Apsley House, 1

With Apsley House, the Duke of Wellington's London abode, you get a three-fer: 1) a fine 18th-19th century urban great house, now maintained by English Heritage, 2) Wellington, victor of Waterloo and scores of lesser battles, long-time politician/statesmen and twice Prime Minister, 3) Wellington's truly priceless collection of art, much of which came as gifts from grateful foreign leaders. Consequently, our visit to Apsley will require two posts, especially to reflect Wellington's strange obsession with his French adversary. The house was designed originally by Robert Adam, but thoroughly re-done later, to Wellington's wishes, until a 300% cost-over-run brought the re-build to an end. English Heritage has a fine website on Apsley House, here.

Of course we had to stop by one of the royal abodes along the way

Entrance to Apsley House, just outside Hyde Park, astride
the Wellington Arch...

Atop the Wellington Arch

Throughout the house, mementoes of Waterloo and its annual celebrations

Also throughout the house, portraits and other mementoes
of Napoleon...

Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

Napoleon's army advances across the Danube to the battle of Wagram

Large room with fine porcelain, silver, gold, etc., largely gifts from
grateful European rulers who did not like Napoleon very much

Actually a table center-piece

Under the grand staircase, one of the real curiosities:
a more-than-life-size statue of Napoleon, commissioned by himself;
turns out Napoleon did not like it, and it somehow came to 
Wellington, to be displayed in perhaps the most prominent place
in the house

More Napoleon

Ditto

Not Napoleon

At this point, barely into the house, you're beginning
to wonder whose house it is...

The only depiction of Waterloo Wellington ever acquired (Sir
William Allan, 1843): "yes, not too much smoke" was Wellington's
comment; also "would look great over the stripey couch"

Assorted uniforms: he thoroughly mixed politics with military 
leadership throughout his long career, occasionally purchasing
rank or benefitting from the success of relations...his brother was
the Governor of India for a time, where Wellington had his first
great military successes (he much later described the Battle of
Assaye as his finest victory)(not Waterloo) 

Among the many life-sized portraits

Some more of the silver on display, another center-piece

Music room (?); pictures everywhere, not insignificant ones too
(see next post)

Crossness Engines, 2: The Engines; And More

After the introductory and educational phases of the tour, we donned our construction site hats and were led into the engine building itself, which is divided into several floors. The scale of the engines is overwhelming.

Study and master this explanation of how the engines worked...from
boiler to flywheel to arm to pump, etc.; alternatively you may watch
one of several YouTube videos, e.g., this one; definitely on the quiz

Now on the upper floor of the engine building, contemplating the
enormity of it all; two of the massive arms in view

Looking at one of the enormous flywheels and shafts

Now in the central area, all the paint and decor restored from the
opening in 1865; the four engines were named for the queen, the
prince consort, and two of their children

The decor on the columns and elsewhere manifests some great
Victorian humor: leaves and berries from various plants well known
for relieving constipation; and diarrhea

Metropolitan Board of Works

The original 1865 pumps were replaced with three pumps each--
allowing more efficient re-use of steam (see the video); the
original pumps could flush 6 tons of pee and poo per stroke;
even Trump would be impressed

Another of the four great flywheels

To be honest, it was the decor (and novelty) that first attracted us

Crossing

The four great arms weigh some 47+ tons each

Back in one of the education buildings, a map showing the extent
of Basalgette's colossal drainage system

The great man

The tour done, we are walking back by the Thames to Abbey Wood
and the train back to London and Pimlico; where we have encountered
the mother of all blackberry patches

It went on for a mile or more; unfortunately, the berries were guarded
by nettles here and there

In Abbey Wood, more British humor

Crossness Engines, 1: The Background

Most people don't think of sewage pumps as objects of great wonder and beauty. But then most people have not seen the Crossness Engines. The novelty of the subject, the excellence of the presentation, the scale of the great engines themselves, the historical context, and more, all combined to make this one of our best tours ever. It is not something on your standard London tour. Probably not on your second or third standard London tours, either, unless you have a civil or mechanical engineer, or historian, in your party. Credit Vicki for finding it.

By the middle of the 19th century, London was awash in sewage. Literally. The city had grown exponentially in the previous hundred years, the world's first mega-city--consequences of the Industrial Revolution and of empire-building--and the Thames and some 200 public cesspits were the only outlets for said sewage. The successive cholera epidemics and the Great Stink of 1858 added to the impetus. Forward stepped Sir Joseph Bazalgette, who advocated and then designed a system of drainage tunnels, apart from the Thames, that would empty the untreated sewage way down the river, beyond Abbey Wood, there to be consolidated and dumped into the lower Thames during its tidal outflows. To facilitate this ambitious scheme, great pump engines would be needed to draw the sewage and then to empty it into drainage ponds, awaiting the outflowing tides. Thus the Crossness Engines, among the most impressive artifacts of the Steam Age and of Victorian engineering. The engines were abandoned many decades ago, but a dedicated group of volunteers has for many years now seen to their reconstruction and renovation and to the tours on which we were about to embark. Our tour itself lasted more than two hours, and the fascination and enlightenment never let up. 

The tour begins with a train ride from the perimeter to the facility itself

Actually it began with a 45 minute cab ride across much of central and
eastern London

The main facility: the three frontal buildings originally housed the
14 giant boilers powering the engines (these frontal buildings are
now the assembly/display halls and the cafe and gift shop); the larger
building behind them housed the great engines

In the gift shop, a line of products from Thomas Crapper, Ltd.;
Crapper improved but did not invent the flush toilet, although
he is now widely credited...see Wallace Reyburn, Flushed with
Pride: The Story of Thomas Crapper...

Crapper paper

All kinds of relevant history books

Poo Corner, in the bookstore

Now in the display area

More of the display/education area

Including many fascinating topics

Classroom

Now briefly outside looking at the location of the huge smoke stack 
(now gone)

Now back in the classroom; our guide explaining photos from the
opening banquet at Crossness--attended by royalty--a retired plumber,
he upheld the best traditions of British humor and learnedness

Model of the great Victorian smokestack

Model showing the location and disposition of the 14 boilers;
tons and tons of coal were shipped daily from Newcastle and
up the river...

Part of the display of Victorian toilets and related apparatus

"Le Symphonic"

The "Deluge"

And, of course, the Crapper

Now in an adjacent building and a bit of the shop where the volunteers
continue the work of restoring and maintaining the engines

And later in yet another building, formerly the schoolhouse where
children of the workers were educated; now displaying a variety of
pumps and models...

Including the Broad Street water hand-pump which was
identified by physician John Snow as the source of one of the
cholera epidemics, and which led to the identification of
germs, and not "miasma," as the cause of the disease