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The Thames Embankment is a work of 19th-century civil engineering that reclaimed marshy[ citation needed ] land next to the River Thames in central London. It consists of the Victoria Embankment and Chelsea Embankment.
There had been a long history of failed proposals to embank the Thames in central London. Embankments along the Thames were first proposed by Christopher Wren in the 1660s, then in 1824 former soldier and aide to George IV, Sir Frederick Trench suggested an embankment [1] known as 'Trench's Terrace' from Blackfriars to Charing Cross. Trench brought a bill to Parliament which was blocked by river interests.
In the 1830s, the painter John Martin promoted a version, as realised later, to contain an intercepting sewer. In January 1842 the City Corporation backed a plan designed by James Walker but which was dropped due to government infighting. The government itself built the Chelsea Embankment in 1854 from Chelsea Hospital to Millbank.
Started in 1862, the Victoria Embankment starting from Millbank on the main, north (or "left" bank) was primarily designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette with architectural work on the embankment wall and river stairs by Charles Henry Driver. [2] It incorporates the main low level interceptor sewer from the then limits of west London's growth, and an underground railway over which a wide road and riverside walkway were built and run today, shored up by the sturdy retaining wall along the tidal River Thames (the Tideway). In total, Bazalgette's scheme reclaimed 22 acres (0.089 km2) of land from the river. It prevented flooding, such as around what had been the remnants of Thorney Island, much of which was owned by the Duke of Westminster. Those waterfront hotels, supply warehouses and genteel "town houses" which had boat access by inlets and watergates lost this.
Much of the granite used in the projects was brought from Lamorna Cove in Cornwall. The quarried stone was shaped into blocks on site before being loaded on to barges and transported up the English Channel into the Thames.
From Battersea Bridge in the west, it includes Cheyne Walk, Chelsea Embankment, Grosvenor Road, Millbank and Victoria Tower Gardens. [3]
Beyond the Houses of Parliament, it is named Victoria Embankment as it stretches to Blackfriars Bridge; this stretch incorporates part of the shared District/Circle Line bi-directional tunnel of the London Underground and passes Shell Mex House and the Savoy Hotel. It likewise incorporates gardens and open space, here at their greatest, and collectively known as the Embankment Gardens, which provide a peaceful oasis in the heart of Central London. The gardens include many statues, including a memorial with a bust of Bazalgette.
The smaller and shorter Albert Embankment is on the south side of the river, opposite the Millbank section of the Thames Embankment. It was created by Bazalgette for the Metropolitan Board of Works and built by William Webster between July 1866 and November 1869.
Some parts of the Embankment were rebuilt in the 20th century due to wartime bomb damage or natural disasters such as the 1928 Thames flood.
The Thames and Albert embankments are but a fraction of the 200 miles of walls that prevent the Thames from flooding adjoining lands, and which were begun in the Middle Ages.
Millbank is an area of central London in the City of Westminster. Millbank is located by the River Thames, east of Pimlico and south of Westminster. Millbank is known as the location of major government offices, Burberry headquarters, the Millbank Tower and prominent art institutions such as Tate Britain and the Chelsea College of Art and Design.
Sir Joseph William Bazalgette CB was a 19th-century English civil engineer. As chief engineer of London's Metropolitan Board of Works, his major achievement was the creation of a sewerage system for central London which was instrumental in relieving the city of cholera epidemics, while beginning to clean the River Thames. He was also the designer of Hammersmith Bridge.
Lambeth Bridge is a road traffic and footbridge crossing the River Thames in an east–west direction in central London. The river flows north at the crossing point. Downstream, the next bridge is Westminster Bridge; upstream, the next bridge is Vauxhall Bridge.
Victoria Embankment is part of the Thames Embankment, a road and river-walk along the north bank of the River Thames in London. It runs from the Palace of Westminster to Blackfriars Bridge in the City of London, and acts as a major thoroughfare for road traffic between the City of Westminster and the City of London.
