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140
besides the charge of the inhabitants in the City of Westminster
for exceeding His Maties Charge appearing by Certificate there of
under the hands of the Commrs
By Writs—
25 July 1614 29 June 1616
Inconveniences were occasioned in 1638, not only to the
commonalty, but to the King, by the flowing of the sewage
from the higher ground of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, into
Westminster, as appears by an explanatory certificate filed
with the State Papers of the time:—
A Certificate of the Comittee touchinge
the Sower wch cometh fro St. Martin
Lane to Whitehall, and for the avoydinge
of the Nuisance. 1638.
To the Rt Honble the Lords of His Maties Most Hoble
Privie Counsell.
May it please your Lopps
There was a feild culled Swan Close lyinge on the west side of
St. Martin's Lane wch was ditched about with a very large ditch
and in one parte of it a deep ponde. The ditch on the East
side botweene the Close and the lane was 12 foot broade or
therabouts and was the recoptakle of all the water and soyle that
came from St. Giles and the places adjacent and when the said
ditch did sometymes overflow it emptied itselfe into the other
ditches or into the said ponde
The sand and soyle that came wth the water sottled in the said
ditches and ponde and the water for the most parte dryod upp
and sunck into the grounde and the soyle wan cant upp on the
banks as the ditches were clensed and wan no nuisance att all to
the King's house
All wch ditches and ponde when my Lord of Salisbury built the
west side of St. Martin's Lane wore filled upp and taken in to
enlarge the yardes and backsydes of those houses and a small
vault without any good currant in the bottome made to carry the
water of the kitchens, sellers, and backsyde of the houses wch lye
much lower than the streete into wch vault also the water and
soyle wch formerly came fro St Giles issued out above grounde
neere to the lower ende of the said buildings fro when it passed
in the channells above ground to Charing Crosse and soe to
Whitehall.
The making of wch vault prtended to bee a sufficient Sower was
the first and Principal Cause and continuance of the nuisance to
the Streete and King's house at Whitehall And this some of us
of the Comittee and divers of the antientiest of the Parish Know to
bo true of their Own Knowledge Since wch time the officers of
His Maties workes have made severall Complaintts of the nuisance