London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Surbiton 1910

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Surbiton]

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past) Tolworth Brook will terminate, in so far
as it will serve as a conduit for the sewage
effluent. We are told with reference to brooks
that
"Men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever."
and this may be so with respect to the idyllic
brook, but the Tolworth Brook threatens, when
that time arrives, to be a brook without water.
It is a natural easement, and drains the valley
from and beyond Hook, and at one time, in my
boyhood, was always full of water and had fish
in it, but now what with sewers and deep
drainage and the taking away of storm water,
&c., it may and probably will become an eyesore
and a nuisance of another sort, solely from lack
of a continuous and sufficient water supply. An
example of this is to be seen in the case of the
River Rythe, and the view of that pellucid
stream, with sometimes less than two inches of
water in it, as seen from Winter's Bridge, Long
Ditton, is not in any way suggestive of the claims
or charms of Tennyson's brook. This matter,
when the time arrives, will merit due consideration.
Swimming Baths.—In connection with
these remarks on brooks and running water I
think it opportune to refer to another matter that
is increasingly becoming a pressing one, and is
now one that serious and sustained attention
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