It became a Grade I-listed building in 1970, and the Crossness Engines Trust began restoration in 1987.
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Crossness still shelters its original four huge, rotative beam-engines, considered the largest of their type in the world.
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Some will relate to the history of Crossness, but the space may also welcome community events including art shows, Jones said.
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This solution to the city's stench was such a huge deal that crowds of dignitaries visited Crossness to celebrate its opening with much fanfare on April 4,1865.
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Advertise on Hyperallergic with Nectar Ads Although once charged with the incredibly unglamorous task of eliminating sewage from London, the Crossness Pumping Station boasts a stunningly ornate interior.
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The following year, Bazalgette began work with architect Charles Henry Driver on Crossness, which opened in 1865; Abbey Mills Pumping Station, also embellished, followed, with completion in 1868.
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Public access has been available sporadically for a number of years, but this July marks the first time you may appreciate Crossness and its gardens in its full, restored glory.
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"Bazalgette's solution in the 1860s was to intercept the tributaries of the Thames by building massive sewers along the Victoria and Albert Embankments," Mike Jones, trustee of the Crossness Engines Trust, told Hyperallergic.
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" Walls' crossness has been directed at the prosecution as well -- frequently chiding the lawyers to stop leading witnesses and telling prosecutor J.P. Cooney that he would not allow "this to become a tabloid trial.
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A massive feat of Victorian engineering, Crossness Pumping Station emerged as part of a total reconfiguration of London's entire sewage system, designed by Metropolitan Commission of Sewers's Chief Engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette to solve the city's grave water contamination problems.
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One of the many ponds in Crossness Nature Reserve Crossness Nature Reserve is a 25.5 hectare local nature reserve in Crossness in the London Borough of Bexley. It is part of the Erith Marshes Site of Metropolitan Importance for Nature Conservation. The site is next to Crossness Sewage Works, and is owned and managed by Thames Water. Crossness is part of the original Thames floodplain called Erith Marshes.
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Crossness Nature Reserve is east of the sewage works. The Ridgeway path, owned by Thames Water and built on top of the southern outfall sewer, stretches between Plumstead railway station and the Crossness sewage treatment works. The Thames Path Extension - from the Thames Barrier to Crayford Ness - runs along the southern bank of the river through Crossness.
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Crossness is the location of a large sewage treatment works and the Victorian Crossness Pumping Station, built at the eastern end of the Southern Outfall Sewer as part of the London sewerage system designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette and constructed between 1859 and 1865.
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There are four designated Local Nature Reserves in Bexley, Crossness Nature Reserve, Danson Park Bog Garden, Foots Cray Meadows and Lesnes Abbey Woods.
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The Ridgeway cycle path owned by Thames Water passes through the town from Plumstead Railway station to Crossness Sewage Treatment works, dividing the town into North and South Thamesmead.
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Crossness lighthouse is a steel lattice structure. The light is at an elevation of 41 feet (12.5 m) and gives a white 5-second flash visible for 8 miles (12.9 km).
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A view of Crossness Nature Reserve one of the fragments of the marshes that has remained undeveloped Erith Marshes is an area of grazing marsh beside the south bank of River Thames in London, England. It is located next to the Crossness Sewage Treatment Works and is owned by Thames Water. It is a Site of Metropolitan Importance for Nature Conservation in the London Borough of Bexley. It can be accessed by London Buses routes 177, 180, 229, 401 and 472.
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A line from the nearby 132kV grid station skirted the Crossness Sewage Works to the 132kV Thames Crossing of the CEGB. This was the Belvedere-Barking/Crowlands circuit. It was decommissioned in the mid 1980s.
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The original Abbey Mills Pumping Station, in Mill Meads, East London, is a sewage pumping station, designed by engineer Joseph Bazalgette, Edmund Cooper, and architect Charles Driver. It was built between 1865 and 1868, housing eight beam engines by Rothwell & Co. of Bolton. Two engines on each arm of a cruciform plan, with an elaborate Byzantine style, described as The Cathedral of Sewage. Another of Bazalgette's designs, Crossness Pumping Station, is located south of the River Thames at Crossness, at the end of the Southern Outfall Sewer.
