Comments on: Limehouse Accumulator Tower – eccentric joys of London

By: Jon

Jon — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 20:34:35 +0000

@Charles – just corrected the post here, for some reason the pics were not showing. Are you one of the people on the pic there?

I am in the middle of moving flat at the moment, so I don’t know if I can make it, but I’ll do my best! I’ve also given you a plug on Twitter here.

By: Charles Norrie

Charles Norrie — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 20:03:42 +0000

This Open House Weekend, this year the 18 and 19 September, the Limehouse Accumulator will be open to the public.

Please come and see us!

By: Jon

Jon — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 07:15:11 +0000

What a fantastic comment – thank you!

Judging by the Google Search terms there’s a steady stream of people looking for information about the Limehouse Accumulator Tower.

By: D V Sridharan

D V Sridharan — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 15:53:56 +0000

i enjoyed my visit to your blog and spent several minutes later, recalling old times.
in my late teens i was an engineering apprentice at the bombay docks and there was a hydraulic engine house that delivered power throughout the docklands.
later after several visits to england on ships, in 1969, i was briefly a student at poplar technical college and must have passed the engine house you describe several times. but alas i scarcely took notice.
now at 65 i long for those simpler days. in fact i have not been in england since 1969 nor am i likely to do so ever, unless of course you bring back the pounds, shillings and pence i was so used to!
it was quite amusing -and sobering- to learn from a reader’s comment that the hydraulic pipelines in london now carry data cables. much as i may mourn for old times, i love this news, for wasn’t it the internet that helped me find your nice article and photos?

By: Alex

Alex — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 09:06:06 +0000

There was a network of pipes all over London carrying pressurised water from this system to customers; specifically the docks, but also big office buildings and hotels with lots of lifts to drive. It was in use up to 1976, when one of the last of the docks closed down.

Two years later, the pipelines were bought up by a consortium of bankers; the City was beginning to computerise and they realised they were about to need a *lot* of phone lines. Hence COLT.net (for City of London Telecoms); the ISP began by laying fibre in the hydraulic pipes.