The traverser of the London streets rarely thinks, perhaps, of the far
extended subterranean architecture below his feet; yet such is indeed
the case, for the sewers of London, with all their imperfections,
irregularities, and even absurdities, are still a great work; certainly
not equal, in all respects, to what once must have existed in Rome, but
second, perhaps, only to the giant works of sewerage in the eternal
city.
The origin of these Roman sewers seems to be wrapped in as great a
mystery as the foundation of the city itself. The statement of the
Roman historians is that these sewers were the works of the elder
Tarquin, the fifth (apocryphal) king of Rome. Tarquin’s dominions,
from the same accounts, did not in any direction extend above sixteen
miles, and his subjects could be but banditti, foragers, and shepherds.
One conjecture is, that Rome stands on the site of a more ancient
city, and that to its earlier possessors may be attributed the work
of the sewers. To attribute them to the rudeness and small population
of Tarquin’s day, it is contended, is as feasible as it would be to
attribute the ruins of ancient Jerusalem, or any others in Asia Minor,
to the Turks, or the ruins of Palmyra to the Arabs, because these
people enjoy the privilege of possession.
[Illustration: THE SEWER-HUNTER.
[_From a Daguerreotype by_ BEARD.]]
The main sewer of Rome, the Cloaca Maxima, is said to have been
lofty and wide enough for a waggon load of hay to pass clear along
it. Another, and more probable account, however, states that it was
proposed to _enlarge_ the great sewer to these dimensions, but it does
not appear to have been so enlarged. Indeed, when Augustus “made
Rome marble,” it was one of his great works also, under the direction
of Agrippa, to reconstruct, improve, and enlarge the sewers. It was a
project in the days of Rome’s greatness to turn seven navigable rivers
into vast subterraneous passages, larger sewers, along which barges
might pass, carrying on the traffic of Imperial Rome. In one year
the cost of cleansing, renewing, and repairing the sewers is stated
to have been 1000 talents of gold, or upwards of 192,000_l._ Of the
_average_ yearly cost we have no information. Some accounts represent
these sewers as having been rebuilt after the irruption of the Gauls.
In Livy’s time they were pronounced not to be accommodated to the plan
of Rome. Some portions of these ancient structures are still extant,
but they seem to have attracted small notice even from professed
antiquarians; their subterranean character, however, renders such
notice little possible. In two places they are still kept in repair,
and for their original purpose, to carry off the filth of the city, but
only to a small extent.
Our legislative enactments on the subject of sewers are ancient and
numerous. The oldest is that of 9 Henry III., and the principal is that
of 23 Henry VIII., commonly called the “Statute of Sewers.” These and
many subsequent statutes, however, relate only to watercourses, and are
silent as regards my present topic--the Refuse of London.
It is remarkable how little is said in the London historians of
the _sewers_. In the two folio volumes of the most searching and
indefatigable of all the antiquarians who have described the old
metropolis, John Stow, the tailor, there is no account of what we now
consider sewers, inclosed and subterranean channels for the conveyance
of the refuse filth of the metropolis to its destination--the Thames.
Had covered sewers been known, or at any rate been at all common, in
Stow’s day, and he died full of years in 1604, and had one of them
presented but a crumbling stone with some heraldic, or apparently
heraldic, device at its outlet, Stow’s industry would certainly have
ferreted out some details. Such, however, is not the case.
This absence of information I hold to be owing to the fact that no such
sewers then existed. Our present system of sewerage, like our present
system of street-lighting, is a modern work; but it is not, like our
gas-lamps, an _original_ English work. We have but followed, as regards
our arched and subterraneous sewerage, in the wake of Rome.
