C Station, With Associated Valve House, Abbey Mills Pumping Station

251/0/10087 C station, with associated valve house 09-APR-08 , Abbey Mills Pumping Station

GV II Pumping station and associated valve house, 1910-14, to designs prepared under George W. Humphreys, engineer, for the London County Council. Pumping station is white stock brick with terracotta and moulded stone dressings. Slate roof with long lantern on ridge. A long low single-storey range, round-headed windows with hood moulds, stylistically a faint Gothic echo of A and B pumping stations (q.q.v.), with crisp well crafted detailing. 19-bay elevation facing main Abbey Mills Pumping Station articulated 3:4:5:4:3, ends and centre breaking forward under gables, central entrance, outer relieving arches. Opposite elevation similar with four bays to centre. Gabled five-bay returns with central entrances. Internal pumping floor sunk deep below ground level. Early pumping machinery said to be replaced. The associated pumping station valve house is white stock brick with terracotta and moulded stone dressings. Flat roof. A small L-plan single-storey block over a tall raised plinth. Round-headed windows with hood moulds. HISTORY: C Station was built at the end of a long programme of improvement works initiated in 1891 to enhance capacity for handling north London's sewage at Abbey Mills, the grandest part of the enormous programme of sewerage works carried out under Sir Joseph Bazalgette for the Metropolitan Board of Works in the 1860s. Completion of new sewers made C Station necessary, especially to cope with storm water.

The 1910-14 pumping station at Abbey Mills is a building of restrained architectural quality and a significant part of the group of historic structures at Abbey Mills. It has visual group value and also reflects early expansion of the complex to cope with London's growing population.

SOURCES: The Engineer, 18 July 1913, pp. 64-8; National Monuments Record, Buildings Index File No. 92244.