The great stink.

Documentary presented by Peter Bazalgette about the history of London's sewage system. The programme shows the disgusting state of London's streets in Tudor and Stuart times due to poor sanitation and underground cesspools. With the rapid growth of London in the 19th century the problem became worse, and the city's drinking water was contaminated by leaking cesspits. It wasn't until the smell from the River Thames, by now an open sewer, was so great that it interrupted sessions at the new Houses of Parliament in the 1850s that a bill was passed to tackle the problem. The presenter's great-grandfather, Joseph Bazalgette, designed the pioneering system of sewers that was instrumental in ending Victorian London's cholera epidemic. This programme contains lots of graphic images of human excrement (real or reconstructed) that some viewers may find disturbing.