3. Drainage

Within the township of Much Woolton our houses were all built before the Much Woolton Local Board of Health was established in July 1866. The developers were therefore able to dispose of sewage as part of their development scheme unconcerned by Bye-laws. Old maps in the City Engineer's Office mark a "stone drain" curving down the centre of the road from about the low end of the Coach House to approx. 50 ft beyond the boundary wall between Highfield and Woolton Tower, where it made a right angle turn and ran steeply down parallel to that wall to Acrefield Road. (Where this sewer originally discharged is outside the area of our present study. May it be linked with higher fertility in the area later Williams' Nursery? - or are we being naughty?). When the map of c.1910 was drawn the "stone drain" was shown connected to Much Woolton's sewer of the 1870s running along Acrefield Road and down Gateacre Brow. For the limited quantity of sewage that would have come from 7 (or at most 9) houses before the installation of piped water the "stone drain" was a generous provision by James Gore whom we suspect of having been wise and far sighted. This drain may not have conformed to the Bye-laws by being made of salt glazed stoneware pipes (see letter in M.W.L.B. Minutes March 1868) but it gave yeoman service.

continued . . .