REPORT
OF THE
SEVERAL WORKS CONNECTED WITH THE
DRAINING, PAVING & LIGHTING
THE
PARISH OF SAINT MARY ABBOTTS, KENSINGTON,
1856.

By JAMES BROADBRIDGE,
Surveyor.

PRINTED BY THE AUTHORITY OF THE VESTRY OF KENSINGTON.

BY W. BRICKHILL, STEAM MACHINE PRINTER, KENSINGTON AND WALWORTH ROADS.

1857.

METROPOLIS LOCAL MANAGEMENT ACT,
18 & 19 Vic., Cap. 120.

Gentlemen,

In laying before you a Statement, or Annual Report, of the various matters in my department, and works executed under my supervision, I would be allowed to state, that the parish of Kensington having been regulated since 1851, by the Kensington Improvement Act, passed in that year, has not been so substantially benefitted by the present Act, as have many other of the metropolitan parishes.

During the four to five years the said Act was in operation, a vast number of improvements were effected, such as repairing footways, which were in a bad and dilapidated condition, and paving others which were not then paved.  A total sum in this item was expended to the amount of £9024 5s. 9d.

The sanitary state of the Parish was greatly improved by the properly scavengering and repairing roads, which had been neglected for many years.  A large amount of material was used, and I am happy to state, that during the term before mentioned, I was enabled to put these Roads into a good trafficable condition.

The Act consolidated the various Lighting Districts then existing under the 3rd & 4th Will. 4, Cap. 90, and enabled the Commissioners to supply between two to three hundred additional lamps, and so better regulate and diffuse the lighting over the whole parish.

Many new streets were paved and repaired by the owners, and others made up under the 27th section, all of which were taken to by the Commissioners.

Under the provisions of the present Act, the whole of the management of the sewerage and drainage of the parish (the main lines excepted), together with certain regulations as to buildings, have been imposed upon the vestry; and I now endeavour, as briefly as possible, to describe the general manner by which this parish is drained, and to give an epitome of the general works done since the passing of the said Act.

The Sewerage of this Parish is Received into Four Main Lines; viz.: the Counter Creek, the Church-street Sewer, the Queen-street Sewer, and Smith-street Sewer; of these, the Counter Creek is of the most importance, as it to a great extent serves to receive the various minor sewers.  This sewer enters two portions of the parish, one division at its northern, and the other at its eastern side.  At the extreme northern boundary, at Kensal Green, it has three distinct branches, western, central and eastern, flowing south and westerly, having two branches on the east and one on the west.

The branch on the west is an open stream, passes as a brick sewer under the Canal and the Great Western Railway, where it again appears as an open ditch, and continues along on the verge of the Parish, there it crosses into the Latimer Road out of the Parish Boundaries,—at this point it is a brick