Report to the General Board of Health on a preliminary inquiry into the sewerage, drainage, and supply of water, and the sanitary condition of the inhabitants of the town and parish of Brixham, in the county of Devon / by Alfred L. Dickens, Superintending Inspector.

  • Dickens, Alfred L.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report to the General Board of Health on a preliminary inquiry into the sewerage, drainage, and supply of water, and the sanitary condition of the inhabitants of the town and parish of Brixham, in the county of Devon / by Alfred L. Dickens, Superintending Inspector. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Inspection of Town and District. highly demoralizing, but is also calculated to materially prejudice- Beixham. the public health. Frequently, in visiting tho houses of patients in the morning, finds the smell and atmosphere of the rooms, from the storing of offensive refuse, most unpleasant. Although Upper Brixham is not so crowded as the lower part of the town, the same want of sewerage and convenient Avater supply is felt, and the same causes are to a great extent in operation to produce disease. At the present moment, Brixham is healthy. Inspection of the Town and District.—In making my personal inspection I was accompanied throughout the day by the following gentlemen:—Messrs. Thomas Lake- man, Henry Chilcote, M. Hill, Underhay, jun., Hockin, C. Bowden, and W. Calley, and for a considerable part of the day by Messrs. Wolston, H. Bartlett, H. Browne, C. Brooking, medical officer, Dart, Kindrick, Rev. M. Saunders, R. N. Smith, &c. The following notes of the localities inspected are ex- tracted -from my note book as they were made at the time :— The Government Reservoir.—This is a pond situated near Bolfcon Cross. It is an undoubted nuisance. It is situate in the centre of the town, and is stagnant and offensive. The stream that is supposed to feed it, viz., the north stream/' was perfectly dry in Lower Brixham when I saw it, and the only water entering the reservoir at that time was from the south stream, which, as has already been stated in the evidence, is the main sewer for a large portion of Upper Brixham and Bolton-street. Great complaints are made of unpleasant fogs being prevalent about the . neighbourhood of this reservoir, and on my first visiting it about dusk in the evening, there was a damp searching kind of mist rising from its surface. ' Bolton-street.—There were five deaths from cholera in ; this street in 1849. It is one of the most recently erected streets in Brixham. At the backs of the houses on the I west side of the street runs, at the bottom of .the gardens, the south stream. When the houses were built, there I was a clause introduced in the lease forbidding the tenants J to construct drains into this stream. There is a wall built at the bottom of the gardens, but as there are doors for all, or nearly all the houses, in this wall, the access to the stream is convenient. The consequence is, that although the inhabitants do not drain into it, they make use of it for all the purposes of a sewer. The result is very offen- sive, and there is no wonder that complaints are made of [25.] c