Part 108

The present cost of the 9-inch gully-pipe drains is about 3_s._ 6_d._ a foot; of the 6-inch, 2_s._ 6_d._ Of the proportionate lengths of these two classes of street-drains I have not been able to gain any account, for, I believe, it has never been ascertained in any way approaching to a total return. Taking 1200 miles, however, as quite within the full length of the gully-drains, and calculating at the low average of 3_s._ the foot for the whole, the total cost of the street-drains of the metropolis would be 950,400_l._, or, I am assured, one might say a million sterling, and this, even if all were done at the present low prices; the original cost would, of course, have been much greater.

Hence, according to the above calculations, we have the following

_Gross Estimate of the Cost of the Sewers and Drains of the Metropolis._

£ 1100 miles of main covered sewers 3,500,000 2840 miles of house-drains 3,000,000 1200 miles of gully or street drains 1,000,000 ---- --------- 5140 miles of sewers and drainage = 7,500,000

OF THE USES OF SEWERS AS A MEANS OF SUBSOIL DRAINAGE.

There is one other purpose toward which a sewer is available--a purpose, too, which I do not remember to have seen specified in the Metropolitan Reports.

“The first, and perhaps most important purpose of sewers, as respects health,” says the Report of Messrs. Walker, Cubitt, and Brunel (1848), “is, _as under-drains to the surrounding earth_. They answer this purpose so effectually and quietly, and have done it so long, that their importance in this respect is overlooked. In the Sanitary Commissioners’ Reports we do not find it once noticed, and the recommendation of the substitution of stone or earthenware pipes for the larger brick sewers, seems to show, that any provision for the _under-drainage_ was thought unnecessary, although such a provision is in our opinion most important.

“Under the artificial ground, the collection of ages, which in the City of London, as in most ancient towns, forms the upper surface, is a considerable thickness of clean gravel, and under the gravel is the London clay. The present houses are founded chiefly on the artificial or ‘made ground,’ while the sewers are made through the gravel; and it is known practically, that however charged with water the gravel of a district may be, the springs for a considerable distance round are drawn down by making a sewer, and the wells that had water within a few feet of the surface have again to be sunk below the bottom of the sewer to reach the water. Every interstice between the stones of the gravel acts as an under-drain to conduct the water to the sewer, through the sides of which it finds its way, even if mortar be used in the construction.

“Hence the salubrity of a gravel foundation, if the water be drawn out of it by sewers or other means, as is the case with the City and with Westminster. A proof of this principle was afforded by the result of a reference to physicians and engineers in 1838, to inquire into the state of drainage and smells in and near Buckingham Palace, as to which there had been complaints, though none so heavy as Mr. Phillips now makes, when he says, ‘that the drainage of Buckingham Palace is extremely defective, and that its precincts are reeking with filth and pestilential odours from the absence of proper sewerage!’”

The Report then shows the pains that were taken to ensure dryness in the Palace. Pits were dug in the garden 14 feet below the surface, and 3-1/2 feet below high-water mark in the river, and they were found dry to the bottom. The kitchens and yard of the palace are, however, only 18 inches above Trinity high-water mark in the Thames, and therefore 18 inches below a very high tide. The physician, Sir James Clarke, and the engineers, Messrs. Simpson and Walker, in a separate Report, spoke in terms of commendation of the drainage of the Palace in 1838, as promotive of dryness. Since that time a connecting chain has been made from the Palace drains into the canal in St. James’s-park, to prevent the wet from rising as formerly during heavy rains. “The Palace,” it is stated in the Report of the three engineers, “should not be classed with the low part of Pimlico, where the drainage is, we believe, very defective, and to which, for anything we know to the contrary, the character given by Mr. Phillips may be applicable.”

Unfortunately, however, for this array of opinions of high authority, and despite the advantages of a gravel bed for the substratum of the palatial sewerage, the drainage and sewerage about Buckingham Palace is more frequently than that of any other public place under repair, and is always requiring attention. It was only a few days ago, before the court left Windsor Castle for London, that men were employed night and day, on the drains and cesspoolage channels, to make, as one of them described it to me--and such working-men’s descriptions are often forcible--“the place _decent_. I was hardly ever,” he added, “in such a set of stinks as I’ve been in the sewers and underground parts of the palace.”

OF THE CITY SEWERAGE.

As yet I have spoken only of the sewers of London[64] “without the City;” but the sewers within the City, though connected, for the general public drainage and sewerage of the capital, with the works under the control of the Metropolitan Commissioners, are in a distinct and strictly defined jurisdiction, superintended by City Commissioners, and managed by City officers, and consequently demand a special notice.

