The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1871-12-16 00:00:00

LONDESBOROUGH LODGE.

The following communication has been published, in
reply to the report in the British Medical Journal,
with respect to the drainage of Londesborough
Lodge :

" We, the undershrned, have this day instituted a careful
and searching Investigation into the drainage of Londe.
borough Lodge, and beg to say that all the drains Inside
that part of the house receiving water closet soil-pipes are
glared sanitary tubes. These tubes are from 4td 9 inches
In diameter, and have a fall of 1+ inches in 10 feet.

We fonnd no deposit or smell in the drain,; therein
no cesspool of the kind described by the BritiAlt Medical
Jemrnal commissioner inside the house or anywhere about
the premifts. In the basement under the scullery there is a
brick effluvium trap, cemented inside and in perfect order.
This trap is 18 inches wide, 36 Inches in length, and has s
depth et 11 bathes .d natet in it ; tap of trapstone into
water three inches. No deposit found. This trap was cleaned
out before the arrival of Lord Londesborough's family for the
autumn, and is capped with a flag laid with cement. The
soil-pipe from the water-closet used by the Prince opens
directly into the main drain, and as we have already stated,
there is no cesspool, as alleged. Ile tipper end of this
soil-pipe, after passing through the open cistern on the
roof, opens freely to the air, fomiing a ventilating
sludt to the drains, and to the Prince's water-closet
in particular. The I. ("Wet commissioner was misin-
formed by the plumber's %lan upon this point. A 4-inch
iron rain-water-pipe nuns into the main drain, outside the
home, near to the junction of the soil-pipe from the Prince's
closet • it runs directly upwards to the eaves if the roof,
where it ends, and serves as a second ventilating shaft to
the drainage of Londesborough Lodge. We are I,f opinion
this contrivance would allow any pent-up sewer gases in the
main drain to escape above the roof of the house, and not
press unduly upon the water-closet traps. This contrivance
was n.d pointed out to the sanitary commissioners who have
reported upon the condition of Imidesittirough-lodge, as it
undoubtedly should have been.
Signed. "Ot one P. DALE, F.R.C.S.
" JOIN WK. TAYLOR, Medical Officer to the Local
Board.
Snwawf and gray, Architects, Scarborough.
" WILLIAM P. A. Coca, tractor, Scarborough.
J. 11. CR ARoLL, Clerk o e Works,
" SEPTIMCS ISLAND, Plum .
" Scarborough, Dec. 9, P 371.

" I was present at, and took part In, the examination of
Loinieshorough Lodge, now made, and certify that the facts
above dated are correct.
"J. 11. STALLARD, M.D., one of the Sanitary
tondniasioners of the Lancet,"

The following letter has also been published in the
papers, in reply to the above :

- - - -
Exception Is taken by your correspondents of Monday, Mr.
Dale and others, to the statement in my report of Londes-
boroughlodne, that the cabinet of the Prince's bed-chamber
WBB 8 oesspoA.
- - • • •• •• • •

I have only to any that this information was supplied by
the contractor himself, who very kindly spent several hours
in pointing out to me the system of sewerage at the Lodge.
The same information appears to have been given by him to
Mr. Dale. The drain, he explicitly told me, had been
opened on either side of the cesspool, and a siphon had
just been laid on notable the house between the common
house sewer and this point. I had thus no reason to doubt
the existence of the cesspool. The architect, the clerk of
works, Grimston, and the contractor himself, who now sign
the joint report published today, had, in their previous re-
port of November 30, stated that they had carefully examined
the "cesspools."
The contractor, Mr. Peacock, describod to me one other
cesspool only, the same, I presume, as that now alluded to,
a "brick effitivinto trap." I roes eaten him, on the strength
of A letter I had received from Lord Londesborough, autho-
rising my examination of the drains at Londeshorough-
Imlge, to open in ray presen,e, the cesspool which he
described as existing beneath the Prince's bedroom, hut
this he declined to do. Supposing him to have been
wrong in his statement to me and right in his pre-
sent statement to you, the peculiar aggravation of evils
implied in such an abomination is removed, but the efficient
cause of danger, the sewage alluvium passing into the house,
as the back draught from the drain would still exist. The
siphon which has been laid on attire the Prince's visit will,
however, no cinubt now diminish this danger, nor can there
be a question but that the ventilators now described would