The Westbourne or Kilburn is a culverted small River Thames tributary in London, rising in Hampstead and Brondesbury Park and which as a drain unites and flows southward through Kilburn and Bayswater to skirt underneath the east of Hyde Park's Serpentine lake then through central Chelsea under Sloane Square. It passes centrally under the south side of Royal Hospital Chelsea's Ranelagh Gardens before discharging into Inner London's old-fashioned, but grandiose combined sewer system, with exceptional discharges into the Inner London Tideway. Since the latter 19th century, the population of its catchment has risen further but to reduce the toll it places on the Beckton Sewage Treatment Works and related bills its narrow basin has been assisted by private soakaways, and public surface water drains. Its depression has been replaced with and adopted as a reliable route for a gravity combined sewer. The formation of the Serpentine relied on the water, a lake with a long, ornate footbridge and various activities associated, which today uses little-polluted water from a great depth.
The London sewer system is part of the water infrastructure serving London, England. The modern system was developed during the late 19th century, and as London has grown the system has been expanded. It is currently owned and operated by Thames Water and serves almost all of Greater London.
The Northern Outfall Sewer (NOS) is a major gravity sewer which runs from Wick Lane in Hackney to Beckton sewage treatment works in east London; most of it was designed by Joseph Bazalgette after an outbreak of cholera in 1853 and the "Great Stink" of 1858.
Stamford Brook was a tributary of the Tideway stretch of the River Thames in west London supplied by three headwaters. Historically used as an irrigation ditch or dyke the network of small watercourses had four lower courses and mouths.
Counter's Creek, ending in Chelsea Creek, the lowest part of which still exists, was a stream that flowed from Kensal Green, by North Kensington and flowed south into the River Thames on the Tideway at Sands End, Fulham. Its remaining open watercourse is the quay of Chelsea Creek.
The Thames Tideway Tunnel is a 25 km (16 mi) combined sewer under construction, running mostly under the tidal section (estuary) of the River Thames across Inner London to capture, store and convey almost all the raw sewage and rainwater that currently overflows into the estuary. These events occur when rainfall volumes exceed the capacity of Bazalgette's and other engineers' London sewerage system. The tunnelling phase of the project was completed in April 2022.
The Great Stink was an event in Central London during July and August 1858 in which the hot weather exacerbated the smell of untreated human waste and industrial effluent that was present on the banks of the River Thames. The problem had been mounting for some years, with an ageing and inadequate sewer system that emptied directly into the Thames. The miasma from the effluent was thought to transmit contagious diseases, and three outbreaks of cholera before the Great Stink were blamed on the ongoing problems with the river.
Chelsea Embankment is part of the Thames Embankment, a road and walkway along the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England.
The Tideway is a part of the River Thames in England which is subject to tides. This stretch of water is downstream from Teddington Lock. The Tideway comprises the upper Thames Estuary including the Pool of London.
The A3036 is an A road in London, England, running from Waterloo to Wandsworth.
Blackfriars Pier is a pier on the River Thames, in the Blackfriars area of the City of London, United Kingdom. It is served by boats operating under licence from London River Services and is situated on the north bank of the Thames, adjacent to Blackfriars Bridge.
The Victoria Embankment Gardens are a series of gardens on the north side of the River Thames between Blackfriars Bridge and Westminster Bridge in London.
Dolphin lamp standards provide electric light along much of the Thames Embankment in London, United Kingdom. Two stylised dolphins or sturgeons writhe around the base of a standard lamp post, supporting a fluted column bearing electric lights in an opaque white globe, topped by a metal crown. Many of the lamps are mounted on granite plinths.
The Embanking of the tidal Thames is the historical process by which the lower River Thames, at one time a broad, shallow waterway winding through malarious marshlands, has been transformed into a deep, narrow tidal canal flowing between solid artificial walls, and restrained by these at high tide.
