London Hydraulic Power Company Former Pumping Station

This is a pumping station, later used as an engineering works, built in 1902 for the London Hydraulic Power Company. It was designed as a model for subsequent stations built by the company, following their earlier Wapping Station. The building is constructed of local stock and Suffolk brick with red brick dressings, particularly to the semicircular window arches. The main east-west block, which houses the pump room, has a high interior with a series of arched windows and oculi in the gable ends. The gable ends feature stepped brick detailing and parapet gables to the clerestory. A tall, tapering octagonal chimney stack sits on a square base with an engineering brick plinth, located at the north-west corner of the pump room. An accumulator tower is present, distinguished by blind arcading, a panelled frieze, a cornice, and a gable-topped parapet on the shorter sides. Lower north blocks support large, panelled cast-iron settling tanks, which are supported by a steel frame internally. The pumping station remained in its original use until 1977, although the pumps and engines have since been removed. It has since been used as an engineering works.