The account of the City sewers, however, may be given with a comparative brevity, for the modes of their construction, as well as their general management, do not differ from what I have described as pertaining to the extra-civic metropolis. There are, nevertheless, a few distinctions which it is proper to point out.

The City sewers are the oldest in the capital, for the very plain reason that the City itself, in its site, if not now in its public and private buildings, is the oldest part of London, as regards the abode of a congregated body of people.

The ages (so to speak) of these sewers, vary, for the most part, according to the dates of the City’s rebuilding after the Great Fire, and according to the dates of the many alterations, improvements, removal or rebuilding of new streets, markets, &c., which have been effected since that period. Before the Great Fire of 1666, all drainage seems, with a few exceptions, to have been fortuitous, unconnected, and superficial.

The _first_ public sewer built after this important epoch in the history of London was in Ludgate-street and hill. This was the laudable work of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s, and was constructed at the instance, it is said, and after the plans, of Sir Christopher Wren. There is, perhaps, no official or documentary proof of this, for the proclamations from the King in council, the Acts of Parliament, and the resolutions of the Corporation of the City of London at that important period, are so vague and so contradictory, and were so frequently altered or abrogated, and so frequently disregarded, that it is more impossible than difficult to get at the truth. Of the fact which I have just mentioned, however, there need be no doubt; nor that the _second_ public City sewer was in Fleet-street, commenced in 1668, the second year after the fire.

There are, nevertheless, older sewers than this, but the dates of their construction are not known; we have proof merely that they existed in old London, or as it was described by an anonymous writer (quoted, if I remember rightly, in Maitland’s “History of London”), London “_ante ignem_”--London before the fire. These sewers, or rather portions of sewers, are severally near Newgate, St. Bartholomew’s Hospital sewer, and that of the Irongate by the Tower.

The sewer, however, which may be pointed out as the most remarkable is that of Little Moorgate, London-wall. It is formed of red tiles; and from such being its materials, and from the circumstance of some Roman coins having been found near it, it is supposed by some to be of Roman construction, and of course coeval with that people’s possession of the country. This sewer has a flat bottom, upright sides, and a circular arch at its top; it is about 5 feet by 3 feet. The other older sewers present much about the same form; and an Act in the reign of Charles II. directs that sewers shall be so built, but that the bottom shall have a circular curve.

I am informed by a City gentleman--one taking an interest in such matters--that this sewer has troubled the repose of a few civic antiquaries, some thinking that it was a Roman sewer, while others scouted such a notion, arguing that the Romans were not in the habit of doing their work by halves; and that if they had sewered London, great and enduring remains would have been discovered, for their main sewer would have been a solid construction, and directed to the Thames, as was and is the Cloaca Maxima, in the Eternal City, to the Tiber. Others have said that the sewer in question was merely built of Roman materials, perhaps first discovered about the time, having originally formed a reservoir, tank, or even a bath, and were keenly appropriated by some economical or scheming builder or City official.

“That the Britons,” says Tacitus in his “Life of Agricola,” “who led a roaming life, and were easily incited to war, might contract a love for peace, by being accustomed to a pleasanter mode of life, Agricola assisted them to build houses, temples, and market-places. By praising the diligent and upbraiding the idle, he excited such emulation among the Britons, that, after they had erected all those necessary buildings in their towns, they built others for pleasure and ornament, as porticoes, galleries, _baths_, and banqueting-houses.”

The sewers of the city of London are, then, a comparatively modern work. Indeed, three-fourths of them may be called modern. The earlier sewers were--as I have described under the general head--ditches, which in time were arched over, but only gradually and partially, as suited the convenience or the profit of the owners of property alongside those open channels, some of which thus presented the appearance of a series of small uncouth-looking bridges. When these bridges had to be connected so as to form the summit of a continuous sewer, they presented every variety of arch, both at their outer and under sides; those too near the surface had to be lowered. Some of these sewers, however, were in the first instances connected, despite difference of size and irregularity of form. The result may be judged from the account I have given of the strange construction of some of the Westminster sewers, under the head of “subterranean survey.”

How modern the City sewers are may best be estimated from the following table of what may be called the dates of their construction. The periods are given decennially as to the progress of the formation of _new_ sewers:--

Feet. 1707 to 1717 2,805 1717 „ 1727 2,110 1727 „ 1737 2,763 1737 „ 1747 1,238 1747 „ 1757 3,736 1757 „ 1767 3,736 1767 „ 1777 7,597 1777 „ 1787 8,693 1787 „ 1797 3,118 1797 „ 1807 5,116 1807 „ 1817 5,097 1817 „ 1827 7,847 ------- 52,810

1827 to 1837 39,072 feet. 1837 to 1847 88,363 „ ------- 127,435

Thus the length made in the 20 years previous to 1847 was more than double all that was made during the preceding 120 years; while in the ten years from 1837 to 1847, the addition to the lineal extent of sewerage was very nearly equal to all that had been made in 130 years previously.

