Sewage at Holywell

In 1849 there was a 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 of Watford ( by George Thomas Clarke, Supt Inspector).

The subject of drainage had frequently been discussed in the five or six years previously at various meetings and the 'existing evils' had been fully admitted, but a want of legislative power had always prevented the application of an effectual remedy. After the passing of the Public Health Act, a meeting was called to consider the propriety of putting in force the "Nuisances Removal Act", but such was the bad condition of the town and the want of the necessary powers in the Nuisances Act to carry out permanent remedies, that, after a long discussion and two adjourned meetings, the petition upon which the inquiry proceeded was determined upon. 

Watford was composed principally of one street about 1½ miles long, built on a ridge sloping southwards to the river Colne. There were scarcely any cross streets, just mainly yards and alleys. There were privies with open cesspools, pigsties, dung heaps loaded with decaying vegetable and animal matter and the slops were generally thrown into the main road. One overflowing cesspool flowed down into another covered with trap-doors in the open foot-way of the main street. There was more than one pond in the town, but these were usually in a dirty state at all times, dried out in summer and offensive. There were also slaughterhouses and along the margins of the town were a number of stagnant ditches and catch-pits. It is not surprising that fever was prevalent at several locations throughout the town. With no main supply, water chiefly came from wells varying from 10 to 60 feet deep worked with buckets and rain water was largely collected from the roofs and stored in butts, tanks or pans.  

Yet due to its position and the great extent of meadow land abutting the Colne, Watford was in an excellent position for the distribution of its sewage as liquid manure. In the early days of the Board of Health, the Earl of Essex took all the sewage of the district, which was distributed over his land at Harwood's farm, being pumped up by steam power from the pumping station in the Colne Valley, just below the workhouse. Yet when the the Earl discontinued to use the sewage on his farm, the Board bought the site, along with the machinery, sheds etc., and the surrounding land and formed tanks for filtration and precipitation, pumping the effluent water on to the land. This continued for a time, but the town and district was growing and inevitably more land was required. This was again acquired from the Earl of Essex and the amount of sewage sent down to the outfall works increased accordingly. This state of things was to attract the attention of Mr Snewing, the owner of Holywell Farm, an estate near the outfall premises. He considered the sewage was not disposed of in a legal manner and obtained an injunction against the Board, restraining them from turning the sewage into the stream. The injunction remained in place for some time, but one assumes was eventually resolved, as more land was purchased and the whole area laid out in terraces. (This land stretched from the Colne below the Holywell farm, right across to Cassiobridge, covering the entire area where now is the residential Holywell Estate, Croxley View, the playing fields and schools).