Crossness Pumping Station was built because of the 1858 "Great Stink" - when warm weather and filthy drinking water created a horrible smell across most of London and led to typhoid and cholera epidemics. [...]
The smell was so bad that high-ranking government officials were forced to soak their parliamentary curtains in lime chloride to mask the odor.
But in 1865, engineer Joseph Bazalgette unveiled a complex new modern sewage system which used steam engines to pump the capital's waste into a 27 million gallon reservoir - enough to fill 49 Olympic swimming pools.
The sewage then remained in the reservoir, concealed from the public, until high tide, when it was released into the Thames and carried out to sea.
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