Like the Crossness Pumping Station, Abbey Mills was a joint design by Bazalgette and Driver. Above the centre of the engine-house was an ornate dome that, Dobraszczyk considers, gives the building a "superficial resemblance ... to a Byzantine church". The architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner, in his "Buildings of England", thought the building showed "exciting architecture applied to the most foul purposes"; he went on to describe it as "an unorthodox mix, vaguely Italian Gothic in style but with tiers of Byzantine windows and a central octagonal lantern that adds a gracious Russian flavour".