The Sun.
London, England, 1863-11-04 00:00:00

THE TI LAMES EMBANKMENT,

A patient s lid long-suffering public will pro-
bably not be l is-pleased to learn that a real, actual,
practical be& .nning has at length been made in the
great metroF olitan work of embanking the northern
side of the Thames. A very long time since, a
sort of feir A was made by the sinking of a few
miserable- looking piles in groups of three, along
a portion Qf the route, bat these were merely very
early preliminaries, and had so long remained
station'AY y and desolate that the promenaders on the
bridg'is had at length ceased even to bestow a
pass'ir,g glance on them. Yesterday's proceedings
we re, however, of a very different character, and
a',though they were only a beginning, and
a small one, they constituted a movement of the
:right sort. The first of the great caissons which
are to stud the river on its northern side between
Westminster and Waterloo bridges, and within
which the sea-wall is to be made, was shipped yes-
terday morning in pieces from the factory at Dept-
ford, on board several barges, and carried up to the
immediate neighbourhood of the railway bridge
at Charing-cross, where it is to be sunk, and
within it the actual work of the embankment will
forthwith be commenced.

It was only very recently that the contract for
the first portion of the works, namely those
embankment between Westminster and
Furness,Waterloo
bridges, was " let out" to Mr. of the
but it
would appeer that since then there has not been
much to complain of on the score loss of time.
About five of these great caissons, the f
first of whieh
arrived at its destination yesterday,
whole length of this
will have to be
let down into the river, over
each the building
of the sea wall will be e
h
portion of the work,
and within
xnecuts follows :—The foun.
elation (within the ed. The mode of pro.
ceeding will be something a
caisson) will be scooped out by
misers," machines technically called "nu • ~ connected by
a long shalt with steam power working above the
surface of the water. The diving-bell will then be
brought into requisition to lay the concrete and put
.
in the -masonry, and when the caisson is full of solid
work it will be taken off piecemeal, and again sunk a
Tittle farther on on the line. The same process will
be carried on in the five caissons simultaneously,
and in this manner a solid sea wall will be gradually
erected throughout the whole distance. When this
has been done, and the water has been permanently
excluded, the work of excavation within the wall
will commence; and it will be heavy work, for room
has to be made for two erections, both of great im-
portance, and involving an immense amount of
labour in their construction. Down iieep in the
concrete the great sewer which is to receive all the
drainage of the north side of London is to be im-
bedded, and above it will be the " subway" of the
embanxment, for the reception of the gas and
water pipes of the district. Within this space
and towards the shore there will be a very large
space still unappropriated, but the general impres-
sion is that it will ultimately be made available
for a subterranean railway. The commence-
ment of the works at this period of the year, al-
though attended as it must be by short days and
broken weather, may on the whole be considered as
being rather fortunate than otherwise, as it must
give a great deal of employment to the labouring
classes at a season when the other sources of out-
door metropolitan employment are apt to be very
much diminished.

A long period has intervened between the time
when Martin, the painter of "Belshazzar's Feast,"
first sketched out his wondrous design for
an embankment of the Thames, and the day
when the first caisson was brought up the
river from Deptford. During the interval
artists of nate and engineers of skill devised plan
alter plan, but without producing any practical
result, until at last the Metropolitan Board of
Works discovered that they could not carry out
their great scheme of drainage without seriously
disturbing the traffic of the Strand and its neigh-
bourhood, and they determined upon embanking
the Thames, in order that within the new work
they might build their great main sewer, and thus
avoid disturbing and suspending a great portion of
the trade of Western London for an indefinite period.
The work, which may be said practically to have
commenced yesterday, will extend only from West-
minster to Waterloo Bridge; the second portion
of the embankment—namely, that laying between
the latter bridge and Blackfriars—not having as yet
been contracted for. It will, in fact, be a continua-
tion of the embankment which already runs along
the river front of the Houses of Parliament, and the
reader will, by recollecting that terrace, be able to
form an adequate idea as to the elevation and gene-
ral appearance of the future esplanade.
At Westminster there will be a new steamboat
pier, harmonising in general design with the bridge,
but the approach to the embankment ( which at this
point will be 100 feet wide, and four feet above
high water) will be from the east side of Bridge-
street. The embankment will thence run along the
river, striking the first brick pier of the Charing-
cross Railway bridge and on to Waterloo, passing
in its course at the rear of Montague House, of
which the public will have a lively recollection in
consequence of the preposterous claim set up by
its noble owner to " stop the way" of the entire
public to suit his own ideas of aristocratic seclu-
sion, and the animated discussion, which the said
claim gave rise to in Parliament. It was rumoured
at the time that the matter was to be compromised
by the purchase of the house for Government
Purposes, but such is not the fact. His grace
Still retains his noble town mansion, and, as we
arebaPPer to add, improved, not injured, by the
embankment. Montague House has at present a
garden
stretching a hundred feet down to the
evater, to this will be added another hun-
dred L and
et of reclaimed land, lying between the
present
garden. -wall and the proposed roadway.
This spare his grace proposes to plant with quick
growing trees, s
have
binwe
cen his
a very few years to interpose
a sufficient sereen
premises and the
passing public. From
cross-bridge the
embankment will preserve its original breadth until
the limit of the work
with which we at present h: done,
eto deal. Within
this limit there is plenty to
b
provided the
provisions of the Act of Parliament be faithfully
c irried out. There is to be a main
afepeptroabch from
Westminster-bridge, which is 14
embankment, and from which the descent i°svetotbe
he
at a gratiient of one foot in 80. There is to be an
approach from opposite the Horse Guards at White-
hall, by a roadway SO feet wide, and a high level
street from Whitehall-place to Wellington-street,
from which there will be approaches at intervals to
the embankment roadway, each with a gradient of
1 iu 42. A eery interesting feature of the design
will be the laying out of the reclaimed land in
front of the Whitehall and Charing-cross approaches
in gardens, which, if they only look as well when
finished as they now do in the coloured plans, will
prove a very great metropolitan attraction. These
gardens will be raised 16 feet above the river-
side roadway, in order to keep them on a level with
the ground at the back, and, under them, facing the
river, will be a handsome row of shops opening on
the terrace. Independently, however, of the re-
claimed land thus disposed of, there will be a great
number of pet corners and nooks of large pecuniary
value, and it will require great vigilance on the
Pert of the public, whose money has paid for them,
Ind to whom they properly belong, to prevent them
being jobbed away or otherwise appropriated by
private individuals.

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nervonute, No. 47,121. Miss
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