Bazalgette Outreach Programme
In our project: Bazalgette & The Great Stink of London, we are engaging the public in a wide range of outreach activities.
See below for some of our favourite events.
Volunteers Help Tidy Up the Mausoleum
In the summer, we were joined by volunteers from Network Rail who helped us clean up the mausoleum.
There were lots of weeds and brambles that needed to be carefully removed. We also dug up some earth that had covered areas of the base where iron railings used to stand.
Inside we swept and cleared cobwebs.
A huge thank you to the volunteers who helped out, we appreciate your hard work!
Bus Tour: Bazalgette’s London
Earl’s Court, Chealsea and Victoria Embankments, Bazalgette Memorial, Fleet Street, Hyde Park, Earl’s Court.
Petra tells the story of Bazalgette’s life and work on the top deck of the bus
A sunny spell between showers at the York Watergate
On the move!
We welcomed 116 guests on two bus tours!
The Bazalgette Team with Peter, our driver
Puppet Making Workshop
In April 2026, we teamed up with Wimbledon Museum to run a puppet-making workshop where children could make their own Sir Joseph Bazalgette!
We used a mixture of card, felt, wool, and ribbon to construct the puppet. We even made tiny scrolls to represent Bazalgette’s plans for the London sewer system and attached it to his hand.
Testing the Waters
For this event, we teamed up with Thames Landscape Strategy to test samples of river water from locations on the Thames in West London.
We used Hanna Checkers to test for levels of ammonia and phosphorous. We also used water test strips to test for chlorine, pH, alkalinity, and hardness.
Open Days at Crossness Pumping Station
Crossness Pumping Station was an important feature of Bazalgette’s sewer system. It was the outfall of the southern system where sewage would be discharged into the Thames.
We were very happy to be welcomed by Crossness to talk to their visitors about our project at the Bazalgette Mausoleum.
Cyanotype Blueprint Workshop
Blueprints were the favoured method of copying technical drawings from engineers in the second half of the 19th century until the 1940s.
We wanted to give the process a go ourselves!
First we chose the image we wanted to copy, then traced it onto sheets of acetate or tracing paper.
We then treated our paper with the cyanotype chemical solution which initially dries yellow.
To make the copy, we laid our traced images on top of the treated paper and exposed it to UV light to develop the image.
Then, when we washed the chemicals off the paper, we were left with the negative space image of our designs!
Thames Annual Draw Off
Every year, the London Port Authority reduces the river level between Richmond and Teddington Locks in order to carry out essential maintenance.
We use this as an opportunity to collect litter and raise awareness about pollutants in the river. This year, the Bazalgette Team were on site to speak to the public about Bazalgette’s role in cleaning up the Thames following The Great Stink of 1858.
We engaged 45 members of the public to keep the river clean.