Unlike us, you probably don’t spend much time thinking about sewer systems, until they go wrong; but sewers have always played a critical role in civilised societies and without them life would be a lot less hygienic; in fact life would be very unpleasant and probably shorter.
Even a brief look back would show how far we’ve come in the business of managing human waste and how lucky we are today to have a functional sewage system. So here it is: “A Brief History of Sewers”.
Sewage through the ages
From time immemorial, disposing of bodily waste by settled communities would simply be a matter of digging a hole in the ground, until the Romans took managing sewage to a whole new level.
Roman engineers made use of the flow of water to take away waste, by diverting rivers and streams into specific channels. Seats were then built over these channels and the waste was flushed away into rivers.
When the Romans, unfortunately left their toilet technology went with them and populations reverted to putting waste back into holes in the ground or rivers. It wasn’t until the Normans arrived with their castles, which usually included a room known as a Garderobe, that we saw home waste removal make a reappearance. However, they relied on gravity and from these rooms waste would just drop into a ditch below, where some unfortunate peasant would then have the task of shovelling it up and carting it away.
Tudor privy-ledge
The Tudors also adopted the idea of a room in which to do “your business”; these were referred to as Privies. These would be shared between more affluent households. Among the common folk, especially those living in our expanding towns and cities, chamber pots would also be used, but all this waste was being emptied into streams and rivers and open gutters – or even onto unwary pedestrians in the street below.
However, it’s worth noting that rather than the Victorians, it was Queen Elizabeth l who had the first flushing toilet installed in England, in 1590. The toilet was designed by her godson, Sir John Harington, but didn’t catch on.
A Victorian stink
As the population grew, especially in cities, like London. the issue of pollution drove a need to manage human waste more efficiently and at scale. Outbreaks of cholera and typhoid had a great impact on the population; in the particularly hot summer of 1858 the smell of waste got so bad it was known as “The Great Stink” and attracted the attention of Parliament.
As a result, it was the Victorians who engineered a network of large underground brick tunnels under London, designed by Joseph Bazalgette, to take away human waste to treatments works where it could be cleaned before going into the river Thames. Work began in 1859 and the majority of the system was completed in under ten years.
Since the Victorian age, great steps have been taken in expanding a nationwide sewage system that can be used by all. The work needed to maintain pipes, manage and treat waste properly to protect health and the environment is continuous, especially as those original Victorian sewers most now cope with the sheer volume of waste produced by a population more than doubled in size.
Do you want to sleep easy knowing your sewers and drains are working?
At Drains and Sewer Services we like to think we are doing our part in maintaining this vital part of the national infrastructure by ensuring that our sewer services support our customers and we keep their part of the system repaired and well maintained, whatever its size.
We take the strain so they need never have to dig a hole at the end of the garden or throw out a chamber pot as our ancestors did.
If you would like to talk to Drains and Sewer Services about our range of drain and sewer maintenance, unblocking and repair services, then call us on 01252 312738 or email info@drainandsewer.co.uk to find out how we can help.
