You’ve probably walked past these pieces of London heritage dozens of times without noticing. Strangely, though, despite their size, they’re easy to miss – a massive, often ornately decorated pipe rising out from the ground and above the height of most low-rise buildings. They’re not lampposts, but stink pipes, and Southwark is full of these monuments to 19th century history and engineering, writes Rich Brann….
Even after decades of radical transformation, London is full of living history that most people barely notice, and not just in the centre of town – after all, this is the city that still uses French cannons from the Battle of Trafalgar as street bollards.
Stink pipes are a much taller and more widespread example, and their purpose for more than a century was simple: get the smell of London’s sewers out into the air where it couldn’t be noticed.
To explain why, you have to rewind to 1858, when the Great Stink of London’s sewage system dumped everything into the horrendously toxic River Thames, choking the city to an unbearable degree during the long hot summer.
Famously, engineer Joseph Bazalgette built a gigantic underground sewage system to transfer waste further down the river and process it where the delicate noses of Londoners couldn’t be offended, even building tunnels double the size to accommodate for future population growth.
And along that route came the stink pipes, an experiment designed to clean London’s air that was eventually adopted across England.
Sewers have a tendency to build up flammable and pungent gases like methane, ammonia, and hydrogen sulphide, all needing to be removed to keep smells to a minimum and vent dangerous gases into the air.
So, 19th century engineers and foundries built hundreds of tall, iron stink pipes connecting the sewers and the open air across that city-wide sewer network, often in ornate, baroque designs, and Southwark in particular still hosts dozens.
For example, a particularly tall stink pipe is still on Tower Bridge Road, just off Bermondsey Square just as the road veers off to meet Grange Road, with another just down the road and just metres from the river on Jamaica Road.
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Another stink pipe in great condition takes pride of place on Union Street in Southwark, with its coat of green paint still in good nick considering its age.
Parks, too, are a common place in Southwark to find stink pipes, with three lying on the northern boundary of Burgess Park and two more in Kennington Park and Southwark Park respectively.
There is even an ornately crowned stink pipe on Denmark Hill just outside King’s College Hospital – it’s lucky for patients on the top floors that the pipes are no longer in use, considering how tall the hospital has become in the meantime.
Enthusiasts of London’s heritage have built an interactive map of the network of stink pipes that shows a high concentration in the south and south-east, primarily explained by higher population density and proximity to the river.
Even a monument as venerated as Big Ben was used for decades to vent gases from the sewers beneath Parliament, though that practice has long since ended.
But the general rule for stink pipes is that the closer to the Thames you are, the more you’ll get, and the above map bears that out nicely, especially when comparing north London to south London.
Sadly, there’s no protection for this street-level relic of London history, and Grade II listing might be too much to ask – residents of south London have reported seeing them removed from streets without notice, leaving a distinctive stump behind.
That means for now, you have to make sure to catch them while you still can.
