There has been a pile of sandbags outside the Abingdon Water Treatment Works for some time. The bags were used in the winter floods. There is no report of there being anything like the dangers of flooding at Abingdon’s water treatment works as experienced elsewhere – and reported in the Not Abingdon Blog.

The Abingdon Water Treatment works had a recent upgrade in 2012 at a cost of £3m.

The Borough Records show that the Thames Conservancy started writing to Abingdon Corporation back in about 1867 requesting them to initiate measures to stop the flow of sewage into the River Thames at Abingdon Bridge and St Helen’s Church. They wrote again in 1869 asking what action was being taken. By 1873 the conservatory were threatening Abingdon with legal action to force compliance.

The Town Clerk, wrote back to explain that a Committee had been looking at the issue, and had visited various sewage treatment schemes nationally.

But in 1875 Abingdon Corporation decided to do take action sooner rather than later. The Corporation borrowed about £19K from the Public Works Loan Commission, purchased land from a farmer in Sutton Wick, and created the Sewage Farm, that has through numerous upgrades become the concrete clad chambers and towers that are there today. I guess that a Sewage Farm involved allowing sewage to settle over larger areas of land.