Metropolitan sewers. A report to the General Board of Health on open ditches in Lower Tooting : 6th January, 1849.

  • Lovick, Thomas.
Date:
[1849]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Metropolitan sewers. A report to the General Board of Health on open ditches in Lower Tooting : 6th January, 1849. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    jHetropolttan J^etoers. A Report to the General Board of Health on Open Ditches in Lower Tooting. Qth January, 1849. My Lords and Gentlemen, In pursuance of your directions, I beg to report that I have inspected a portion of Lower Tooting, with reference to the condition of open ditches in the vicinity of Mr. Drouet’s Pauper Establishment. In order to present a connected view of the drainage as bearing upon the subject of inquiry, I examined a large portion of the main sewerage of Lower Tooting from its commencement to its outlet, clear of the village. It appears that the sewerage of nearly the whole of Lower looting is subserved by an open ditch, commencing near the Church and expanding there and at the backs of the houses on the east-side of the Mitcham road into a series of moats, varying from twenty to twenty-five feet in width, presenting an evaporative surface estimated at between 40,000 and 50,000 square feet, they are nearly filled with a foul black deposit emitting upon the slightest agitation offensive emanations. Near the northern extremity they have an overflow drain discharging into an open ditch running parallel to them, and skirting the gardens attached to the houses; this, after receiving the drainage of the southern portion of the village, runs through a Mr. Norris’s premises partly covered with loose planks, thence in a covered drain across uhe main road to the fields at the back of the houses on the north-side; thence, after receiv¬ ing a ditch parallel to the houses on this side and taking their drainage, it continues a like course to Mr. Drouet’s garden, of which it forms the boundary, varying in width from about six to nine feet, running for a considerable distance nearly parallel to Mr. Drouet’s grounds and the dormitories of the pauper children, from the centte of the principal dormitory being about 350 feet distant. Nearly opposite this dormitory, and discharging by a small cut into this ditch, is a long stagnant piece of water horn twelve to fifteen feet in width, containing upwards of two feet six inches depth ol foul stinking