Engineering legacy celebrated at starting point for London’s super sewer

Tideway, the company behind London’s new super sewer, has signed off its works at Acton in West London with a commemorative installation to the Victorian engineer, Sir Joseph Bazalgette.

Bazalgette, who designed the original sewer system in London after ‘The Great Stink’ of 1858, is one of the inspirations behind a new art commission at Acton Storm Tanks, where the 25km Thames Tideway Tunnel begins.

Artist Sarah Staton, who is Head of Sculpture at the Royal College of Art, was at the site to celebrate the installation of three sculptures alongside members of the Bazalgette family and Tideway’s chair, Sir Neville Simms.

Speaking at the event, she said: “The sculptures are intended to stand taller than us to survey the locale like silent interlocutors, announcing the new Tideway infrastructure. As the Western most extent of the tunnel, one of the characters that is depicted on the totems had to be Bazalgette!

“Bazalgette is accompanied by Sybil, a fictional laundress from the time when the area was threaded by small streams and waterways which formed the rationale for the development of laundries here, often started by women in their homes. The last totem is Colin, created to honour Acton's legendary youth worker from the Bollo Brook Youth Club, and standing as representative of the very many essential service workers whose incredible collective energies and dedicated labour got us through the pandemic.”

Sir Neville Simms said: “The art installations here serve as a reminder of the engineering marvel that has been delivered under our feet over the past decade. To sign off from our works at Acton and thanking the teams for all their hard work, it seems only fitting to be alongside descendants of the original engineer mastermind.

“It is a privilege to be part of this amazing project and to see another site marked off as complete as the tunnel is being tested before completion next year is an honour.”

Tideway marked completion of the construction of the tunnel in May and has since been working to connect and test the new infrastructure to the existing underground sewer network. Testing will continue into next year when the project is due to be fully completed.

For more information, visit www.tideway.london

Sir Neville Simms, Sarah Staton, John Bazalgette and Colin Brent in front of the 'Sybil' sculpture