Geograph - photograph every grid square

In the late 19th Century, Carshalton Urban District Council appointed the engineer Baldwin Latham to provide a sewage system for the area.  A first stage was built between 1896 and 1900 with an addition to the south completed in 1903.

The system included vent columns provided by the Glasgow based company W Macfarlane & Co at their Saracen Foundry.  The majority had at the top of the column a globe with four circular vents, a large arrow and a crown topped with a spike.  However in some the order of artefacts is different.  Also a number have lost some or all of these features, and one example is of a much simpler design. 

29 of the columns were locally listed by the London Borough of Sutton and shown on a map in their listing appendix - reference LL104, see Link for the relevant extract.  One of these, in Bridge Road, Wallington, is outside the area of the original Carshalton UDC and is of a simpler design, similar to some in neighbouring Croydon, and so was presumably installed under a separate scheme.  Subsequently, in 2020, 24 of the columns were grade II listed (including one not on the original local list).  There is also one other column that is not on either list, together with a truncated pipe (again not on either list), giving a total of at least 31 of the pipes still in existence.