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The sewage from the Northern Outfall sewer and that from the Southern Outfall were originally collected in balancing tanks in Beckton and Crossness, respectively, before being dumped, untreated, into the Thames at high tide. The system was opened by Edward, Prince of Wales in 1865, although the whole project was not actually completed for another ten years. Partly as a result of the Princess Alice disaster, extensive sewage treatment facilities were built to replace the balancing tanks in Beckton and Crossness in 1900. Bazalgette's foresight may be seen in the diameter of the sewers.
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Crossness is a location in the London Borough of Bexley, close to the southern bank of the River Thames, to the east of Thamesmead, west of Belvedere and north-west of Erith. The place takes its name from Cross Ness, a specific promontory on the southern bank of the River Thames. In maritime terms, the tip of Cross Ness, in the past referred to as 'Leather Bottle Point', marks the boundary between Barking Reach and Halfway Reach. An unmanned lighthouse on Crossness is a navigational aid to shipping.
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Thamesmead is located 11 miles (18 km) east of central London, being on the same latitude as Westminster. In Thamesmead East, the River Thames makes its most northerly incursion within Greater London near the Crossness Sewage Treatment Works.
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Ridgeway under Eastern Way (A2016) The Ridgeway is a "cycling permitted pedestrian priority" footpath owned by Thames Water in southeast London. It runs between Plumstead and Crossness on an embankment that covers the Joseph Bazalgette Southern Outfall Sewer.
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Peckett and Sons 0-6-0 saddle tank locomotive "Hollymoor" It was a standard gauge light railway built by Forster & Dicksee with the help of a "Puffing Billy". Other locomotives used on the line included "Crossness", "Hendon" and "Sherwood".
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A walking and cycle path has been created on the land above the Southern Outfall Sewer, from Plumstead railway station to Crossness Sewage Treatment works and the River Thames path, running some 3.5 miles, with access points along its length.
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The southern system, across the less populated suburbs of London, was the smaller and easier part of the system to build. Three main sewers ran from Putney, Wandsworth and Norwood until they linked together in Deptford. At that point a pumping station lifted the effluent into the main outflow sewer, which ran to the Crossness Pumping Station on the Erith Marshes, where it was discharged into the Thames at high tide. The newly built station at Crossness was designed by Bazalgette and a consultant engineer, Charles Driver, a proponent of the use of cast iron as a building material.
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The Crossness Pumping Station is a former sewage pumping station designed by the Metropolitan Board of Works's chief engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette and architect Charles Henry Driver at the eastern end of the Southern Outfall Sewer and the Ridgeway path in the London Borough of Bexley. Constructed between 1859 and 1865 by William Webster, as part of Bazalgette's redevelopment of the London sewerage system, it features spectacular ornamental cast ironwork, that Nikolaus Pevsner described as "a masterpiece of engineering – a Victorian cathedral of ironwork". It is adjacent to Erith Marshes, a grazing marsh, the northern part of which is designated as Crossness Nature Reserve. This provides a valuable habitat for creatures ranging from moths to small amphibians and water voles.
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There was at one time an earlier 132 kV crossing nearby, with towers 148.4 metres tall. Linking Dagenham and Crossness, it was built between 1927 and 1932 and was part of the Belvedere- Crowlands 132/33/25 kV double circuit. With the cessation of generation at Belvedere Power Station, this line was dismantled in 1987.
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The Ridgeway runs ENE/WSW: the western third between Plumstead railway station and The Link community centre in Thamesmead is in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, the remainder of the path towards the Thames Path and Crossness Pumping Station is in the London Borough of Bexley. A similar path called the Greenway covers the Northern Outfall Sewer.
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The Prince Consort pumping engine. Elaborate decorative ironwork in the Octagon. The pumping station became a Grade I listed building in 1970 and will remain on the Heritage at Risk Register until the restoration is completed. The Crossness Engines Trust, a registered charity, was formed in 1987 to oversee the restoration project which was due to be completed in 2013.
