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.
First, then, as to the ramifications of the great and ancient Fleet
outlet. From its mouth, so to speak, near Blackfriars Bridge, its
course is not parallel with any public way, but, running somewhat
obliquely, it crosses below Tudor-street into Bridge-street,
Blackfriars, then occupies the centre of Farringdon-street, and
that street’s prolongation or intended prolongation into the New
Victoria-street (the houses in this locality having been pulled down
long ago, and the spot being now popularly known as “the ruins”),
and continues until the City portion of the Fleet Sewer meets the
Metropolitan jurisdiction between Saffron and Mutton hills, the
junction, so to call it, being “under the houses”[65] (a common phrase
among flushermen). A little farther on it connects itself with an
open part of the Fleet Ditch, running at the back of Turnmill-street,
Clerkenwell. In its City course, the sewer receives the issue from 150
public ways (including streets, alleys, courts, lanes, &c.), which
are emptied into it from the second, third, or smaller class sewers,
from Ludgate-hill and its proximate streets, the St. Paul’s locality,
Fleet-street and its adjacent communications in public ways, with
a series of sewers running down from parts of Smithfield, &c. The
_greatest_ accession of sewage, however, which the Fleet receives from
_one_ issue, is a few yards beyond where the City has merged into the
Metropolitan jurisdiction; this accession is from a first-class sewer,
known as “the Whitecross-street sewer,” because running from that
street, and carrying into the Fleet the contributions of 60 crowded
streets.
After the junction of the covered City sewer with the uncovered ditch
in Clerkenwell, the Fleet-river sewer (again covered) skirts round Cold
Bath Fields Prison (the Middlesex House of Correction), runs through
Clerkenwell-green into the Bagnigge Wells-road, so on to Battle-bridge
and King’s-cross; then along the Old Saint Pancras-road, and thence
to the King’s-road (a name now almost extinct), where the St. Pancras
Workhouse stands close by the turnpike-gate. Along Upper College-street
(Camden-town) is then the direction of this great sewer, and running
_under_ the canal at the higher part of Camden-town, near the bridge
by the terminus of the Great North Western Railway, it branches into
the highways and thoroughfares of Kentish-town, of Highgate, and of
Hampstead, respectively, and then, at what one informant described as
“the outside” of those places, receives the open ditches, which form
the further sewerage, under the control of the Commissioners, who cause
them to be cleansed regularly.
In order to show more consecutively the direction, from place to place,
in straight, devious, or angular course, of this the most remarkable
sewer of the world, considering the extent of the drainage into it, I
have refrained from giving beyond the Whitecross-street connection with
the Fleet, an account of the number of streets sewered into this old
civic stream. I now proceed to supply the deficiency.
From a large outlet at Clerkenwell-green (a very thickly-built
neighbourhood) flows the connected sewage of 100 streets. At
Maiden-lane, beyond King’s-cross, a district which is now being built
upon for the purposes of the Great Northern Railway, the sewage of
10 streets is poured into it. In the course of this sewer along
Camden-town, it receives the issue of some 20 branches, or 40 streets,
&c. About 15 other issues are received before the open ditches of
Kentish-town, Highgate, and Hampstead are encountered.
It is not, however, merely the sewage collected in the precincts of
the City proper, which is “outletted” (as I heard a flusherman call
it) into the Thames. Other districts are drained into the large City
outlets nearing the river. “Many of your works,” says Mr. Haywood,
the City surveyor, in a report addressed to the City Commissioners,
Oct. 23, 1849, “have been beneficially felt by districts some miles
distant from the City. Twenty-nine outlets have been provided by you
for the sewage of the County of Middlesex; the high land of and about
Hampstead, drains through the Fleet sewer; Holloway and a portion of
Islington can now be drained by the London Bridge sewer; Norton Folgate
and the densely-populated districts adjacent are also relieved by it.”
On the other hand, the Irongate sewer (one of the most important),
which has its outlet in the Tower Hamlets, drains a portion of the City.