As I have said, the early _laws_ of sewers relate to watercourses,
navigable communications, dams, ditches, and such like; there is no
doubt, however, that in the heart of the great towns the filth of the
houses was, by rude contrivances in the way of drainage, or natural
fall, emptied into such places. Even in the accounts of the sewers of
ancient Rome, historians have stated that it is not easy, and sometimes
not possible, to distinguish between the _sewers_ and the _aqueducts_,
and Dr. Lemon, in his English Etymology, speaks of sewers as a species
of aqueducts. So, in some of our earlier Acts of Parliament, it is
hardly possible to distinguish whether the provisions to be applied
to the management of a sewer relate to a ditch to which house-filth
was carried--to a channel of water for general purposes--or to an open
channel being a receptacle of filth and a navigable stream at the same
time.
That the ditches were not sewers for the conveyance of the filth from
the houses to any very great, or rather any very general extent, may
very well be concluded, because (as I have shown in my account of the
early scavagers) the excrementitious matter was deposited during the
night in the street, and removed by the proper functionaries in the
morning, or as soon as suited their convenience. Though this was the
case generally, it is evident that the filth, or a portion of it,
from the houses which were built on the banks of the Fleet River (as
it was then called, as well as the Fleet Ditch), and on the banks of
the other “brooks,” drained into the current stream. The Corporation
accounts contain very frequent mention of the cleansing, purifying,
and “thorough” cleansing of the Fleet Ditch, the Old Bourne (Holborn
Brook), the Wall Brook, &c.
Of all these streams the most remarkable was Fleet Ditch, which was
perhaps the first main sewer of London. I give from Stow the following
curious account of its origin. It is now open, but only for a short
distance, offending the air of Clerkenwell. At one period it was to
afford a defence to the City! as the Tower-moat was a defence to the
Tower, and fortress.
“The Ditch, which partly now remaineth and compassed the Wall of the
City, was begun to be made by the _Londoners_, in the year 1211, and
finished 1213, the 15th of K. _John_. This Ditch being then made of
200 foot broad, caused no small hindrance to the Canons of the Holy
_Trinity_, whose Church stood near _Ealdgate_, for that the said Ditch
passed through their Ground from the _Tower_ unto _Bishopsgate_.
“The first Occasion of making a Ditch about the City seems to have
been this: _William_, Bishop of _Ely_, Chancellor of _England_, in the
Reign of King _Richard_ I., made a great Ditch round about the _Tower_,
for the better Defence of it against _John_ the King’s Brother, the
King being then out of the Realm. Then did the City also begin a Ditch
to encompass and strengthen their Walls [which happened between the
Years 1190 and 1193.] So the Book _Dunthorn_. Yet the Register of
_Bermondsey_ writes that the Ditch was begun, Oct. 15, 1213, which was
in the Reign of King _John_ that succeeded to _Richard_.
“This Ditch being originally made for the Defence of the City, was
also a long time together carefully cleansed and maintained, as Need
required; but now of late neglected, and forced either to a very
narrow, and the same a filthy Channel.
“In the Year of _Christ_, 1354, 28 _Ed._ 3, the Ditch of this City
flowing over the Bank into the _Tower-ditch_, the King commanded
the said Ditch of the City to be cleansed, and so ordered, that the
overflowing thereof should not force any Filth into the _Tower-ditch_.
“_Anno_, 1379, John Philpot, Maior of _London_, caused this Ditch to
be cleansed, and every Houshold to pay 5_d._, which was a Day’s Work
toward the Charges thereof.
“_Ralph Joseline_, Maior, 1477, caused the whole Ditch to be cast
and cleansed.... In 1519, the 10th of Henry 8, for cleansing and
scouring the common Ditch, between _Aldgate_, and the Postern next
the _Tower-ditch_; the chief Ditcher had by the day 7_d._, the Second
Ditcher, 6_d._, the other Ditchers, 5_d._ And every Vagabond (for as
they were then termed) 1_d._ the Day, Meat and Drink, at the Charges of
the City. Sum 95_l._ 3_s._ 4_d._
“Fleet Ditch was again cleansed in the Year 1549,” Stow continues,
“_Henry Ancoates_ being Maior, at the Charges of the Companies. And
again 1569, the 11th of Queen _Elizabeth_; for cleansing the same Ditch
between _Ealdgate_ and the _Postern_, and making a new Sewer and Wharf
of Timber, from the Head of the _Postern_ into the _Tower-ditch_,
814_l._ 15_s._ 8_d._ (was disbursed). Before the which Time the said
Ditch lay open, without either Wall or Pall, having therein great Store
of very good Fish, of divers Sorts, as many men yet living, who have
taken and tasted them, can well witness. But now no such matter, the
Charge of Cleansing is spared, and great Profit made by letting out the
Banks, with the Spoil of the whole Ditch.”