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Peckham Rye is a railway station in Peckham town centre, South London. It opened on 1 December 1865 for LC&DR; trains and on 13 August 1866 for LB&SCR; trains.Dendy Marshall "History of the Southern Railway" It was designed by Charles Henry Driver (1832–1900), the architect of Abbey Mills and Crossness pumping stations, who also designed the grade II listed and stations between here and .
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The pitch was notoriously muddy and upon its southern border lay the Ridgeway containing the Southern Outfall Sewer that ended at Crossness Pumping Station. There were no stands as such as the club used wagons borrowed from nearby Army bases to house spectators. The Royal Arsenal's first match there was against Millwall Rovers on 30 March 1888, a game won by a margin of 3 goals to nil.
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Increasing the carrying capacity of London's sewerage system has been debated for some years. The new 'Thames Tideway' scheme includes a wide diameter storage-and-transfer tunnel (internal diameters of 7.2 m and 9 m have been suggested), 22 miles (35 km) long, underneath the riverbed of the Thames between Hammersmith in the west and Beckton/Crossness in the east. The cost of this megaproject is £4.9 billion, and it is due to be completed in 2024.
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The innovative use of Portland cement strengthened the tunnels, which were in good order 150 years later. Gravity allows the sewage to flow eastwards, but in places such as Chelsea, Deptford and Abbey Mills, pumping stations were built to raise the water and provide sufficient flow. Sewers north of the Thames feed into the Northern Outfall Sewer, which feeds into a major treatment works at Beckton. South of the river, the Southern Outfall Sewer extends to a similar facility at Crossness.
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The Rocket - A class project of Charlie's making, the rocket is a model space rocket that won Charlie a First Place prize in school; he beat Marv and another boy named Harvey. Unfortunately, Lola in her curiosity had a bit of a mishap with it and broke the rocket. But Charlie, notwithstanding his crossness, was able to mend it like new. Daisy - Lola's rag doll, she is a blonde doll wearing a pink dress and a bow to match in its hair.
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At Crossness, the incoming liquid was raised some by the application of four large steam driven pumps. The engines were of enormous size and power. They were built by James Watt & Co. to Joseph Bazalgette's designs and specification, and were named "Victoria", "Prince Consort", "Albert Edward" and "Alexandra". Interior of the pumping station At 11 revolutions per minute, 6 tons (approximately ) of sewage per stroke per engine were pumped up into a reservoir, and was released into the Thames during the ebbing tide.
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Construction of the interceptor system required 318 million bricks, 2.7 million cubic metres of excavated earth and 670,000 cubic metres of concrete. Gravity allowed the sewage to flow eastwards, but in places such as Chelsea, Deptford and Abbey Mills, pumping stations were built to raise the water and provide sufficient flow. Sewers north of the Thames feed into the Northern Outfall Sewer, which fed into a major treatment works at Beckton. South of the river, the Southern Outfall Sewer extended to a similar facility at Crossness.
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The old Abbey Mills Pumping Station Interior of the Octagon at Crossness Pumping Station showing its elaborate decorative ironwork Drainage reports by Bazalgette in the Institution of Civil Engineers' archives At that time, the River Thames was little more than an open sewer, empty of any fish or other wildlife, and an obvious health hazard to Londoners. Bazalgette's solution (similar to a proposal made by painter John Martin 25 years earlier) was to construct a network of of enclosed underground brick main sewers to intercept sewage outflows, and of street sewers, to intercept the raw sewage which up until then flowed freely through the streets and thoroughfares of London. The plan included major pumping stations at Deptford (1864) and at Crossness (1865) on the Erith marshes, both on the south side of the Thames, and at Abbey Mills (in the River Lea valley, 1868) and on the Chelsea Embankment (close to Grosvenor Bridge; 1875), north of the river. The outflows were diverted downstream where they were collected in two large sewage outfall systems on the north and south sides of the Thames called the Northern and Southern Outfall sewers.