The reader must bear in mind, also, that were he to traverse the Fleet
sewer in the direction described--for all the men I conversed with on
the subject, if asked to show the course of sewerage with which they
were familiar, began _from_ the outlet into the Thames--the reader, I
say, must remember that he would be advancing all the way _against_ the
stream, in a direction in which he would find the sewage flowing onward
to its mouth, while his course would be towards its sources.
On the left-hand side (for the account before given refers only to the
right-hand side) proceeding in the same direction, after passing the
underground precincts of the City proper, there is another addition
near Saffron-hill, of the sewage of 30 streets; then at Gray’s-inn-road
is added the sewage of 100 streets; New-road (at King’s-cross), 20
more streets; from the whole of Somers-town, a populous locality,
the sewerage concentrating all the busy and crowded places round
about “the Brill,” &c., the sewage of 120 streets is received; and at
Pratt-street, Camden-town, 12 other streets.
Thus into this sewage-current, directed to one final outlet, are
drained the refuse of 517 streets, including, of course, a variety of
minor thoroughfares, courts, alleys, &c., &c., as in the neighbourhoods
of Gray’s-inn-road, in Clerkenwell, Somers-town, &c. Some of these
tributaries to the efflux of the sewage are “barrel-drains,” but
perform the function of sewers along small courts, where there is “no
thoroughfare” either _upon_, or _below_ the surface.
The London Bridge sewer runs up King William-street to Moorgate-street,
along Finsbury-square into the City-road, diverging near the
Wharf-road, which it crosses _under_ the canal near the Wenlock basin,
and thence along the Lower-road, Islington, by Cock-lane, through
Highbury-vale; after this, at the extremity of Holloway, the open
ditches, as in the former instance, carry on the conveyance of sewage
from the outer suburbs.
The King’s Scholars’ Pond Sewer--which seems to have given the
Commissioners more trouble than any other, in its connection
with Buckingham Palace, St. James’s Park, and the new Houses of
Parliament--runs from Chelsea-bridge past Cubitt’s workshops, and along
the King’s-road to Eaton-square, the whole of which is drained into it;
then “turning round,” as one man described it, it approaches Buckingham
Palace, which, with its grounds, as well as a portion of St. James’s
and the Green parks, is drained into this sewer; then branching away
for the reception of the sewage from the houses and gardens of Chelsea,
it drains Sloane-street, and, crossing the Knightsbridge-road, runs
through or across Hyde-park to the Swan at Bayswater, whence its course
is by the Westbourne District and under the canal, along Paddington,
until it attains the open country, or rather the grounds, in that
quarter, which have been very extensively and are now still being built
over, and where new sewers are constructed simultaneously with new
streets.
Thus in the “reach,” as I heard it happily enough designated, of each
of these great sewers, the reader will see from a map the extent of the
subterranean metropolis traversed, alike along crowded streets ringing
with the sounds of traffic, among palatial and aristocratic domains,
and along the parks which adorn London, as well as winding their
ramifying course among the courts, alleys, and teeming streets, the
resorts of misery, poverty, and vice.
Estimating, then, the number of sewers from the number of their river
outlets, and regarding all the rest as the branches, or tributaries,
to each of these superior streams, we have, adopting the area before
specified as being drained by the metropolitan sewers, viz., 58 square
miles, the following results:--
Each of the 60 sewers having an outlet into the Thames drains 618
statute acres.
And assuming the number of houses included within these 58 square
miles to be 200,000, and the population to amount to 1,500,000, or
two-thirds of the houses and people included in the Registrar-General’s
Metropolis, we may say that each of the 60 sewers would carry into the
Thames the refuse from 25,000 individuals and 3333 inhabited houses.
This, however, is partly prevented by the cesspoolage system, which
supplies receptacles for a proportion of the refuse that, were London
to be rebuilt according to the provisions of the present Building and
Sanitary Acts, would _all_ be carried, without any interception, into
the river Thames by the media of the sewers.
In my account of cesspoolage I shall endeavour to show the extent of
fæcal refuse, &c., contained in places not communicating with the
sewers, and to be removed by the labour of men and horses, as well as
the amount of fæcal refuse carried into the sewerage.