Second series. Concise statements of the main features of the plans for the drainage of the metropolis : sent in pursuance of the resolution of the Court, 20th August, 1849.

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

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Second series. Concise statements of the main features of the plans for the drainage of the metropolis : sent in pursuance of the resolution of the Court, 20th August, 1849. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and Acton on the west; 2ndly. The Southern Low Level District, comprising the low and populated portions of the Surrey and Kent division of sewers ; and, 3rdly, The Eastern Low Level District, taking in all the low lands of the Tower Hamlets division, including the Bromley and Poplar Marshes and the Isle of Dogs. It is proposed to provide one outlet drain for the two first-mentioned districts, to discharge itself at a depot in Plumstead Marsh, nearly opposite Barking Creek. Steam power would be applied to raise the sewage above the rise of the tide, so as to secure a constant discharge into the river. The course of this outlet drain would be through the towns of Woolwich, Greenwich, and Deptford, where it would pass near the proposed depot for the southern higher districts, to which it would act as an outlet of discharge; thence along the Greenwich Railway, to and along the Blue Anchor- road ; thence, in a nearly direct course, by the Bricklayer’s Arms, the New Kent-road, near Bethlehem Hospital, and Lambeth-road, to and across the river by curved iron tubing, or inverted syphon, to the Horse Ferry-road; thence along the proposed new street south of the New Prison, and by various streets and openings to, and diagonally across, Eaton-square; thence, by a nearly direct course, through Earl’s- court to King’s-street, Hammersmith; thence along the high road and the south side of Turnham-green to Strand-green, near Kew-bi'idge, at which spot it would meet the water supply from Feltham, before described. Several branch drains will be necessary to catch the sewage not provided with outfall by the higher level outfall drains. One of considerable importance, commencing at the outlet drain at Horse Ferry-road, would pass along the river side to Blackfriars’-bridge, to receive the lower sewage of the Fleet Sewer, and of the various sewers discharging into the Thames between those two points. This branch would join the outlet sewer at so low a level as to admit of its being constructed or laid beneath the shore of the river; and thus it would in no way interfere with existing river bank property. Other branches of importance are described in the paper already delivered, and are shown in the maps accompanying it. It is not necessary to particularise them here ; but it must be understood, that an alteration or modification, and, in some cases, re-construction of the present main sewers lying intermediate between the proposed outlet drain and the river, would be necessary in order to convert the fall now directed to the river towards the outlet drain. But as these present main sewers are of a size more than sufficient to carry off the sewerage of the whole low level district which the proposed outlet drain would divide, it is apparent that smaller and sufficient sewers might be constructed altogether within the present sewers, so as to avoid dis- turbing, if possible, the street traffic, and at considerably less cost than entirely new constructions; for it should be borne in mind that these sewers have been found sufficiently capacious to hold the surface drainage, which, as already stated, it is now proposed to pass at once into the river by shallow street-drains. The length of the proposed Westminster Low Level drain would be seventeen miles, with a fall of two feet per mile for seven miles of the upper portion, viz.,—from Strand-green to Horseferry-road,—and one foot and a half per mile from thence to the depot on