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He was knighted in 1897 by Queen Victoria for services to engineering and elected President of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1905. He also designed, with Sir Benjamin Baker, major parts of London's drainage system, including east London sewage treatment works at Crossness and Barking on the south and north sides of the Thames respectively (these were sited at the ends of the sewer outfalls created by Sir Joseph Bazalgette during the late 19th century). Like several other notable engineers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries (e.g.
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Interior of Crossness Pumping Station. Webster's name appears on the ironwork (top-center) Born in the small Lincolnshire village of Wyberton in 1819, Webster apprenticed to the Boston builder Mr. Jackson. Immediately following his apprenticeship, Webster became a builder in Wyberton and was initially involved in the refurbishment and renovation of a number of churches in Lincolnshire (working with Sir Gilbert Scott on Algakirk church) and the surrounding counties as well the building of Boston's Exchange Building. Between 1856 and 1857, Webster was commissioned to build the Cambridge Lunatic Asylum at Fulbourn.
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There is an option to extend the new steam railway planned for South London from Crossness car park to Plumstead railway station via the Ridgeway. At the western end of the Ridgeway, the housing association Peabody Trust have applied to build 930 homes adjacent to Plumstead bus garage. Improvements to existing public spaces around the development will include improvements to pathways that pass the Ridgeway. Proposals have been put forward by the Pharaoh Project to create a 'biodome' within the underpass at Pettman Crescent adjacent to the Plumstead entrance of the Ridgeway.
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Peter Bazalgette is the great-great-grandson of Victorian civil engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette. A third cousin is Edward Bazalgette who directed and produced the 2003 documentary The Sewer King which charted Sir Joseph Bazalgette's design and engineering of the London sewers. Peter Bazalgette presented a later television show for Five, called The Great Stink, and chaired the Crossness Engines Trust raising £4.5 million to restore the magnificent Victorian pumping station built by his ancestor. An old joke is that where Joseph Bazalgette was responsible for removing ordure from London's homes, his grandson has reversed the process.
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Abrogate interviewed a girl named Alisa who came to the United States at the age of five from Guatemala; she encountered the difficulties of higher education. She was a student who excelled academically in high school and was admitted to the University of California. Alisa became disheartened due to her status and was unable to be given financial aid. Some researchers explain that undocumented children face an economic barrier when pursuing a higher education and find that because of this they are unable to attend a University (Abrogate; Shields and Bergman, 2004; Gonzales, 2011; Crossness and Turkey, 2011).
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The piston of the engine is attached to the central point of the linkage, allowing it to act on the two outer beams of the linkage both by pushing and by pulling. The nearly linear motion of the linkage allows this type of engine to use a rigid connection to the piston without causing the piston to bind in its containing cylinder. This configuration also results in a smoother motion of the beam than the single-action engine, making it easier to convert its back-and-forth motion into rotation. An example of Watt's linkage can be found on the high and intermediate pressure piston rod of the 1865 Crossness engines.
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Wyberton House Webster was the son of William Webster, a successful building contractor who grew wealthy from constructing major civil engineering and building projects in London. The family lived from 1869 in Wyberton House in Lee Terrace, Blackheath. The younger William Webster trained as a chemical engineer. A fellow of the Chemical Society, he patented a system to detect hydrogenous gases in mines in 1876, and later developed a system for the electrolytic purification of sewage (patent application filed on 22 December 1887; US patent awarded on 19 February 1889), trialled in 1888 at the Crossness Southern Outfall works which had been built by his father's firm in the 1860s.
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To aid the drainage, pumping stations were placed to lift the sewage from lower levels into higher pipes. Two of the more ornate stations, Abbey Mills in Stratford and Crossness on the Erith Marshes, with architectural designs from the consultant engineer, Charles Driver, are listed for protection by English Heritage. Bazalgette's plan introduced the three embankments to London in which the sewers ran—the Victoria, Chelsea and Albert Embankments. Bazalgette's work ensured that sewage was no longer dumped onto the shores of the Thames and brought an end to the cholera outbreaks; his actions are thought to have saved more lives than the efforts of any other Victorian official.
