposite bank we saw the concrete-dammad entrance to what was the mill-stream.
This concluded our walk, full of interest, for which thanks are due to June Gibson, who arranged it, to Trafalgar House who allowed it, and their Mr Vaughan, who showed us round. As a post-script, the site is to be redeveloped for housing, industry and amenity. The canal and basin are to be reinstated for boating and the two main quadrangle buildings retained. The site will be called 'Enfield Island'. Don Munday
Alan Pearsall's walk in Deptford
Alan Pearsall, now retired from the National Maritime Museum and living in Greenwich, took a group of GLIAS members for a walk along the Deptford and Greenwich waterside. The weather was really unpleasant and drizzly, but nevertheless everybody enjoyed themselves. We met at the gates of Deptford Dockyard, founded in the 16th century. Over the more modern buildings we could see the shape of the shipbuilding sheds of the 1840s and, walking down Northwick Street, the backs of officers' houses.
We followed the streets of Old Deptford which lay between the Dockyard Wall and Deptford Green. Deptford Strond, the original home of Trinity House, is to the south. At Upper Water Gate the stairs are still there and the party walked down them to the 'beach' underneath the arcades of the Penn Boilerworks. Only one bollard remains at the top of the alleyway leading to the river. Next door, Borthwicks, a 1930s Coldstore of some architectural merit, is on the site of Humphrey's and Tennant's Marine Engine Works, and the East India Company had a shipyard there. At Lower Watergate is a draw dock.
The Power Station is east of Deptford Green in an area apparently agricultural and marshy until about 1800. In the western section was successively Barnard's Shipyards (by 1837), C Lungley and Company Shipyard (c.1845-65), Deptford Drydocks (to 1920), and then the London Power Company's Deptford Power Station. This Power Station (late 1880s with subsequent additions and alterations) was the first large public power station in the world. Off Stowage was the Eastern Section of the site which was previously the Patent Fuel Company's wharf, (c. 1870).
Next is the site of the General Steam Navigation Company's repair yard. Earlier it had been owned by Brocklebank Store and before that it had been the East India Company's stores - hence the name 'Stowage'. We crossed Deptford Creek by a bridge, first built about 1815, rebuilt in 1880, damaged in 1941; the present bridge was reopened in 1954. The Creek is lined with wharves up to the Bridge and, like the Deptford side, the Greenwich shore was covered in osiers and market gardens in the early 19th century.
We looked at Dowell's wharf in Norway street which had dealt with coal, and then saw the site of the South Metropolitan Gas Company in Thames Street, built by the Phoenix Gas Company in 1824. This was, until recently, ARC's stone and ballast wharf. Next came Dreadnought Wharf which had been J & G Rennie's Iron Shipbuilding Yard, 1863-1915. It was later owned by the Tilbury Contracting and Dredging Company until the 1970s. Offices and sheds survive. Dreadnought Wharf takes its name from the Seaman's Hospital Ship which lay off here. It was also the site of a horse ferry, began about 1815, and briefly in the 1890s was a steam ferry with special vehicular ramps which can be seen at low tide. Everybody was very grateful for Alan for taking us round in such vile weather, and it is hoped that we can do the walk again in more favourable conditions. Mary Mills
I refer to the query raised by Bob Carr in his notes on the demolition of Deptford Power Station (GLIAS Newsletter April 1992).
Because of my interest in the history of electric cable manufacture in the London area pre-1900, I tried to find what kind of pumps had been installed at Deptford East, if in fact they were of the type used in 'Operation Pluto'.
The first petrol pumped through a long sea line of 'HAIS' cable took place on 4th April 1943 when pumps at Queens Dock, Swansea, delivered large amounts to Watermouth Bay near Ilfracombe. The original design pressure was 750lb/sq.in. later upped to 1500. By late 1943 two types of pumps were being ordered for 'Operation Pluto' - (1) Diesel driven, reciprocating pumps with a capacity of 180 tons petrol per day each, and (2) electrically driven centrifugal pumps of 1100 tons per day, which helped reduce the number of operating and maintenance staff required.
I found nothing else on record to indicate the fate of these pumps when the war ended and petrol deliveries to France were no longer required to satisfy the demand for 1,000,000 gallons per day (Dungeness to Boulogne). Perhaps the answer to Bob Carr's question lies in the backyard of some enterprising scrap dealer.
Reference sources: Paper read by A.C. Hartley before the Royal Society of Arts, 14 November 1945, and 'History of Deptford Power Station' by K J Williams, IEE Review, February 1991.
Would a member like to borrow the maps and guide books we have recently collected? We have just returned from a marvellous holiday in California. We bought three or four guidebooks with an historic bias and a bundle of 'Rand McNally' maps in order to track down as much Industrial Archaeology as possible.
If anyone is going to California in the near future they are welcome to borrow them. We found route planning quite difficult to begin with without the information. One of the areas we went to was the 'Gold Country' where gold was discovered in '49 and where there is a lot to see. Please ring Saskia on 071-582 2804 (evenings).