[Report 1894] / Medical Officer of Health, Somerset County Council.

  • Somerset Council
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1894] / Medical Officer of Health, Somerset County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    29/94 (page 24)
    ^ewerap.-r and Excrement Disposal :— Brlsllngion. Modern sewers, good gradients, ventilation and flushing, house drains properly connected and disconnected; serves nearl}^ all the village. Outfall into tidal Avon. During the year about 500 yards of piped sewer, with manholes, etc., laid down on new I^rislington estates, joining village outfall. Houses rapidly building on Bristol road need a properly constructed sewer to which they can connect. Baltford. A single piped sewer runs from top of village down main street, outfall to river Avon. Ventilated only by shaft at head, flushed only by road water at upper end. No branches exist, so it is inaccessible to many houses. Keijnsliam has one or two lengths of pipe sewer {a) from church, down Bristol road, outfall into tributary stream of Avon; (/>) from Dapp’s Hill estate houses, out¬ fall into Chew, tributary of Avon, recently relaid by Sanitary Authority; (c) short length near ‘‘ Lamb and Lark Inn,” outfall into Chew. No provision for ventilation or flushing in any of these. The only sewers in use in other parts are old highway “ sewers,” designed for storm water, unsuitable for sewage, and tending to produce dangerous nuisance from leakage, well pollution, and deposit and decomposition of contents. House Drainage. Though considerable improvement has been secured, there are still au enormous number of old stone drains in existence untrapped or inefficiently trapped. Often houses have no drain, and slops are thrown over ground surface. Slopwater pits, where they exist, are unsatisfactory, admitting of leakage, and often close to wells. Cesspits form the most usual method of excrement disposal, seldom watertight, and often ventilated only through open privy or drain, often untrapped, leading to them. In one or two parts {e.g. Corston village) many cesspits have been replaced by a form of dry, pail closet, and similar improvement has been effected wdiere ])Ossible in other parts of the district. The general adoption of pail closets advised in rural parts of the district. (General advice as to village drainage, and excrement and slop disposal—reference given to Annual Deport for 1890, pp. 4-6.) Cesspool nuisances at Kegnsliam. The particulars of three instances of serious cesspool nuisances occurring at Keynsham are given in detail, j^p. 12-16, by which ‘‘ the necessity of a sew^erage system for the town of Keynsham (is) once more em¬ phasized.” The Medical Officer of Health strongly urges that the only effectual remedy is to carry out a complete scheme of sewerage for the whole town, and states the jwovision of sewers to be “ a matter of importance and urgency. Sewers must, sooner or later, be made, and delay can be productive of no good, but may, on the other hand, be fraught with grave danger to the health of the town.” The blocking of the highway drain in the main street necessitated extensive repairs, and demonstrated it was in no wise self-cleansing, and unfit for a sewer. Whitchurch. The question of the disposal of sewage remains as in 1892.