And it was—but it was also the time of the Great Stink, a two-month stretch of 1858 in which London's primary water source, the River Thames, was so full of untreated sewage baking in the sun ...

Although it was the largest city in the world at the time, Victorian London still had a medieval sanitation system. Xand van Tulleken explores the onset of the Great Stink of 1858. In the process ...

As a result of the Great Stink, the government invested in the construction of a new sewerage system for London. This was designed by Joseph Bazalgette. The new system was designed in 1858 and ...

Hundreds of homes in London are flushing their toilets directly ... drains’, and taking us back to the time of the ‘Great Stink’ in 1858 before we had treatment works, he said.

Bexley is home to a stunning monument that was nicknamed a cathedral – but was used for something entirely different.

Image caption, A cartoon from the time of the Great Stink of 1858 entitled Father Thames introducing his children to the fair city of London. His three ‘children’ are diphtheria, scrofula and ...

Dr Xand van Tulleken tells how an extraordinary heatwave struck London in the summer in 1858 and a terrible stench began to rise from the River Thames.