EPW040891 ENGLAND (1933). The Merchant Taylors' School, Moor Park, 1933

Beyond the newly-completed independent Merchant Taylors' School in the foreground is a dragline excavator, possibly steam driven, digging gravel from a "wet" pit, i.e. extracted from below the water table, thus creating Hampermill Lake. In 1932/33, approximately 12 million tons of gravel and sand were extracted in Britain, with about one-third coming from pits such as the one shown here. Further west of this location, new lakes appeared south-west of Rickmansworth when massive quantities of material were removed for the construction of Wembley Stadium and the 1924 British Empire Exhibition during the early 1920s, to form the popular Aquadrome.