Two pumping stations at Abbey Mills,seen across Mill Meads from Prescott Sluice. On the left is the high Victorian pumping station which raises sewage between two levels of Sir Joseph Bazalgette's Northern Outfall Sewer, a major part of his construction in the 1860s of London's first proper sewerage system. It originally housed 8 coal-fired beam engines, and the coal was brought in by water.
Nowadays its relatively modern pumps are on stand-by to supplement the newest ones in the building on the right, its modern replacement.