A Bizarre Pumping Station On The Isle Of Dogs

Tucked away down a side street on the Isle of Dogs you will stumble across what has got to be one of the most bizarre looking buildings in the city.

Despite looking slightly like it is from another world, it is in fact a water pumping station.

A Brief History Of The Isle Of Dogs

The Isle of Dogs is a large peninsula created by a bend in the River Thames in East London.

One theory behind the origins of its name is that medieval kings once kept their hunting dogs here. Another is that it is a corruption of Isle of ‘Ducks’ or ‘Dykes’, due to the area’s marshy nature.

The urbanisation of the peninsular took place in the 19th century following the construction of the West India Docks here in 1802 and East India Docks in 1806.

The docks were targeted by enemy bombers during World War Two and therefore suffered a lot of damage. Due to larger ships and containerisation, in the 1970s the docks gradually closed.

Redevelopment Of The Docklands

In 1981 the London Docklands Development Corporation was created to regenerate the area.

New housing, offices, infrastructure and transport links, such as the DLR, were built.

Part of the plan was for two new water pumping stations to deal with the rainwater that would run off the newly created streets. Margaret Thatcher had decreed that the pumping stations were to be the only publicly funded buildings constructed as part of the project, all others were to be private.

Edward Hollamby, the chief architect and planner for the LDDC, therefore saw an opportunity to go all out with the design.

London has a rich history of putting a lot of effort into the design of its sewage pumping stations. I have previously written about the Crossness Pumping Station: aka the ‘cathedral of sewage’.

Isle Of Dogs Pumping Station

Hollamby enlisted the help of leading private architects in the design of the pumping stations.

Richard Rogers designed the Pumping station in Canning Town and the Isle of Dogs station was designed by John Outram. Construction took place from 1986-88.

The unusual architectural style, popular in the 1980s, is called post-modernism. Often maligned by many these days, it was a break from the austerity of the 1960s and 70s and instead referenced older architectural styles, whilst involving a lot of symbolism, metaphor and just plain old fun.

Another famous example of a post-modern building in London is No 1 Poultry, completed 1997.

The Temple Of Storms

John Outram described the pumping station as ‘the Temple of Storms’.

It uses a lot of architectural features from the classical world, such as the pediment and the two huge stylised Corinthian columns at each end.

The giant ‘eye’ in the middle is both visually arresting but also functions as the extraction fan for the building. King Charles, when still Prince, apparently described the building as ‘witty and charming’.

Outram said that the building, for him, contained symbolism of the natural world with the columns representing trees, the walls mountains, the bricks geological strata and the pediment an eagle with outstretched wings.

Since 2017 it has been Grade II* listed by Historic England. They describe it as ‘executed with masterful handling of colour, pattern, scale and detail; layers of symbolism create a stratigraphy of meaning and visual richness’.

So there you have it, one of the city’s most striking and unusual buildings but one with an important and pretty mundane function.

Thank you for reading! More unusual London historical sites below…