The Sun.
London, England, 1868-08-14 00:00:00

HOLBORN VALLEY VIADUCT.

The Holborn Valley Viaduct and improvements
form one of the three great changes of modern
London, and well deserve to rank side by side with
the other two—the Thames Embankment and the
vast Main Drainage scheme. The latter two have
been executed by the Metropolitan Board of
Works ; the credit of the former is due entirely to
the exertions of the City Improvements Committee,
who certainly have planned their work well, and,
above all, have shown most commendable alacrity
in executing it when once the plans were decided
on. In this respect their example is well worthy
imitation by those intrusted with the completion
of the Embankment. How the Holborn Valley
was ever allowed to exist so long is a sort of Cor-
poration mystery. When it is done away with,
people will wonder how it was ever endured when
its inconveniences were patent to all who saw it. In
Paris it would not have been allowed to exist a
single year after it had once become a thoroughfare.
That it has been au all-important thoroughfare from
the earliest times we know. A return of the
annual amount of traffic passing up and down the
hill just 30 years ago shows that it was used by
20,000,000 pedestrians, nearly 900,000 horsemen,
157,000 hackney coaches, 370,000 carts, 78,000
stage coaches, 82,000 carriages, 135,000 omnibuses,
460,000 chaises and taxed carts, and 354,000 cabs.
Probably within the last 30 years the traffic has
actually doubled, except in the matter of stage
coaches; and all this has been dragged up and
hustled down one of the great main avenues toile
city at an incline of one foot in 15. It really seems
incredible. That there have been almost endless
propositions to improve, or at least alleviate, this
public nuisance is, of course, well known. Long
ago Alderman Skinner, who built Skinner-street,
proposed to build a bridge from Snow-hill across
the valley to Holborn ; and one of the late
Mr. Charles Pearson's improvements was to raise
the valley 17 feet. Nothing, however, was
attempted beyond complaining, and the usual
protest that "something must be done." So
Holborn remained very much as it was w hen
the " old Bourne," or river, from which Holborn
takes its modern name, ran through its valley,
and underwent little material improvement from
the days when Henry V. paved it at his own ex-
pense, because " it was so deep and miry that many
perils and hazards were thereby occasioned as well
to the King's carriages passing that way as to his
subjects." There are, in fact, few thoroughfares
about the metropolis of greater antiquity than Hol-
born. All its associations and antiquities, how-
ever, could not save Holborn from the march of
modern improvement. The long threatening of
years came true at last. Designs were called for to
construct a viaduct and improve the whole neigh-
bourhood. Most of those sent in were very good,
but the committee decided to choose that of Mr.
William Haywood, not as the cheapest, but as in
their opinion the best and most couprehensive.
Since then Mr. Haywood has pushed on the works
with most creditable activity and success. To speak
of it, however, only as the Holborn Viaduct would
be to mislead the public. The Viaduct is an im-
portant portion, but still only a portion, of a
great work. Mr. Haywood's plans, iu fact, CJll-
template the formation of what may be called a new
district, with three new streets independent of the
Viaduct itself. When all is completed, these new
thoroughfares and their approaches will be a boon to
the metropolis second to none in the way of street
improvemen t.
The Holborn Viaduct itself will be 1,400 feet long
from end to end, and a little over 80 feet wide. Of
this space 50 feet is given to a roadway throughout,
and 15 feet on each side of the foot ways. The Via-
duct forms a gentle curve from the western end of
Newgate-street, and then is continued in a straight
line to the western aide of Farringdon-street,
oect.pying near the whole of the space which recently
formed Skinner-street and a small portion of the
churchyard of St. Sepulchre. From Farringdon-
street westward it is carried by a gentle curve to the
end of Hatton-garden, occupying the sites of the
houses which formerly stool on the south side of
Holborn-hill, the greater portion of the of l roadway,
and a large part of the churchyard of St. Andrew's,
Holborn. For all purposes of traffic the road may be
called a level, only sufficient inclination being given
to insure the surface drainage running off. The Via

duct is built on a kind of Jou])le system of arches.
Those which support the roadway are plain solid
double archways of 24 feet span, and built of the
same strength as ordinary railway arches. The foot
ways, however, are supported by a system of, so to
speak, cellular arches. These are 10 feet diameter,
and rise from one tier to three tiers. At the com-
mencement of the incline, where the dip down is
slight, there is only one tier or ground floor of these
footway arches ; but as the descent goes on increas-
ing with the slope of the hill, it bezo.nes necessary
to add another tier of arches above the first in order
to keep the surface of the Viaduct at its proper
level. Thus, at one, the deepest, part at the foot
of the hill there are three tiers of these cellular
arches, one above another. All these arches are
lofty, clean, and well ventilated, and will be used
as cellars to the warehouses, which will be built
up by the side of the Viaduct. In front of
the cilars, and between them and beneath the
main road on either side, runs a subway along
the whole length of the Viaduct. This sub-
way is 111- feet high and seven feet wide. It
has three rows of cast-iron brackets along its sides
—one for gas-pipes, one for water, and one
for telegraph wires. Thus these at any moment
can be reached and repaired without in any way in-
terfering with the footway above. The sewage is
provided for along the centre roadway in a similar
manner. All the brickwork of these portions of
the structure is most massive. In some parts the
rings of the arches are as much as eight bricks
thick, an ample guarantee of their strength when
it is remembered that the Board of Trade only
exact five rings of brickwork for a railway arch.
In every case the foundations for the masonry have
been taken down to the London clay, and bedded
in four feet of solid concrete. In some cases the
clay was easily reached; in others more than 30 ft.
had to be excavated before it was got at. This was
mostly where the bed of the Old Bourne river and
Fleet Ditch had left its deposits, and made the
whole soil soft and spongy. About 20 ft. below the
present surface of Farringdon-street the top of a
strong abutment wall was reached. This was, no
doubt, one of the abutment walls of the Old Bourne
bridge, and the supposition seems to be almost esta-

blished by the fact of a quantity of piles and old
strut timbers which had apparently once formed
part of a bridge being found close by it. These
pine logs, though they must now have lain some
centuries in the earth, were as sound and good as
on the day they were cut. Passing the corner of
St. Sepulchre's churchyard a few bones had to be
removed, but at St. Andrew's Churchyard the soil
was absolutely thick with them, so thick, indeed,
that it is estimated that the remains of ne.trly 2,000

persons were exhumed and sent away for re-inter-
ment at Ilford Cemetery. In the great mass of
cases these were mere bones, but there were fre-

quent instances where the bodies were perfect and
uudanged, though the coffins had decayed. In

one case, that of a man, the clothes were quite
perfect ; in another, that of a lady who had been
buried considerably over a century, the lace on
the grave clothes was perfect and only slightly
changed in colour. In both these, as in many
other cases, the bodies were absolutely perfect
in every feature, and were simply dry and like
tanned leather. The soil, however, as it was
di,turbed, emitted so obnoxious an effluvium
that the most powerful disinfectants had to be
used. At the corner of Ilatton-garden, and
only about five feet below the pavement, was
found the skeleton of a very tall man, who was
buried in massive link iron fetters like those
which hang over the doors of Newgate. These

were vLry rusty, but firmly riveted ou to the skele-

ton. It was most probably the skeleton of some

murderer, who, according to ancient custom, was
hanged and buried in chains on the spot where his

crime was committed. These are all the discoveries

which have been made, though it was expected that