Tales of a Victorian sewer outlet

Brighton’s Victorian sewer system, constructed in the late 19th century (more or less 150 years ago), was a remarkable feat of engineering, one that revolutionised waste management in the town. The project, designed by Sir John Hawkshaw in collaboration with Sir Joseph Bazalgette, involved building a seven mile long, brick-lined sewer to transport sewage along the coast four miles beyond the borough boundary, to Telscombe Cliffs. This extensive network, spanning approximately 48 kilometers, was hand-dug by Victorian bricklayers using pickaxes, wheelbarrows, and steam-driven cranes.

Several outfalls like this one beneath the Palace Pier Groyne were integrated into the city’s coastal structures. The groyne  was originally built in 1876 and called Aquarium Promenade Groyne (before being enlarged and named Albion Groyne). Originally designed to discharge stormwater, these outlets also carried raw sewage during heavy rains. The practice persisted, it seems, until the 1990s, when the sewage infrastructure underwent significant modernisation, one involving the construction of a huge storm tunnel, measuring five kilometers in length and six meters in width. Where once the overflow outfall discharged directly into the sea alongside Palace Pier, thereafter water dropped down a 100 foot shaft into the new storage tunnel. 

Even more recently, a £300 million wastewater treatment plant was built in Peacehaven, which now treats all of Brighton’s sewage to near river-water quality.

Subterranea Britannica (or Sub Brit) has a good history of the Brighton sewers inclusive of a first hand report of ‘a gentle stroll round the town sewers’. Much of the Victorian engineering - which of course is mostly underground - can be witnessed on these walking tours, as offered by Southern Water (though currently there is no information about them on their website). You can virtually accompany ex Green MP Caroline Lucas on one tour thanks to YouTube.

Intriguing hints of the city’s industrial archaeological heritage can be spotted above ground - such as this one under the Palace Pier Groyne. Don’t you think it has a kind of industrial beauty with its combination of rusted iron grid, hints of smooth spirals in the tunnel, and textures of rough, weathered concrete?

Joe Stoner on the MyBrighton&Hove website has shared this impish anecdote about about his father and the outlet: ‘In the early 20th Century my father and his mates used to get the tourist, on the pier, to throw coins to them as they swam which they dived down to retrieve. They dived down and used to hide in its large exit hole by the Palace Pier until the tourists thought that they’d drowned and were SO relieved that they weren’t dead they threw bigger denominations of coins!’

And then Stoner also remembers himself in the early 1960s with friends kayaking past the groyne. ‘I used to wonder,’ he says, ‘WHY there were so many durex in the sea there when ALL Brighton’s sewage was pumped under the Under Cliff Walk to Telscome Cliffs where it went out to sea. NOW I know that as an overflow it was cheaper to “let it flow” into the sea where we kayaked and swam! Some things never change, eh?’