Earl Pumping Station, Chilton Grove, Deptford

Image: © Stephen Craven Taken: 19 Apr 2014

This building is not listed, perhaps surprisingly given its historical significance. It is a sewage pumping station, lifting water out of what was historically called the Earl Sluice - a river or drainage ditch running from Denmark Hill to the Thames near here - but since the 19th century a public sewer, into the Southern Outfall Sewer running towards Crossness. More detailed history at http://marlowe-shakespeare.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/getting-body-to-deptford-by-peter-farey.html An overflow takes surplus storm sewage into the Thames nearby, probably using the original course of the river. As of 2014 it is proposed to use the site for a major construction site for a "drop shaft" taking the waters of the Earl Sluice into the Thames Tideway, 30m or more deep under the Thames. The Earl Sluice was historically the boundary between Rotherhithe (Surrey) and Deptford (Kent) ecclesiastical and civil parishes, hence a county boundary. Chilton Grove (foreground) follows the course of the former sluice, and is still on the civil boundary between Southwark and Lewisham boroughs - see Image - but the present ecclesiastical boundary between Holy Trinity, Rotherhithe and St Nicholas & St Luke, Deptford runs behind the pumping station.

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