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238 HISTORY OF EAST GRINSTEAD.
used by the inhabitants until Mr. Bailye built the present premises, now occupied by Mr. Alex. Johnson, over the site, when the pump, iron railing, &c, were removed in October, 1877, by the parish authorities to the Union " for safe custody." The refusal of the Rural Sanitary Authority, which then controlled the town, to continue the watering was one of the things that helped on the agitation for the formation of a Local Board.
THE DRAINAGE SYSTEM.
The universal use of cesspools in East Grinstead was abandoned very many years ago, but the- drainage system adopted was an extremely crude and dangerous one. At the centre of the town there was a brick drain on each side of the road, receiving both surface water and sewage. These drains united in one sewer, which emptied itself into the Swan Mead, irrigating this large meadow, which was close to the town and extended from the present Police Station in West Street, across Queen's Road and Glen Vue to the Railway Hotel. It then flowed towards a pond, the outfall passed into an open ditch, which in course of time also received drainage from cottages in Glen Vue, two or three pigstyes, the occasional overflow of the Workhouse cesspools and the irrigation from a field near the present Cemetery, over which a drain taking the sewage from the houses in Chapel Lane, now West Street, emptied itself. This accumulation found its way along the stream and entered the Medway at Old Mill Bridge. Another drain commenced at the back of the Church, passed through Brewer's or Brewhouse Lane, and emptied itself on to a field near the Hermitage. A third commenced in the garden at the back of the Swan, receiving the sewage from several houses in that neighbourhood. This was carried to a cesspool built in an old stone pit at the back of Chapel Lane and the overflow passed into a cleft in the rocks and disappeared. The Rocks district at the north entrance of the town was drained by another sewer emptying into the Dean cherry garden. The |
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