B Station At Abbey Mills Pumping Station

251/7/14 ABBEY LANE E15 25-OCT-84 B Station at Abbey Mills Pumping Station (Formerly listed as: ABBEY LANE E15 Ancillary Pump House at Abbey Mills to south east of Pumping Station)

II Pumping Station. 1891-6, to designs prepared under Sir Maurice Fitzmaurice, engineer, following a report by Sir Benjamin Baker and Sir Alexander Binnie, engineers, for the London County Council. White stock brick with red and blue brick and stone dressings. Hipped slate roof with lantern at ridge. Three by two bay rectangular single-storey block, each bay gabled over blind arches within which there are triple narrow round-headed sash windows. Loosely Venetian Gothic in style, the arches having polychrome voussoirs, foliated stone impost bands and keystones to delicate wrought-iron finials. Stone coped gable parapets. Cast-iron rainwater heads and barley-sugar downpipes forming corner shafts. Internal pumping floor sunk deep below ground level. Early pumping machinery replaced. HISTORY: B Station was one of a number of works initiated in 1891 to enhance the capacity of Abbey Mills Pumping Station (q.v.), the northern cornerstone of Sir Joseph Bazalgette's enormous and heroic programme of works of the 1860s that gave London mains drainage. It was built to pump storm water from the Isle of Dogs branch sewer and, when necessary, to augment the pumping capacity of the main engine house. SOURCES: London County Council Minutes, 5 December 1899; National Monuments Record, Buildings Index File No. 92244.

The Pumping Station known as Building B, built 1891-6 at Abbey Mills, closely follows its predecessor in its architectural style, and is a significant part of this group of historic structures, reflecting early expansion of the complex to cope with London's growing population. It also has strong visual group value.