The station is now part of the Thames Tideway super sewer project, and let in visitors for a few tours during the 2019 Open House London weekend. It was wonderful to finally step inside!
The station was built as part of Joseph Bazalgette's great sewage scheme in 1865, with an extension added in 1905. It took sewage from most of South London, fed by three intercepting sewers: one running from Herne Hill through Peckham; another from Balham, through Brixton and Camberwell; and the third from Putney through Battersea and Bermondsey. Its engines lifted that incoming sewage fifteen feet. It then flowed by gravity down to the outfall sewer at Crossness Pumping Station where it was discharged at high tide. (The Deptford station had in fact opened before Crossness, so for a short time discharged the sewage directly into the Thames here.)
The original beam engines are gone, but the site continues in operation as a pumping station. Its Italianate buildings still play their part in London's sewer system.
Outside is the coal shed. Where once huge beam engines required vast supplies of coal to keep running, the machinery now dependson electricity and there is no coal to be seen.
In the grounds stands another feature from the station's past: a water level gauge.
While the pumping station is not usually open to the public, there is another way to look inside. There is a wealth of historical photography of the Pumping Station, including its former engines as well as air raid damage sustained in 1941, available online at the Thames Water Archive.
