Drainage (continued):

Within the township of Little Woolton, Baycliff and Holme Leigh were built after the adoption of Bye-laws by the Little Woolton Local Board of Health formed in January 1867. In this township of scattered houses sewerage problems were different. As late as 1895 large houses in their own grounds were required to have their own cesspools *, and in September 1894 there was a classic example of the nuisance caused by emptying the cesspool of Holme Leigh 3 times a week. The branch sewer from the corner of this property connecting to that in Woolton Hill Road must date from after this incident. But since the formation of the L.W.L.B. there had been recurring problems with the drainage of Red Brow (Woolton Hill Road) escalating from "water courses" to be "put in order" - a phrase frequently used in the Little Woolton Manor Court papers in the reign of Edward VI, first in Latin but later in English for the better understanding of the people - with in 1867 a cast iron pipe ordered under the crossing to Reynolds Park Loge; offensive sewage in the quarry (which quarry?) - with Knolle Park, Woolton Hill House and Dennison's House the culprits in 1871; only one public sewer (at the lower end of Grange Lane) in all Little Woolton in 1878; bad smells in Red Brow from "the drain under the footpath in the road" in 1893, to May 1894 when the Clerk was instructed to give notice to all persons concerned that the overflows from cesspools which communicated with the old drain ... under the footpath, be cut off. Not surprisingly this was followed in July by complaints from householders and their solicitors.

* When we come to tell the full story of the sewers of Much and Little Woolton we will have a fascinating tale of contrasts.

continued . . .