Bazalgette’s London

The 28th March 2019 marked Sir Joseph Bazalgette’s 200th birthday. To celebrate, we worked with four local Primary Schools (Park Walk, Christ Church CE, St Cuthbert with St Matthias and St Paul’s CE), community groups (St Andrew’s Youth Club and Flashpoint Venture Centre) and local residents to explore and discover Bazalgette’s life and work. We visited places of interest, went on community walks, made art and our own mini bridges and took creative photographs. We met archivists, curators, engineers and architects.

At the end of the project we created a film, interactive map, illustrated guide and banner. We hope you enjoy them and discovering Bazalgette’s work for yourself!

 

Introduction to Bazalgette

Bazalgette was a truly remarkable Victorian engineer and is best remembered for creating London’s sewage system; he changed the River Thames from an open sewer into one of the cleanest urban rivers in the world. As an engineer, city planner, bridge builder, and landscape architect he is responsible for shaping London into the city it is today.

London was a very different place 200-150 years ago. The Thames was of vital importance in transporting raw materials to the wharves and factories lining the riverside in an ever-expanding London. The Thames was also the host to most of the city’s human waste. Following major cholera outbreaks and the Great Stink of 1858, Bazalgette imagined a cleaner London with brick pipes holding and transporting our waste away from our streets and waterways to the East of the City. His leadership and ingenuity created a cleaner London and improved the lives of many. He was also instrumental in transforming transport in our capital, with commissioning and designing of a number of river bridges and re-planning or creating some central London roads, to clear slums and improve connections in the growing Victorian city.  

 

Film

Click here to watch our film on Bazalgette’s London from our YouTube channel. The film features Manny (Emmanuel Simon) who is an actor, writer, performer and producer from west London.

Guide

If you would like to discover and visit places of interest from Bazalgette’s London (featured in our film above) click here to open our illustrated guide leaflet.

Interactive Map

The map below shows key places of interest for Bazalgette’s work. If you want to find out more about them or visit, click here to use our interactive map.

Banner

The image on top of this page is part of a banner we created with support from artist Renata Fernandez and in partnership with Venture Centre’s Flashpoint Summer Playscheme.

Further Information

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all children, teachers, youth workers and support staff from the schools and centres for their support during the project. We would also like to give special thanks to all our volunteers, and the following people and organisations for their help during the project:

Paul Cox – Reference Collection Curator, National Portrait Gallery

London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham

Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

Westminster City Council

City of London Corporation

Dan Bell at Alamy

Artist Renata Fernandez

Thank you to The National Heritage Lottery Fund for supporting this project

 

 

 

 

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