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This main sewer ran —along what is now known as the Greenway—to the outfall at Beckton. Like the Crossness Pumping Station, Abbey Mills was a joint design by Bazalgette and Driver. Above the centre of the engine-house was an ornate dome that, Dobraszczyk considers, gives the building a "superficial resemblance ... to a Byzantine church". The architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner, in his Buildings of England, thought the building showed "exciting architecture applied to the most foul purposes"; he went on to describe it as "an unorthodox mix, vaguely Italian Gothic in style but with tiers of Byzantine windows and a central octagonal lantern that adds a gracious Russian flavour".
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Memorial to those killed in the disaster During the 1880s London's Metropolitan Board of Works began to purify the sewage at Crossness and Beckton, rather than dumping the untreated waste into the river, and a series of six sludge boats were ordered to ship effluent into the North Sea for dumping. The first boat commissioned in June 1887 was named Bazalgette—after Joseph Bazalgette, who had rebuilt London's sewer system. The practice of dumping at sea continued until December 1998. Until Princess Alice sank, the Marine Police Force—the branch of the Metropolitan Police that had responsibility for policing the Thames—relied on rowing boats for their work.
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Following the completion of this project his next was the building of the Three Counties Asylum, near Hitchin. Moving to London in 1860, his first projects in the capital included contracts for the Crossness Southern Outfall Sewer, Abbey Mills Pumping Station and the Western Pumping Station (adjacent to the Grosvenor Canal in Pimlico). He then moved to constructing parts of the Victoria Embankment and the whole of the Albert and Chelsea Embankments (1871) as well as an extension to the embankment around the Houses of Parliament. He was also involved in the Holborn Viaduct railway station and hotel, and the southern approaches to Tower Bridge.
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Attempts to enclose and improve the forest (for example, by introducing rabbit farming, or sowing crops) were however strongly opposed throughout by the local commoners, who claimed rights of common on the forest, having exercised them "from time out of mind", as well as by neighbouring estates who claimed right of pasture there. In 1662 the forest was granted to one of Charles II's closest allies, George Digby, Earl of Bristol, and it was formally disafforested to allow Bristol a free hand to improve it. His attempts to do so were however frustrated "by the crossness of the neighbourhood";Christian (1967), p. 2. the fences he erected were thrown down and the crops he sowed were trampled by cattle.
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Having received over £2 million in initial funding, including, in 2008, £1.5 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund, £150,000 from English Heritage and £700,000 in match funding from the Department for Communities and Local Government, work began at the site to build an access road, protect the buildings and to develop a museum. Financial and other support was also provided by Thames Water, Tilfen Land, the London Borough of Bexley and the City Bridge Trust. A further £1.5 million in funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund was secured in April 2015, the 150th anniversary of Crossness's official opening. This was to help fund a museum exhibition focused on the "Great Stink" of 1858 and the role of Crossness in improving London's sewerage system.
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The south of the borough forms part of and is surrounded except on the mid- north side by higher crests of the Norwood Ridge. Along these crests in part of the borough's south corner is the highest point of the borough, Sydenham Hill, the fifteenth-highest peak in London. The main watercourse is the Thames bounding the north of the borough into which the area drains. The south of the borough is the upper valley of a present sewer and surface water drainage basin, once a large stream the Effra, in large part converted to a combined sewer under a Joseph Bazalgette-engineered reform following general urbanisation; all combined and public foul sewers drain far to the east to the Crossness works.
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Prior to the 19th century the area now forming the borough was sparsely populated: very few of the present settlements were mentioned in the Domesday Book, although the village of Bexley has a charter dated 814 AD.A brief history of Bexley Erith was a port on the River Thames until the 17th century; the opening of the sewage works at nearby Crossness in the late 19th century turned it into an industrial town. Today's settlement pattern is the result of the gradual extension of the London influence. Until the 19th century it was an area with a few isolated buildings such as the Georgian Danson House. With the coming of the railways building began apace, although the area is still composed of many disconnected settlements, interspersed with area of open ground and parks.
