Wanstead Sewage Works, also known as Redbridge (Southern) Sewage Works or Empress Sewage Works, was a municipal

sewage treatment Sewage treatment is a type of wastewater treatment which aims to remove contaminants from sewage to produce an effluent that is suitable to discharge to the surrounding environment or an intended reuse application, thereby preventing water p ...

works located on a site bounded by the

River Roding The River Roding () is a river that rises at Molehill Green, Essex, England, then flows south through Essex and London and forms Barking Creek as it reaches the River Thames. Course The river leaves Molehill Green and passes through or near a ...

to the east and

Wanstead Park Wanstead Park is a municipal park covering an area of about 140 acres (57 hectares), in Wanstead, in the London Borough of Redbridge. It is also a district of the London Borough of Redbridge, which was in Essex until 1965. It is administered as ...

to the north, in the south eastern corner of the parish of

Wanstead Wanstead () is an area in East London, England, in the London Borough of Redbridge. It borders South Woodford to the north, Redbridge to the east and Manor Park to the south, with Leytonstone and Walthamstow to the west. It is located 8 m ...

, in the

London Borough of Redbridge The London Borough of Redbridge is a London boroughs, London borough established in 1965. The borough shares boundaries with the Epping Forest District and the ceremonial county of Essex to the north, with the London Borough of Waltham Forest t ...

, historically within the county of

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

, England. It was in operation from 1 March 1884 to December 1977.

Establishment

Before the nineteenth century, water supplies in Wanstead were from wells and pumps, but in 1857 The

East London Waterworks Company The East London Waterworks Company was one of eight private water companies in London absorbed by the Metropolitan Water Board in 1904. The company was founded by the ( 47 Geo. 3 Sess. 2. c. lxxii). Under the ( 48 Geo. 3. c. viii) the c ...

extended its water main to Wanstead, though the supply was far from adequate in the early years. Increasing pollution and awareness of its supposed connection with disease, notably

typhoid fever Typhoid fever, also known simply as typhoid, is a disease caused by '' Salmonella enterica'' serotype Typhi bacteria, also called ''Salmonella'' Typhi. Symptoms vary from mild to severe, and usually begin six to 30 days after exposure. Often th ...

and

diphtheria Diphtheria is an infection caused by the bacteria, bacterium ''Corynebacterium diphtheriae''. Most infections are asymptomatic or have a mild Course (medicine), clinical course, but in some outbreaks, the mortality rate approaches 10%. Signs a ...

, led to public pressure for the establishment of sewage treatment facilities. Two hundred acres of the land belonging to

Aldersbrook Manor Aldersbrook Manor or the Manor of Aldersbrook was a feudal manor in the parish of Little Ilford, now part of the London Borough of Newham. It was named after the Alders Brook which flowed through it and the manor's lands mostly now mostly fall ...

and farm had already been sold in 1853 to become the

City of London Cemetery The City of London Cemetery and Crematorium is a cemetery and crematorium in the east of London. It is owned and operated by the City of London Corporation. It is designated Grade I on the Historic England National Register of Historic Parks an ...

, and the local board bought an area to the north of this for the establishment of Wanstead Sewage Works. Access to the sewage works site was from the west, via a road that became Empress Avenue in the early twentieth century when houses were built. The original works were shown on an 1894

Ordnance Survey The Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see Artillery, ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of ...

map as a "sewage farm".

The treatment process

The original sewage treatment process, described in some detail in October 1884 (a few months after the works opened), was as follows. Incoming sewage was screened and then held in settlement tanks. From here the liquid was passed onto the surface of land which had been specially prepared with under-drainage at an average depth of eight feet. The sewage gradually percolated through the soil into the under drains, and from these the purified liquid, described as "clear and bright", was released into the River Roding. The sludge from the tanks was run into a sludge bed, and periodically this was dug out and ploughed as manure into land more than a quarter of a mile from the river, in order to minimise the risk of it causing river pollution.

Closure and subsequent changes

The works operated until December 1977, after which it became derelict, controlled by the

Thames Water Authority The Thames Water Authority was a UK regional water authority created by the Water Act 1973 to consolidate water management in the river Thames catchment area. It was dissolved in 1989 due to the privatisation of the water industry. Predeces ...

