Windsor Barracks and the Problems with the Drains

Published in Windlesora 21 (2005)

© WLHG

From their construction at the beginning of the nineteenth century sewage from the Cavalry Barracks in Spital flowed into the nearby Bourne ditch and then through the Great Park into the Thames below Datchet; the sewage from the Infantry Barracks in Sheet Street drained into the brook which ran along Brook Street, then across the Long Walk and into the Thames at Datchet. The sudden influx of some 1,000 to 1,500 soldiers plus their families into Windsor put a heavy strain on the open drains in the town. There were frequent complaints to the barracks about the state of the Bourne ditch to which Major Aldridge from the Board of Ordnance retorted that the ditch was not the property of the Ordnance, and they therefore had no right to clean it out.(1)

In 1850 after years of arguments in the council chamber and urgent reminders by the Board of Health, Windsor was at last measured up and fitted with its first sewerage system. Back in 1843 the Mayor had said after a visit to the Goswells: ‘it must be notoriously evident that the drainage of the town is in an imperfect state, the stench is so great that I have to take a brandy before and after entering the area’ .(2)

One of the main sewers was laid along Sheet Street, (for the whole of 1850 Sheet Street, Park Street and High Street were impassable). It was easy to connect the Infantry Barracks to this new sewer and relieve the inhabitants of Brook Street from the stench outside their doors. Another of the main drains, from the castle down Peascod Street did not continue along St Leonard’s Road towards the Cavalry Barracks, therefore the Board of Ordnance was asked to contribute £1,500 towards extending the Sheet Street sewer to the Bourne ditch in order to drain the Cavalry Barracks. The Ordnance would consent to no such arrangements. Major Aldridge’s strange reply was: ‘the Ordnance would derive no advantage from the drain, beyond the taking away of the sewage‘.(3)

In 1853, after a little girl, the daughter of a soldier in the Life Guards, had fallen ‘into the filthy black Bourne ditch but was pulled out and saved from certain death’,(4) the Royal Engineers’ office called for tenders for reforming the drainage at Windsor Cavalry Barracks. They expected to pay no more than £2,000, but the lowest proposal was £2,970.(5) Negotiations dragged on; the medical officer of the Ist Life Guards, Dr Logie, wrote: ‘I consider it absolutely necessary for the health of the regiment that some measure should be immediately taken to get rid of the nuisance there existing, more particularly as we are now threatened with cholera’.(6) However, only minor work was carried out inside the barracks, and the drain remained open.

In 1858 a soldier returning to the Windsor barracks from London fell into the unprotected drain; he was seriously injured and lost important documents. It was stressed that he was not drunk!(7) This re-opened the debate and again Dr Logie lobbied for sanitary improvements. But it was not until the 1860s that the barracks were fundamentally reshaped and improved, owing to a visit from Queen Victoria. This, however, did not solve the problems with the drains and the open Bourne ditch.

In 1872 Dr Logie (yes, he was still going strong) wrote a letter to Lord Garlies stating that owing to the drains, the Cavalry Barracks at Windsor were unfit for occupation.(8) He in turn brought the matter up in Parliament whereupon ‘cries of rubbish, poppycock and balderdash were hurled at his Lordship who was also told as an ex-officer of the Guards he should know better than to bring such petty complaints to the House of Commons’. Dr Logie received a reprimand from the Army Medical Department stating that medical officers should be more guarded and circumspect in their report.(10) Undeterred, Dr Logie then had the drinking water analysed, proving that it contained ‘an excess of chlorine, ammonia and organic albumenoid matter’.(11) This only resulted in a further reprimand from the Major General: ‘It is undesirable for officers to undertake private analysis of water supplies’.(12)

The Cavalry Barracks were finally properly drained during the 1880s.

Brigitte Mitchell

References

  1. PRO, WO 44 565, 23 Aug. 1849.
  2. Windsor and Eton Express, 4 Nov. 1843.
  3. Windsor and Eton Express, 11 Jan. 1851.
  4. Windsor and Eton Express, 21 May 1853.
  5. WO 44 133, 20 July 1853.
  6. Windsor and Eton Express, 4 Sept. 1853.
  7. M O’s Correspondence, 15 Dec. 1857.
  8. Hansard CCXI, 1872, c.833.
  9. Windsor and Eton Express, 1 June 1872.
  10. M O’s Correspondence, 27 April 1872.
  11. Ibid., 13 May 1872.
  12. Ibid., 9 June 1872.

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