The Sun.
London, England, 1864-07-21 00:00:00

The Thames Embankment.

When Parliament passed the bill for the embank-
ment of the north shore of the Thames, the in-
habitants of the metropolis, forming their estimate
of the probable progress of the undertaking on the
usual speed at which our public works advance,
were not at all sanguine that the present genera-
tion would be able to enjoy a walk by the banks of
the river from Westminster-bridge to Blackfriars.
They knew they were doomed to plant the acorn,
but they very much feared that they were
not to see the oak. However, from what has
already been done in the formation of the Em-
bankment, the oldest amongst us may hope to see
our great river quite a different thing from what it
is now ; and there is every probability that car-
riages will be rolling along its margin from West-
minster to the city before the Houses of Parliament
are finished or the liens have taken their places on
the pedestal of the column in Trafaigar-square..
The idea of embanking the Thames is not a new
one. As a theory it is traced back to the days of
Sir Christopher Wren ; but the merit of giving
effect to it pertains to the Metropolitan Board of
Works. Some years ago a book was published
by a French author in favour of effluvium. He pro-
duced statistics to show that the nightmen of Paris
and other continental cities invariably escape cholera
when epidemic; but the British Legislature has for
a long time steadily refused to adopt that view,
and when some eis or seven years ago the Thames
smelt so badly the great main drainage scheme to
relieve the river from the sewage of the metropolis
was adopted by both houses with scarcely any op•
position. The system decided upon was one of high
middle, and low level sewers; and it is to the prac-
tical inconvenience of constructing the low level
sewer on the south of the Thames that we owe the
embankment. Notwithstanding the great number
of people carried dailyby the river steamers between
the east and west ends of the town, the traffic along
the Strand, Fleet-street, St. Paul's Churchyard, and
Che/pside, even under ordinary circumstances, is
more than these thoroughfares can accommodate
with convenience and safety to the public, but the
confusion, loss of time, and actual danger occa-
sioned by the ripping up of one of those streets for
the purpose of laying down gas or water mains, or
cleansing the old ~.<1 oonartuatively brna,ll twntre,

have l o n g beenlAr
en a
thereforesubjeet of
f complaint
t he
Metropolitan td 3 remon-
strance.ar
d
of Works had to set about constructing the low.
level sewer on the north side it at once occurred
to them that to carry it under the streets just named
would involve a diversion for many months of the
most considerable traffic of London and they
saw that an embankment of the Thames, while
adding immensely to the beauty of the me-
tropolis and providing a new thoroughfare from
west to east, would afford them an opportu-
nity of constructing the north low-level sewer
without the slightest inconvenience to locomotion.
Accordingly, they brought the matter under the
notice of Mr Cowper, the First Commissioner of
Works, who succeeded in having the bill passed
under which the works along the river are now
being constructed.
The portion of the north shore of the Thames
which is now being embanked is that from West-
minster-bridge to Blackfriars-bridge. Already there
are embankments along nearly th© whole of the
line between Westminster and Chelsea, but there is
not much prospect of seeing the portion of the
snore between Blackfriars-bride and London-bridge
embanked, owing to the great value of the wharves
and to the river being rather narrow between these
points. A bill has passed for the embankment of a
portion of the southern side, but its operation is
confined to the shore between Westminster and
Vauxhall bridges. Whether the southern bank
between Westminster and Blackfriars bridges will
be embanked is a question the consideration of
which has been reserved. Should it not be decided
in the affirmative, what the Board of Works is now
doing will be only a partial, though a splendid and
useful, work. There is to be a roadway 100 ft. in
width from Westminster to Blackfriars. Of this
about 70ft will be devoted to vehicles and the re.
maining 30ft to foot passengers. Bat the 100 ft
do not represent the entire space of reclaimed mud-
bank, which will vary in extent of area at different
points, in some the width being as much as 400 ft.
The total length of the Embankment is about 7,000 ft,
but it is divided by the bridges into three sections,
each of which will be viewed by itself. Indeed the
line of vision could scarcely be continued from one
section to tno other, far there is no doubt that the
first span of the Charing-cross Railway bridge,
with its cylindrical supports, will very much mar
the appearance of the Embankment at that point,
and destroy what would otherwise be a fine through
view from the river frontage at Whitehall. At
Westminster the roadway will rise at an elevation
of 1 in 80 to the level of the bridge, and will be set
back some 30 or 40ft from the face of the Embank-
ment wall. The intervening space is to be reserved
as a promenade and a steamboat pier, to which there
will be access from the bridge by a wide and impos-
ing flight of steps. There are not in any city
in the
world more disgraceful mak,eehifts than the present
approaches to the steamboat piers
on the Thames,
and most of the piers themselves. The latter are
usedeup barges, with a sort of sentry box, etyled.a
ticket office, at one end—the former commeno
n
narrow lanes and end as they join on to the barge
in an extension of the contrivance used in shipping
cattle—a long and narrow pen open at both ends
and generally rickety:
How these gangways and
piers have been suffered to continue so long, and
with such an immense and growing traffic on the
river, is a wonder. The Embankment will put an
end to them, and substitute handsome avenues, and,
in most instances, really convenient landing places.
Between Westminster and :Elungerford Bridges
there will also be a pier for smaller craft, and at
Whitehall-gardens the elaborately sculptured
water-gate, after a design by Inigo .Tenes,
which now stands at the end of Buckingham..
street, will be re-erected. The public will not have
access to the entire space behind the roadway from
Westminster to Hungerford Bridges. The Duke of
Bucoleuch will obtain a considerable addition to his
garden, which, when the Embankment is con.
strutted, will come down to the roadway. Thus,
what is now a mud bank will form a portion of his
Grace's private grounds. Nearer to Hungerford-
bridge, however, the Board of Works will obtain
possession of a large space which they intend to plant
and convert into a public recreation ground. On
either aide of Hut gerford And Waterloo Bridges