This addition of 127,435 feet, or rather more than 24 miles, seems but a small matter when “London” is thought of; but the reader must be reminded that only a small portion (comparatively) of the metropolis is here spoken of, and the entire length of the City sewerage, at the close of 1847, was but 44 miles; so that the additions I have specified as having been made since 1837, were more than one-half of the whole. The _re_-constructions are not included in the metage I have given, for, as the new sewers generally occupied the same site as the old, they did not add to the length of the whole.

The total length of the City sewerage was, on the 31st December, 1851, no less than 49 miles; while the entire public way was at the same recent period, 51 miles (containing about 1000 separate and distinct streets, lanes, courts, alleys, &c., &c.); and I am assured that in another year or so, not a furlong of the whole City will be unsewered.

The more ancient sewers usually have upright walls, a flat or slightly-curved invert, and a semicircular or gothic arch. The form of such as have been built apparently more than 20 years ago, is that of two semicircles, of which the upper has a greater radius, connected by sloping side walls; those of recent construction are egg-shaped. The main lines are not unfrequently elliptic; in the case of the Fleet, and other ancient affluents of the Thames, the forms and dimensions vary considerably. Instances occur of sewers built entirely of stone; but the material is almost invariably brick, most commonly 9 inches in substance; the larger sewers 14, and sometimes 18 inches.

The falls or inclinations in the course of the City sewerage vary greatly, as much as from 1 in 240 to 1 in 24, or, in the first case, from a fall of 22 feet, in the latter, of course, to ten times such fall, or 220 feet per mile. There are, moreover, a few cases in which the inclination is as small as 1 in 960; others where it is as high as 1 in 14. This irregularity is to be accounted for, partly by the want of system in the old times, and partly from the natural levels of the ground. The want of system and the indifference shown to providing a proper fall, even where it was not difficult, was more excusable a few years back than it would be at the present time, for when some of these sewers were built, the drainage of the house-refuse into them was not contemplated.

The number of houses drained into the City sewers is, as precisely as such a matter can be ascertained, 11,209; the number drained into the cesspools is 5030. This shows a preponderance of drainage into the sewers of 6179. The length of the house-drains in the City, at an average of 50 feet to each house, may be estimated at upwards of 106 miles. These City drains are included in the general computation of the metropolis.

The gully-drains in the City are more frequent than in other parts of the metropolis, owing to the continual intersection of streets, &c., and perhaps from a closer care of the sewerage and all matters connected with it. The general average of the gully-drains I have shown to be 59 for every mile of street. I am assured that in the City the street-drains may be safely estimated at 65 to the mile. Estimating the streets gullied within the City, then, at an average of 50 miles, or about a mile more than the sewers, the number of gully-drains is 3250, and the length of them about 50 miles; but these, like the house-drains, have been already included in the metropolitan enumeration.

The actual sum expended yearly upon the construction, and repairs, and improvements of the City sewers cannot be cited as a distinct item, because the Court makes the return of the aggregate annual expenditure, as regards pavement, cleansing, and the matters specified as the general expenditure under the Court of Commissioners of the City Sewers. The cost, however, of the construction of sewers comprised within the civic boundaries is included in the general metropolitan estimate before given.

OF THE OUTLETS, RAMIFICATIONS, ETC., OF THE SEWERS.

In this enumeration I speak only of the _public_ outlets into the river, controlled and regulated by public officers.

The orifices or mouths of the sewers where they discharge themselves into the Thames, beginning from their eastern, and following them seriatim to their western extremity, are as follows:--

Limehouse Hole. Irongate Wharf. Ratcliffe Cross. Fox-lane, Shadwell. London Dock. St. Katharine’s Dock. The eleven City outlets, which I shall specify hereafter. Essex-street, Strand. Norfolk-street, Strand. Durham Hill (or Adelphi). Northumberland-street. Scotland-yard. Bridge-street, Westminster. Pimlico. Cubitt’s (also in Pimlico). Chelsea Bridge. Fulham Bridge. Hammersmith Bridge. Sandford Bridge (into a sort of creek of the Thames), or near the four bridges. Twickenham. Hampton. In all, 32.

It might only weary the reader to enumerate the outlets on the Surrey side of the Thames, which are 28 in number, so that the public sewer outlets of the whole metropolis are 60 in all.