The above information appeared, but I am unable to specify the year
(for Stow’s works went through several editions, though it is to be
feared he died very poor) between 1582 and 1590. So did the following:--
“At this Day there be no Ditches or Boggs in the City except the said
_Fleet-ditch_, but instead thereof large common _Dreins_ and _Sewers_,
made to carry away the water from the _Postern-Gate_, between the two
_Tower-hills_ to _Fleet-bridge_ without _Ludgate_.”
Great, indeed, is the change in the character of the capital of
England, from the times when the Fleet Ditch was a defence to the city
(which was then the entire capital); and from the later era, when
“great store of very good fish of divers sorts,” rewarded the skill or
the patience of the anglers or netters; but this, it is evident, was in
the parts near the river (the Tower postern, &c.), and at that time, or
about that time, there was salmon-fishing in the Thames, at least as
far up as Hungerford Wharf.
The Fleet Ditch seems always to have had a _sewery_ character. It was
described, in 1728, as
“The king of dykes! than whom no sluice of mud
With deeper sable blots the silver flood--”
the _silver_ flood being, in Queen Anne’s and the First George’s days,
the London Thames. This silver has been much alloyed since that time.
Until within these 40 or 50 years, open sewer-ditches, into which
drains were emptied, and ordure and refuse thrown, were frequent,
especially in the remoter parts of Lambeth and Newington, and some
exist to this day; one especially, open for a considerable distance,
flowing along the back of the houses in the Westminster-road, on the
right-hand side towards the bridge, into which the neighbouring houses
are drained. The “Black Ditch,” a filthy sewer, until lately was open
near the Broadwall, and other vicinities of the Blackfriars-road. The
open ditch-sewers of Norwood and Wandsworth have often been spoken of
in Sanitary Reports. Indeed, some of our present sewers, in addition to
Fleet River and Wall Brook, are merely ditches rudely arched over.
The first covered and continuous street sewer was erected in London--I
think, without doubt--when Wren rebuilt the capital, after the great
fire of 1666. Perhaps there is no direct evidence of the fact, for,
although the statutes and Privy Council and municipal enactments,
consequent on the rebuilding of the capital, required, more or less
peremptorily, “fair sewers, and drains, and watercourses,” it is not
defined in these enactments what was meant by a “sewer;” nor were they
carried out.
I may mention, as a further proof that open ditches, often enough
stagnant ditches also, were the first London sewers, that, after 1666,
a plan, originally projected, it appears, by Sir Leonard Halliday,
Maior, 60 years previously, and strenuously supported at that time by
Nic Leate, “a worthy and grave citizen,” was revived and reconsidered.
This project, for which Sir Leonard and Nic Leate “laboured much,” was
“for a river to be brought on the north of the city into it, for the
cleansing the sewers and ditches, and for the better keeping London
wholesome, sweet, and clean.” An admirable _intention_; and it is not
impossible nor improbable that in less than two centuries hence, we, of
the present sanitary era, may be accounted, for our sanitary measures,
as senseless as we now account good Sir Leonard Halliday and the worthy
and grave Nic Leate. These gentlemen cared not to brook filth in
their houses, nor to be annoyed by it in the nightly pollution of the
streets, but they advocated its injection into running water, and into
water often running slowly and difficultly, and continually under the
eyes and noses of the citizens. _We_, I apprehend, go a little further.
We drink, and use for the preparation of our meals, the befouled water,
which they did not; for, more than seven-eighths of our water-supply
from the companies is drawn from the Thames, the main sewer of the
greatest city in the world, ancient or modern, into which millions of
tons of every description of refuse are swept yearly.