The water supply to the rural districts of Essex. : Report presented to the county council, April 4th, 1905 / by John C. Thresh.
- Thresh, John C.
- Date:
- 1905
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The water supply to the rural districts of Essex. : Report presented to the county council, April 4th, 1905 / by John C. Thresh. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.
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![Many of the parishes on the London Clay are sup- plied from one or more wells provided and maintained by the sanitary authorities. In such cases persons living at a distance suffer considerable inconvenience, and frequently use ditch or pond water rather than carry the water from the source provided. In a few parishes there is not even a public well and water from the roofs or from ponds or brooks has to be utilised. These parishes are re- ferred to later in the section relating to the requirements of the county. There is no doubt that the site of most of the Essex i villages has been determined by the presence of patches of . water-bearing gravel, forming as it were, oases in the ■ desert of clay. It is, therefore, possible in many in-1 stances to obtain water from wells in a village, whilst no | water is obtainable beyond its boundaries, the village having extended to near the edge of the gravel bed. There are several extensive areas of sand and gravel in the county, and these will absorb about one-third of the rain falling upon them. This water, which pene- I trates the subsoil, either eventually flows out at the edges of these patches as springs (which will become dry unless ^ rain falls with sufficient frequency to keep up the supply of ground water), or if, from the contour of the impervious stratum below, the springs and outcrop are not at the lowest level of the water-bearing stratum, a certain amount of water will always be retained, forming, as it were, an underground reservoir. This subsoil water can be collected from the springs or by sinking wells. 'I he largest gravel patches in the county are near] Colchester and Danbury. That near Colchester extends' from ivenhoe on the east to Copford on the west, and from Layei'-de-la-Hay on the south to Colchester on the north, and has an area of something like 18 square miles,i](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24766409_0018.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
