Subterranean survey of the Surrey and Kent District.

  • London (England). Metropolitan Commission of Sewers.
Date:
[1849]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Subterranean survey of the Surrey and Kent District. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    3&c3~ No. 34.] SUBTERRANEAN SURVEY OF THE £uvvnj untf 2Jcut £>i£tv(ct* Gentlemen, The first party commenced with the Surrey and Kent Sewers at the end of December, 1848, and they were increased to five parties at the end of January, 1849, as the work was gradually completed in the Westminster District. Sixty-nine and one-eighth miles of sewers have been surveyed in the Surrey and Kent District, at an expense of 240/. 16s. 9d., to the week ending 3rd of March, 1849. The Surveyors find great difficulty in levelling the sewers of this district; for in the first place the deposit is usually about two feet in depth, and in some cases it amounts to nearly five feet of putrid matter. The smell is usually of the most horrible description, the air being so foul that explosion and choke damp are very frequent. On the 12th of January we were very nearly losing a whole party by choke damp, the last man being dragged out on his back (through two feet of black foetid deposit) in a state of insensibility. Another explosion took place on the 12th of February, in the Peckham and Camberwell Road Sewer; and one on the 21st of February, in the Kennington Road Sewer; in both cases the men had the skin peeled off their faces and their hair singed. Two men of one party had also a narrow escape from drowning in the Alscot Road Sewer, Rotherhithe, on the 24th instant, but fortunately none of the foregoing cases have been attended with serious damage. The sewers on the Surrey side are very irregular; even where they are inverted they frequently have a number of steps and inclinations the reverse way, causing the deposit to accumulate in elongated cesspools. It must be considered very fortunate that the subterranean parties did not first commence on the Surrey side ; for if such had been the case, we should most