London County Council pumping station

London County Council Storm Water Pumping Station

A storm water pumping station built in 1904 in Classical style by the London County Council Works Department under Chief Engineers Sir Alexander Binnie and Sir Maurice Fitzmaurice. The building was constructed to serve the expanded London main drainage system, pumping storm water into the Thames as part of a series of similar stations built across London in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The building is constructed in red and glazed brick with terracotta dressings and plaques, with a slate roof. It follows a rectangular plan with most of the plant located on the ground floor, while pumps and water outlets are at basement level.

The principal north-west elevation faces Lots Road and comprises nine bays, with the central three projecting forward. Glazed brick rises to impost level, above which is red brick with terracotta dressings. The three central projecting bays are topped by a parapet decorated with three terracotta plaques reading 'London', 'County' and 'Council', interspersed with foliate terracotta roundels. Paired round-arched windows with iron glazing bars are set within round-arched frames with terracotta keystones and mouldings throughout the elevation. The north-east and south-west elevations are similarly treated but feature pedimented gables with oeil-de-boeuf windows. The south-east rear elevation is largely blank, without the glazed and red brick finishes of the public elevations, and contains large central and side-facing panelled double doors. The building is surrounded to its north-west and south-west by a low red brick wall with projecting piers and iron railings, with iron gates providing access to the main west entrance.

Internally, an iron truss roof is boarded with glazed sky-lights, and polychrome glazed brick surfaces line the interior. The ground floor contains 1930s office accommodation in the central south-eastern part, fuel and water tanks at ground and mezzanine levels, and plant including electricity supply areas, three mid-20th century electric slip-ring motors, and five identical 1930s combustion engines by Belliss & Moromb with gearboxes by David Brown & Sons (Huddersfield) Ltd. Historic gauges indicating sewer and tidal levels, signage and a clock are also present. The basement, accessed by stairs at the north-east and south-east, contains metal banisters and wooden handrails leading to five main pumps and storm water outlet pipes by Staveley, dated 1931 and 1932.

The station became operational in 1904. Originally powered by gas engines, it was substantially updated in the early 1930s when diesel combustion engines, pumps and office accommodation were installed. The Belliss & Moromb combustion engines are of some interest as an unusual product for a firm better known for compressor manufacture. Further modifications occurred in the late 1950s and early 1960s with the addition of three small pumps. Lots Road is the earliest and best-surviving example of a storm water pumping station by the Metropolitan Board of Works and London County Council, and the most architecturally decorative and accomplished of such stations, most of which have now been demolished or replaced.