Embankment Place runs from Villiers Street, under a railway arch, on to Northumberland Avenue.
While there was a long history of failed proposals to embank the Thames, in the 1830s, the painter John Martin promoted a version to contain an intercepting sewer. In January 1842 the City Corporation backed a plan designed by James Walker but this was dropped mainly due to government infighting.
A decade later, a similar scheme gained approval and in 1862, the Victoria Embankment was mostly designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette with further work on the embankment wall and river stairs by Charles Henry Driver.
It incorporated the main sewer and an underground railway (later the District Line) over which a wide road and riverside walkway would be built. Embankment Place arrived at part of this scheme.