The public sewer outlets from the City of London into the Thames are, as I have said, eleven in number, or rather they are usually represented as eleven, though in reality there are twelve such orifices--the “Upper” and “Eastern” Custom-House Sewers (which are distinct) being computed as one. These outlets, generally speaking the most ancient in the whole metropolis, are--

London Bridge. Ancient Walbrook. Paul’s Wharf. The Fleet-street Sewer at Blackfriars Bridge. (I mention these four first, because they are the largest outlets). Tower Dock. Pool Quay. Custom House. New Walbrook. Dowgate Dock. Hamburg Wharf. Puddle Dock.

Until recently, there was also Whitefriars Docks, but this is now attached to the Fleet Sewer outlet.

The Fleet Sewer is the oldest in London. No portion of the ditch or river composing it is now uncovered within the jurisdiction of the City; but until a little more than eleven years ago a portion of it, north of Holborn, was uncovered, and had been uncovered for years. Indeed, as I have before intimated, barges and small craft were employed on the Fleet River, and the City determined to “encourage its navigation.” Even the “polite” Earl of Chesterfield, a century ago (for his lordship was born in 1694, and died in 1773), when asked by a Frenchman in Paris, if there was in London a river to compare to the Seine? replied that there certainly was, and it was called Fleet Ditch! This is now the sewer; but it was not a covered sewer until 1765, when the Corporation ordered it to be built over.

The next oldest sewer outlet is that at London Bridge, and London antiquaries are not agreed as to whether it or the Fleet is the oldest.

The Fleet Sewer at Blackfriars Bridge is 18 feet high; between Tudor-street and Fleet Bridge (about the foot of Ludgate-hill), 14 feet 3 inches high; at Holborn Bridge, 13 feet; and in its continuation in the long-unfinished Victoria-street, 12 feet 3 inches. In all these localities it is 12 feet wide.

The New London Bridge Sewer, built or rebuilt, wholly or partly, in 1830, is 10 feet by 8 at its outlet; decreasing to the south end of King William-street, where it is 9 feet by 7; while it is 8 feet by 7 in Moorgate-street.

Paul’s Wharf sewer is 7 feet 6 inches by 5 feet 6 inches near the outlet.

With the one exception of the Fleet River, none of the City sewer outlets are covered, the Fleet outlet being covered even at low water. The issue from the others runs in open channels upon the shore.

Mr. Haywood (February 12, 1850), in a report of the City Sewer Transactions and Works, observes,--“During the year (1849) the outlet sewers at Billingsgate and Whitefriars, two of the outlets of main sewers which discharged at the line of the River Wall, have been diverted (times of storm excepted); there remain, therefore, but eleven main outlets within the jurisdiction of this commission, which discharge their waters at the line of the River Wall.

“As a temporary measure, it is expedient to convey the sewage of the whole of the outlets within the City by covered culverts, below low-water mark; this subject has been under the consideration both of this Commission and the Navigation Committee.”

Whether the covered culvert is better than the open run, is a matter disputed among engineers (as are very many other matters connected with sewerage), and one into which I need not enter.

Mr. Haywood says further:--“The Fleet sewer already discharges its average flow, by a culvert, below low-water mark; with one exception only, I believe, none of the numerous outlets, which, for a length of many miles, discharge at intervals into the Thames at the line of the River Wall, both within and without your jurisdiction, discharge by culverts in a similar manner.”

These eleven outlets are far from being the whole number which give their contents into “the silver bosom of the Thames,” along the bank-line of the City jurisdiction. There are (including the 11) 182 outlets; but these are not under the control (unless in cases of alteration, nuisance, &c.) of the Court of Sewers. They are the outlets from the drainage of the wharfs, public buildings, or manufactories (such as gas-works, &c.) on the banks of the river; and the right to form such outlets having been obtained from the Navigation Committee, who, under the Lord Mayor, are conservators of the Thames, the care of them is regarded as a private matter, and therefore does not require further notice in this work. The officers of the City Court of Sewers observe these outlets in their rounds of inspection, but interfere only on application from any party concerned, unless a nuisance be in existence.

To convey a more definite notion of the extent and ramified sweep of the sewers, I will now describe (for the first time in print) some of the chief _Sewer Ramifications_, and then show the proportionate or average number of public ways, of inhabited houses, and of the population to each great main sewer, distinguishing, in this instance, those as _great main sewers_ which have an outlet into the Thames.

The reader should peruse the following accounts with the assistance of a map of the environs, for, thus aided, he will be better able to form a definite notion of the curiously-mixed and blended extent of the sewerage already spoken of.