Our mission is to find, map, photograph and catalogue every stinkpipe in the Greater London area, though out of London is welcome too. Please send your stinkpipe pics here or to stinkpipes@gmail.com Twitter: @stinkpipes Holder of 6Music's Geek of the Week accolade, 1st October 2011

Wednesday 19 October 2011

Some Potentially Confusing changes

I have swapped over the urls to my blogs. This one is now stinkpipes.blogspot and the other one is now stenchpipes.blogspot. Either way - this is the one you should be reading and there'll be a link to here from there.

Understand?

Tuesday 18 October 2011

Beckenham - The Avenue

I received a heads up that there were some rather nice stinkpipes in Beckenham, on the Avenue. So I used my new favourite tool to find pictures - Google Streetview. Here they are. They do look rather sexy, and in very good condition. I understand these were used to burn the gas off and provide street lighting. 

My aim is to get down there as soon as I can and get some proper pics with my new camera. 





Saturday 8 October 2011

New Logo

I thought this would make a rather nice badge, even t-shirt. Might do a love stinkpipes version too. If anyone would like a stinkpipe T shirt then I'm up for doing them - just let me know by one of the usual methods.

Friday 7 October 2011

Facebook

A quickie just to let you know we now have a Facebook page, and are in need of a few friends, so don't be shy. Befriend a stinkpipe today!


Our Facebook account is called London Stinkpipes

Thursday 6 October 2011

Plans

I have about 30 stinkpipes mapped, which is almost insignificant. There are 158 in Lambeth alone, apparently. So I realise it's time to get out there and start searching. The best way to do this is on a bike, and so I'll be slipping on the lycra and peddling off around Bromley & Bexley this Sunday, hoping to find undiscovered gems.
Lambeth will have to wait for another day unfortunately.
I still have loads in the archive to map, but it might genuinely be quicker to start from fresh - I have an idea where there are many to be found, eg, around shooters hill to Plumstead there's a little cluster of them, still unmapped.
People do look at me a bit funny while I'm photographing the stinkpipes, but I try to look all municipal and official as if I might be a surveyor - it's the look I adopt at work and it usually works.

Concrete Stinkpipe

As a break from the usual iron-work we see on these pages, here's a bit of an oddity. Funnily enough, it's very close to where I currently reside, and I see a couple of times every day, but it's taken me three years to get around to photographing it. I've not seen one like this anywhere else, and can't imagine why a concrete version would ever be built. But here it is in all it's glory, on New Road, just off the A209 in Welling.

Oh, and thanks for the comments received. I usually deal with them / absorb / digest / respond, etc at the weekend. So don't think I'm ignoring you. All contributions are very gratefully received.








Tuesday 4 October 2011

Stinkpipe Map

Further to my revelation over the weekend, I have now fixed by GPS the position of several stinkpipes in the Welling, Wickham, Plumstead area. The fruits of my work can be seen on this map.

Another success, the previously mentioned stinkpipe near Blackheath station has now been located using Google Streetview. This is good use of technology allowing me to remote-view Stinkpipes anywhere in London!

 The Blackheath stinkpipe turns out to be a fairly mediocre Ham Baker design, in rather poor condition. Of course, a trip out to view the actual object will still be necessary. It might be a rare variation with slightly different designs. Unlikely though.

If you wish to contribute to the map, then continue to send sightings in to me in the traditional manner, email, Twitter, via the Blog, or even on Facebook (more on this later).
But if you want to be really fancy pants then you can locate it on your smartphone using footprints or a similar app, and then send me the data file as an attachment, to stinkpipes@gmail.com
I shall be eternally grateful!

Monday 3 October 2011

Free Android App Is Useful Shock Horror!

Ovr the weekend I remembered an app that came with my smartphone earlier in the year. It's called "footprints" and allows you to take a snap of a thing which is then mapped using Google Maps. I thought it was utterly useless at the time, and merely used it to find out the geo coordinates of a couple of well known London landmarks not because I needed to, but because I could.

Then over the weekend I had a flash of inspiration, perhaps much like St Paul on his way to Damascus, though not so traumatic.

I could use this Footprints app to locate stinkpipes. The idea is just so simple.

So today I'm disapointed to see that you cannot then access this info on a computer; but there is an export button, so presumably I can get those coordinates off the phone and onto a digital map.

Well watch this space - I mapped three stinkpipes this morning, unfortunately missed one - you try snapping stinkpipes from a fast moving bus!!

Saturday 1 October 2011

Correspondence: Chiswick Stink-pipes

It's always nice to get mail. In the week we received this from Sarah, who also very kindly attached a few photographs she took of the stink-pipes in question. I've included them below:

Dear Stinkpipes,

I attach pictures of two stinkpipes found along the river in the vicinity of the Chiswick Eyot, between Hammersmith and Barnes.

The first pipe (A) is found at the intersection of Hammersmith Terrace / Chiswick Mall /Eyot Gardens.
The second (B) is further west on Chiswick Mall and seem to be located in one of the riverside gardens, so only its top is easily visible.

I would also like to give you my heartfelt thanks, having spent long hours (ok, minutes) conversing with various acquaintances about the possible purposes of the 'fat lamppost' I'd passed. On the night I saw your presence on twitter I was all set out to go out and stick a post-it note on aforesaid pipe reading "please, what is this for?" before you enlightened me.
Best wishes etc.

Stinkpipe A (base)

Stinkpipe A (base)

Stinkpipe A

Stinkpipe A

Stinkpipe B
This looks to be a pretty fine specimen with all original pipe and connections from the base to the crown. although it does look to be in need of some loving care and attention. SP B here is not the first I've come across in a private garden. Yes it does make life a little difficult for London Stinkpipes. One day we're just going to have go a house-calling!

Thankyou Sarah, I hope that's not the last we hear from you.

Geek Of The Week

At London Stinkpipes we are huge fans of the Collings and Herrin podcast, having been a Richard Herring fan throughout his career, and also a fairly avid follower of Andrew Collins' work from the NME days, via various magazines including The Word, to appearances all over the BBC, and not just standing in for people these days either.
This meant that the Collins and Long show, replacing Adam & Joe, is a firm favourite at LS HQ. When we heard they were running a Geek Of The Week slot, inviting nerdish obsessives to air their works, our ears pricked up. this was a chance to get stinkpipes to the world, via BBC 6Music.
So last week a call went out, via Twitter, to Andrew Collins, asking if we could be featured on the Geek of the Week slot. After numerous communications a call came from a 6Music producer, can you talk on the air in 5 minutes? Then another call, sorry, we meant 2 minutes; and then Mr Collins himself came on the line to say hello and put me at my ease. As the strains of The Smiths came to the end I could hear Long & Collins talking, then the GOTW jingle, and I was on!
I can't remember a lot about it now. I think I failed to get over the majesty of the best, elegant designs to be found on stinkpipes, and I never got asked the question I thought was a dead cert - what is my favourite stinkpipe (Fred Bird - my avatar). But I think I was coherent, didn't ramble, say anything weird, or say f**k or bugger, and responded to everything I was asked in a fairly succinct and pleasant manner.
I've had a little bit of positive feedback from twitter; but if you haven't heard it yet then listen to it here, on the iPlayer. I'm about 45 / 50 minutes in.