Published in Windlesora 15 (1997)
© WLHG
The Sentinel was a somewhat scurrilous magazine that claimed to speak for the rate-payers of Windsor. It was published from October 1885 to December 1886. The publisher was Thomas E. Luff of 69 Peascod Street, but the name of the editor was not revealed, though it was much discussed. Many thought that the incumbent of Holy Trinity Church was responsible, and it was also considered to have been Councillor A.T.Barber, though it may have been Luff himself. Each issue attracted a couple of pages of advertisements including “Dyson & Sons Music and Pianoforte Warehouse and William Sammes, Grocer to the Royal Family, of Castle Hill (closed every Wednesday afternoon at 5 o’clock)”. Copies soon sold out, and though the price on the cover was one penny, some people were offering sixpence for back numbers. There is a complete set of this magazine, bound into one book, in the Clewer Museum. (1)
The second edition contained an article “That Fertile Land at Dedworth’’, which brought forth much correspondence right up to the last issue. The article reported that the “Authorities of Windsor” had decided to build a Sanatorium on the disused brickfield site at Dedworth, and that the owner had been paid £1500 despite that fact that the asking price was £1000. “Most assuredly someone was in clover.”
The site was enclosed, but the “rustics” objected and burned down the cottages standing on the land. The hole that the brickmakers had produced had to be filled, and it is this that brought forth the stream of letters, as the council was using it to put the town’s rubbish in! This one sums up the complaints:
CORRESPONDENCE
The Land At Dedworth Again
To the Editor of the SentinelDear Mr. Editor.
May I have a word with you relative to the “Land at Dedworth” you enquire about. The income, according to my observation is the collective garbage of the town. The refuse from the fish and vegetable markets, the fishmongers’ shops, green grocers, &c. Contents of ashpits, where I am sorry to say many households throw their broken victuals and refuse, but which creates a festering mass under their very noses. Loads upon loads each day, have now been continually carted for nigh upon two years. And where shot? Would the public believe if told? Into swamps! I believe it has ever been the aim of the greatest sanitary engineers to drain all marshes and swamps, and maintained by the wisest physicians that it is to these places we may trace all our deadly fevers, &c. Thousands of loads have now been shot into these Pits, where the clay was dug out for bricks, and these ponds were full of water when they commenced. And of course the water is poisoned. Now the autumn rains have saturated thoroughly through this mass the stench is abominable. You can see the miasma arising about 4.30 p.m. from the road, and it is wafted on the south-west wind into the town. A little fortune was spent last year in disinfectants, but how can any chemical saturate this vast mass? According to the ideas I have gleaned from sanitary principles, the method adopted on this land is in direct contravention to all rules of health.
I beg to remain, Sir,
Your obedient servant,A SUFFERER.
The site referred to is now known as Greenacre. If you read the next article it is clear that the people of Dedworth had to suffer for at least ten more years.
Pamela Marson
Notes
- The Clewer Museum no longer exists with all materials being given to the Windsor & Royal Borough Museum. and held at their Tinkers Lane facility.
Windsor Local History Group 