Grosvenor Road, part of the London Embankment, runs close to the river, and the canal passes under it where it joins the Thames. On the north side of the road is the Lower Basin, which is tidal and is normally empty at low tide. The lock is immediately to the north of it, while above the lock was a wider section to the east, called the Upper Basin. In 1875 there was a timber yard to the west of the Upper Basin, behind which were the offices of the Chelsea Water Works. A saw mill and an iron works had been built between the timber yard and the canal by 1916, and a large building marked Corporation Depot occupied the west bank to the end of the truncated canal in 1951. By 1896, a sewage works had been built on the narrow strip of land between the basin and the railway tracks to the east, consisting of cooling ponds and a pumping station.Ordnance Survey, 1:2500 maps, 1875, 1896, 1916, 1951 This was the Western Pumping Station, completed by 1875, and the final part of the main drainage system for London. Four high-pressure condensing beam-engines, housed in a building tall, developing raised sewage by from a low level sewer, to pump it to the Abbey Mills station at Barking. The station could pump 55 million gallons per day (250 Mld), and a backup non-condensing engine was provided in case of failure of any of the main engines.
