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9
SOIL OF THE PARISH.
Four-fifths of the area of the Parish of St. Pancras is situated on stiff London
clay, lying immediately beneath the made ground, which extends to the depth of
a few feet only. At Highgate a little silicious sand, of the Bagshot series, comes
to the surface; and in the country around, the clay is of a more loamy character
than in the more southerly portions of the parish. Clay is a soil which is by no
means the best fitted for human dwellings; it retains moisture for a long time,
and does not readily allow drainage to soak into it; there is almost constant
evaporation from it; and houses built on it are liable to be damp. Where houses
are placed on such a soil, it is of the utmost importance that their foundations
should be so made as to be secured from damp. This point has been very much disregarded
in the northern parts of this parish, where houses have been of late
years very rapidly springing up, and are, many of them, extremely damp.
In these parts, too, water lies stagnant in fields, which are not yet built upon,
and some of which are used for brick-fields. Several medical men, whose
practice lies in this neighbourhood, have told me that they believe these parts in
the undrained fields are very prolific sources of diseases.
In the south-west of the parish there is a stratum of gravel and sand above the
clay; it varies in depth from about 8 to 12 feet. This layer extends over that
part which is south of the New Road and west of Upper Woburn Place, corresponding
almost to the Tottenham Court Registration Sub-district. It also
extends eastwards over a triangular piece of the Grays Inn Sub-district, the apex
of the triangle is near Judd Street, and the base forms part of the southern
boundary of the parish, adjoining the Parish of St. George the Martyr, Holborn,
and reaching about half way towards the Grays Inn Road. North of the New
Road the gravel also reaches for about 400 yards up Albany Street, and from
this point the limit of it slopes down until it reaches the New Road, between
Judd Street and Upper "Woburn Place.
Depth of some of the wells in the parish of St. Pancras:—
Feet.
* Hampstead Water Works 1,300
Orphan Working School, Haverstock Hill 355 in the chalk.
North-Western Railway 400 ditto.
Pickford and Company 297 ditto.
Zoological Gardens 274 ditto.
Grimble and Company 307 ditto.
Colosseum 250 ditto.
Miller and Company 270 ditto.
New River Company, Hampstead Road 238 ditto.
Well on the Grounds of University College, ) 100
said to be in the Chalk
Workhouse Well 260 into chalk or sands just above it.
Well in Clarendon Square 138 believed to be chalk.
Well in Grafton Street shallow, in the gravel above the clay
Well in Goodge Street shallow ditto.
Well in Fitzroy market probably shallow
* For many of these I am indebted to Mr. Mylne, "sections of the Lndon strata;" for that
in Clarendon Square to the kindness of Mr. Scott, the Chief Surveyor of the parish.