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Chalk aquifer borehole under the North Downs at Albury Thames Water produces biosolid fertiliser as a by-product from the waste treatment, and supplies this to local farms. It also recovers phosphates – an increasingly important source of a dwindling naturally occurring mineral. Sewage Treatment Works at Crossness , it recovered approximately 18 MW (156 GWh per year), or 12.5% of its total energy requirements from renewable electricity generated from biogas collected from the sewage. Further biogas capacity, the burning of 'fatbergs' removed from London's sewers and substantial solar farms have enabled the company to announce a 2015–16 target of generating 36 MW (318 GWh per annum) or 20% of its total energy requirements from renewable sources, a 2020 target of self-generating 33% of electricity needs, and a commitment to 100% renewable energy eventually.
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The Splash Park was closed in 2016 and replaced with a new play area called Belvedere Beach, this opened to the public on the 27th of July 2017. Lower Belvedere is smaller and more industrial and has a Methodist chapel, a Sikh Temple and borders to its north the high technology sludge, methane incinerator, a small industrial park, large waste incinerator and Joseph Bazalgette's Crossness Sewage Treatment Works and is closer to the railway station than Upper Belvedere. Lower Belvedere is also the location of the Belvedere Community Forum, which runs and meets at Belvedere Community Centre. The Grade II Listed Bexley College was designed in 1906 by W Egerton in the Queen Anne style and is on residential Erith Road on the last part of the ridge, in the east of the district on the border of Erith.
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In 2006 British swimmer and environmental campaigner Lewis Pugh became the first person to swim the full length of the Thames from outside Kemble to Southend-on-Sea to draw attention to the severe drought in England which saw record temperatures indicative of a degree of global warming. The swim took him 21 days to complete. The official headwater of the river had stopped flowing due to the drought forcing Pugh to run the first . Since June 2012 the Port of London Authority has made and enforces a by-law that bans swimming between Putney Bridge and Crossness, Thamesmead (thus including all of central London) without obtaining prior permission, on the grounds that swimmers in that area of the river endanger not only themselves, due to the strong current of the river, but also other river users.
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The twice-daily release of of raw sewage from the sewer outfalls Abbey Mills, at Barking, and the Crossness Pumping Station had occurred one hour before the collision. In a letter to The Times shortly after the collision, a chemist described the outflow as: > Two continuous columns of decomposed fermenting sewage, hissing like soda- > water with baneful gases, so black that the water is stained for miles and > discharging a corrupt charnel-house odour, that will be remembered by all > ... as being particularly depressing and sickening. Artist's impression of the sinking on a contemporary pamphlet The water was also polluted by the untreated output from Beckton Gas Works, and several local chemical factories. Adding to the foulness of the water, a fire in Thames Street earlier that day had resulted in oil and petroleum entering the river.
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Location map for Bexley Bexley, lying as it does on the outer fringe of London, has many relatively large areas of open space. The ridge of higher ground in South London crosses the Borough from its high point of Shooters Hill, on the boundary with the Royal Borough of Greenwich, to end above the River Thames at Belvedere, where the land drops down to the old port of Erith. This high land, whose geology is the sand and pebbles of the Blackheath beds,The Rural Landscape of Kent, SG McRae and CP Burnham, Wye College, 1973 and which results in heathland, provided the line on the old Roman road (Watling Street) ran between Crayford and Welling. The land falls away to the north of the high ground, across the Erith Marshes to the River Thames, which here makes a loop to the north at Crossness.
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The steam required to power these engines was raised by 12 Cornish boilers with single "straight-through" flues situated in the Boiler House to the south of the Engine House, and which consumed 5,000 tons of Welsh coal annually. The Crossness Works merely disposed of raw sewage into the river seawards, and in 1882, a Royal Commission recommended that the solid matter in the sewage should be separated out, and that only the liquid portion remaining should be allowed, as a temporary measure, to pass into the river. In 1891, sedimentation tanks were added to the works, and the sludge was carried by steam boats and dumped further out into the estuary, at sea. During the 1880s, chemical engineer William Webster developed a system for the electrolytic purification of sewage (patent application filed on 22 December 1887; US patent awarded on 19 February 1889), trialled in 1888 at the Southern Outfall works which had been built by his father's firm over 20 years earlier.
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