, and then the site passed to the

Department of Transport A ministry of transport or transportation is a ministry responsible for transportation within a country. It usually is administered by the ''minister for transport''. The term is also sometimes applied to the departments or other government a ...

in the 1980s for use as "exchange" land for road building and improvement which would affect

Epping Forest Epping Forest is a area of ancient woodland, and other established habitats, which straddles the border between Greater London and Essex. The main body of the forest stretches from Epping in the north, to Chingford on the edge of the Lond ...

. In July 1993, they offered two areas totalling about twenty acres to Epping Forest and some landscaping work was undertaken; eleven acres of this was in exchange for forest land used for the M11 link road. In 2007, a

borehole A borehole is a narrow shaft bored in the ground, either vertically or horizontally. A borehole may be constructed for many different purposes, including the extraction of water ( drilled water well and tube well), other liquids (such as petr ...

was drilled in the remaining portion of the site to extract water from an

aquifer An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing material, consisting of permeability (Earth sciences), permeable or fractured rock, or of unconsolidated materials (gravel, sand, or silt). Aquifers vary greatly in their characteristics. The s ...

about 80 metres underground. Cycle paths and horse riding have also been facilitated through the area.

References

{{reflist, refs= *{{cite web, url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/essex/vol6/pp317-322#fnn97, title=Wanstead: Introduction – British History Online, website=british-history.ac.uk, accessdate=2018-10-08 *{{cite web, url=http://edithsstreets.blogspot.com/2011/09/thames-tributary-river-roding-cranbrook.html, title=Edith's Streets: Thames Tributary River Roding - Cranbrook, website=edithsstreets.blogspot.com, accessdate=2018-10-07 *{{cite web, url=https://maps.nls.uk/view/101456021, title=View: Essex LXXIII.NE (includes: Cann Hall; East Ham; Ilford; Wanstead; West Ham.) - Ordnance Survey Six-inch England and Wales, 1842-1952, website=maps.nls.uk, year=1898, accessdate=2018-10-07 *{{cite web, url=https://maps.nls.uk/view/102345849, title=View: London Sheet H (includes: Ilford; Wanstead; Woodford.) - Ordnance Survey Six-inch England and Wales, 1842-1952, website=maps.nls.uk, year=1914, accessdate=2018-10-07 *{{cite newspaper The Times, url=http://find.galegroup.com/ttda/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=TTDA&userGroupName=hamlib&tabID=T003&docPage=article&searchType=&docId=CS52217685&type=multipage&contentSet=LTO&version=1.0, title=The Pollution Of Our Rivers, author=Jabez Hogg, department=Letters to the Editor, date=21 October 1884, page=3, issue=31270, accessdate=2018-10-07 *{{cite newspaper The Times, url=http://find.galegroup.com/ttda/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=TTDA&userGroupName=hamlib&tabID=T003&docPage=article&searchType=&docId=CS67422044&type=multipage&contentSet=LTO&version=1.0, title=The Pollution Of Our Rivers, author=John T. Bressey, Surveyor. Local Board Offices, Wanstead, E, department=Letters to the Editor, date=28 October 1884, page=4, issue=31276, accessdate=2018-10-07 *{{cite web, url=http://www.wansteadpark.org.uk/hist/wanstead-park-a-chronicle/, title=Wanstead Park – a Chronicle – The Friends of Wanstead Parklands, website=wansteadpark.org.uk, date=19 May 2012 , accessdate=2018-10-08 *{{cite web, url=https://www.wansteadwildlife.org.uk/index.php/en/sewage-works-history, title=History of the Site, website=wansteadwildlife.org.uk, author=Paul Ferris, accessdate=2018-10-07 *{{cite web, url=https://www.wansteadwildlife.org.uk/index.php/en/the-study-area112/sewage-works-site103, title=Sewage Works Site, website=wansteadwildlife.org.uk, author=Paul Ferris, accessdate=2018-10-06 Sewage treatment plants in the United Kingdom Infrastructure completed in 1884 History of the London Borough of Redbridge