On Water
The tide is out and we explore a bog, which is remarkably clean. I think about the Thames which was so foul that by 1858 sittings at the House of Commons, next to the river, had to be abandoned. Covering the windows with carpet, which was a defense, could not stop le stink. By the middle of 19th Century, the rise in sewage carried into the Thames via the Fleet river killed every single fish, and consequently all the birds that lived off them. London had 70,000 houses of which only 17,000 had their own wells; the rest relied on standpipes- one for every 20 to 30 houses- which supplied water for one hour only, three days a week. Few houses had bathrooms and even when Queen Victoria moved into Buckingham Palace, she found no bathrooms. (as late as 1908, Downing Street had no bathrooms BTW). All of Victorian London's waste and toxic water passed into the river, you see. Public bathhouses were popular which is an unimaginable horror - I am made squeemish by the old, over-chlorinated swimming pools. A series of cholera outbreaks in the 1840s and 1850s paved the way for a system of sewers built with the main outfall at Becton and Crossness, away from the central areas and leading to a dramatic drop in death rates (from 130 down to 37 per 1000). The first filtration plant for the Thames was built in 1869. As a further precaution, the Victoria, Albert and Chelsea embankments were built to speed the river and get rid of the putrid mud. The Victorians used the momentum to build further under London with the Underground railway and more sewers.
And here we are today using practically the same system. Improvements do happen though. Take our area Richmond: Thames Water is redoing all the clay-pipes at once, modernising with plastic and bendy fixtures attaching each and everyone's house. God only knows the cost but I am fascinated by the workmanship, which marches block-by-block through the neighborhood tearing up concrete roads and sidewalks, digging ever-deeper ditches and snaking tubes. For a while the kids and I would try to understand the process but soon its commonplace grew boring. This work happening everywhere in London BTW and long-overdue: Thames Water loses >2 billion gallons a day.
