{"id":11427,"date":"2025-04-11T17:47:24","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T17:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/11427\/"},"modified":"2025-04-11T17:47:24","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T17:47:24","slug":"what-are-stinkpipes-and-why-does-london-still-have-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/11427\/","title":{"rendered":"What Are Stinkpipes and Why Does London Still Have Them?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you ever seen a mysterious green pipe in London, and wondered what it\u2019s for? You\u2019re not the only one. These odd fixtures of the city aren\u2019t just thicc lampposts, they actually tell quite an icky story.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Known as \u2018stinkpipes\u2019, these vertical\u00a0iron tunnels were\u00a0put up around the city in the Victorian era. They were essentially built to make London less stinky, and would funnel noxious gases out of the sewers and above the Victorians\u2019 heads. Grim stuff.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The pooey pipes date back to an era known as… wait for it. The Great Stink. This was back when the Big Smoke (or should we say the Big Stink) had no centralised sewage system, meaning the River Thames was full of human excrement. More than it is now<\/a>, at least.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The stench from the combination of faeces, animal carcasses and industrial waste was so bad that\u00a0the government\u00a0had to temporarily relocate to Oxfordshire, where\u00a0it came up with the idea to make stink pipes to get rid of the awful smell. This was part of the 1858 act that deemed we needed a centralised human waste management system. Soon, the metal pipes started funnelling\u00a0methane, hydrogen sulphide and ammonia out of the sewers and into the air.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Stink
\nPhotograph: Dave Jacobs \/ Shutterstock.com <\/p>\n

But why do we still have them today? The simple answer is that they are just a\u00a0remnant\u00a0of grosser days past. Stinkpipes are no longer in use, but there hasn\u2019t been a need to actually get rid of them. Today we can think of them as kooky landmarks, and as reminder to always be grateful for centralised sewage systems, and flushing toilets.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

More crap! London\u2019s\u00a0new \u00a35 billion \u2018super sewer\u2019 is now fully connected<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

London is officially one of the world\u2019s wealthiest cities<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stay in the loop: sign up to our<\/strong>\u00a0free Time Out London newsletter<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0for the best of the city, straight to your inbox.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Get the latest and greatest from the Big Smoke \u2013 from news and reviews to events and trends. Just\u00a0<\/strong>follow our Time Out London WhatsApp channel<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Have you ever seen a mysterious green pipe in London, and wondered what it\u2019s for? You\u2019re not the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,6419,393,4884,257,6420,7825,6417,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-11427","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-categories-things-to-do","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-london","13":"tag-news-city-life","14":"tag-outside-kl-london","15":"tag-things-to-do","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114320588679727696","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}