The preliminary for carrying out this enormous scheme have at length begun; and we are enabled this week illustrate the manner and situation of the initiatory' works, which are being proceeded with as rapidly as the difficult an complicated nature of the several arrangements will permit. Our Engraving shows the progress already made at a point near where the embankment will commence—namely, close to Westminster Bridge. Here we find piles being driven in, and scaffolding of an extensive character being erected to support and carry the heavy cranes to be used in sinking caissons. This part of the work is preparatory to forming a cofferdam, and thereafter proceeding with excavations for a solid foundation, which must necessarily be laid very deep to be sufficiently permanent. The caissons are twelve feet by seven, and the coffer-dams formed by them are remarkable for being constructed, not of timber, as is usually the case, but of iron, which, it is thought, will afford great advantages over the old-fashioned material. It is now some six or seven weeks since these labours began, and already the public may trace, by means of piles which mark the outline of the works along the river, the form of the proposed structure; but the chief attention of the contractor is at present confined to the immediate vicinity of Westminster Bridge, to its so-called “special” works for a handsome steam-boat landing-stage, and to a part of the river opposite Whitehall. Mr. Furness, who is just completing the northern outfall works for the main drainage, between Stratford and Barking, has undertaken the contract with the Metropolitan Board of Works for the portion of the Thames Embankment between Westminster and Waterloo Bridges for the sum of £520,000. The works comprise, beside the open roadway and the approaches to the river, two distinct subterranean features – a subway immediately below the road in which gas and water pipes and telegraph wires will be laid, so as to avoid the necessity of breaking up the road whenever repairs of these are needed; and beneath the subway a great sewer, forming part of the system of low-level drainage lately planned. The foundations for these enormous works will be laid about 14 ft. beneath low-water mark, in the lower portion of a bed of gravel averaging between 15 ft. and 27 ft. in thickness, whose substratum is solid London clay. The length of the embankment between Westminster and Waterloo Bridges. will be about 7000 ft., and its width will vary, to suit the bend of the river, from 130ft. to 450 ft. It will commence at the northern abutment of Westminster Bridge, and will be continued (in a line with the embankment fronting the Houses of Parliament on the western side of the bridge) by a curve to the northern brick pier of Hungerford Railway Bridge, and thence to Waterloo Bridge. as we have already stated. Beyond that point, although the embankment is to be carried as far as Blackfriars, no immediate action upon the part of the authorities seems probable, and it is feared that considerable delay will be created by the demands of the Benchers of the Temple, who, reasonably enough, desire to take every possible security against any undue interference with the Temple Gardens. According to statements heretofore published, the width of the embankment (which seems to have already tempted railway projectors into schemes for utilising it after their own fashion) will be varied to an extent which is best indicated in the following manner:–At Richmond-terrace and in front of the Duke of Buccleuch's house and grounds (at one time so much talked of in connection with the opposition before the Parliamentary Committee to this enterprise) the embankment will be 200 ft. wide; at Hungerford Bridge the channel is broadened by a bend in the stream, and the embankment will be wide in proportion – namely, 400 ft.; at the end of Buckingham-street this breadth will become still greater – namely, 450 ft.; but from that part it diminishes until, at Salisbury-street end, it is reduced to 300 ft.; and at Waterloo Bridge to even about half the last-named width. The level of the Embankment will be about 5 ft. above Trinity high-water mark, so that there will be a slight incline at Westminster Bridge from the road to the embankment level of 1 in 80 ft. The great sewer beneath will commence at Westminster Bridge, at about the level of low water, and will be continued, with a fall of about 2 ft. per mile, past Blackfriars, along the river side by Tower-hill, and onwards in the direction of Stratford, where it is intended to be pumped into the middle-level sewer. At this very early stage we need not enter fully into a description of the whole of the proposed works, parts of which will very probably be modified whilst in progress., so as suit the necessities and difficulties which will arise in the course of their being made. We shall watch their progress with much interest, and provide our readers from time to time with accounts and sketches of the more interesting features of this gigantic labour.
Illustrated London News, 6 February 1864
