The Victorian engineer credited with the design of the London sewer network and the Thames Embankment has finally had part of it named after him. A new section of the Embankment is currently being constructed at Blackfriars as part of the Thames Tideway super-sewer, and needed naming.
The City of London has the powers to decide on names for new streets and the like, but applications to name something after a person requires the person to have been dead for at least 20 years, and have a connection with the location.
Sir Joseph Bazalgette pretty much qualifies on both counts, so they’ve decided to name this new section the Bazalgette Embankment.
The embankment has been created as part of the Thames Tideway Tunnel project which is expanding London’s sewer network and is due for completion in 2024. The project will see seven new embankments opened along the River Thames. The naming only applied to the new section, and the rest of the Victoria Embankment remains untouched.
The new embankment will sit on top of a deep 24-metre wide shaft which will intercept the Fleet Main combined sewer overflow (CSO) and drop down to the deep level sewer currently under construction.
Schematic (c) Thames Tideway Tunnel
Apart from the new public space, there will also be a ventilation building and chimney, and an existing undercroft under the road ramp will be extended to provide some commercial space – aka, a coffee shop.
The Thames footpath that runs under the road and rail bridges will also be widened.
Although the final design of the public areas is still to be agreed upon, some initial concepts show a large plaza style space directly over the sewer shaft and a section of planting and steps where the road rises up to the bridge level.
Embankment concept (c) Thames Tideway Tunnel
Very apt 👍
A Genius of an Engineer , whose work has stood the Test of Time. The Tidal Tunnel is its replaceement.
Let’s hope Tfl are more open minded to radical ideas including Hybrid Public / Private Finance. Open the Map to the Private Sector.
We need a Transport Bazalgette not a Basil Brush. Boom Boom or Bust Bust?
What – no shopping opportunities; capitalism must be failing …..
Hope it’s not all glare-y concrete. We need trees, wildflowers, beehives perhaps and soft paving (ie recycled tyres or other recycled material). The ventilation building & chimney could be covered with a lattice to support plants. It could look fantastic if corporate morons don’t get their way.
Am in two minds about these ‘build outs’, of which the TT project will create a few. Like bay windows that allow you to stick your head out and see more, but – looking the other way -they do spoil the clean lines of the existing Embankment. We shall have to see…
I wonder what hydrodynamic studies have been carried out and what they concluded.
Not wishing to be a miseryguts but there’s a fair old force of current in Father Thames’s pocket and how long will it be before it’s discovered that the southern bulwark of Putney Bridge is being undermined by the extra scouring action brought on by another of these narrowing encroachments?