Wednesday, 9th February 2005 (4134 views)

A team of Thames Water "flushers" have announced that they discovered a hoard of gold jewellery, lost credit cards and coins that went out of circulation in the 1970s under the French embassy in Kensington, London.

Kenny Young, one of the "flushers", said that the haul, which also included cutlery mixed with ballast from London's building boom, was found at the junction of two tunnels under the French embassy.

The tunnels under Knightsbridge, one of London's oldest sections of sewers, collect detritus from the buildings above. Thames Water plans to update the 19th century system over the next five years, as London is predicted to have a further 700,000 residents by 2016.

The enormous network of waste sewers and rain water tunnels was sunk around 20ft under the capital in the 1880s by Sir Joseph Bazalgette. A recent inspection of some of the Victorian trunk sewers under London showed many of them were in surprisingly good condition and even the Blitz during the Second World War did little damage to the solid brick tunnels.

 

« Back to the stories

 

The news feeds on this site are independently provided by Adfero Limited © and do not represent the views or opinions of the World Gold Council.