Altrincham Heritage

The Need for an Assessment

By 1851, the market town of Altrincham had seen its population double in the previous 25 years. With this came overcrowding and the increased dangers of disease, in particular typhus and dysentery. An ineffective medieval local government in the form of the Court Leet and also The Town’s Meeting, were not up to the challenge. This meant that the main causes of such diseases and their spread were not being addressed. They included the inadequate supply of water; the lack of drainage and sewerage; poor ventilation and no proper paving to lessen contamination of the water of the wells and spring supplies and to be more easily cleaned of muck. Nor was the situation being improved in any new housing schemes or roads, such as the Newtown area or New Street, as there was little building control or existing infrastructure. In response to the Public Health Act of 1848, which encouraged and imposed the setting up of Local Boards of Health, especially in towns with high death rates of over 23 per thousand per year, the influential Sanitary Engineer Sir Robert Rawlinson KCB (1810 – 1898), was called in by the leading men of Altrincham in 1850. This followed a damning survey of the condition of the town by the Town’s Meeting Sanitary Committee in 1849, which showed death rates in Altrincham as being 25 per thousand per year. After further detailed research, Rawlinson published his Report to the General Board of Health on a Preliminary Inquiry into the Sewerage, Drainage, and Supply of Water, and the Sanitary Condition of the Inhabitants, of the Town of Altrincham, in the County of Chester in 1851 (see Historic Publication and Documents) He concluded that considering the relatively safe occupations of the inhabitants and the healthy raised and dry geographical location of Altrincham, if the “exceedingly defective” sanitary condition was dealt with, the people of the town could attain “the highest degree of longevity”. This would be much better than the 29.5 deaths per thousand per year, which he had estimated currently (higher than that of the figures of the Town’s Meeting). There was also the expectation of a general increase in the value of property.

The Local Board of Health

The result of his Report was the setting up of a Local Board of Health in April 1851. It consisted of nine elected owners of property valued at over £1,000 or paying Poor Rates of over £30, and also residing in the town. Many of those who were elected by equally wealthy men, also belonged to the Court Leet. However, Rawlinson had critised the Court Leet for regularly spending the income from land belonging to the Mayor of Altrincham on two lavish banquets per year, rather than on the intended use for the general good of the people of the town. Although the mechanism of the bacterial link between insanitary conditions and disease was not fully understood, it being thought it was spread by “pestilential air” (or a “miasma”), there was still recognition that disease did spread from the poor working class to the better-off and their families who were living, working or passing through the town. Open middens, pig sties and manure heaps were all found within the dense housing areas of the town centre. Additionally, as substantial owners of old and newly-built and terraced houses (‘cottages’), some members of the Local Board of Health found them increasingly difficult to rent out, as there were no water supply nor sewers to which connections could be made. Isaac Turton, who was also the salaried Overseer of the Poor and Clerk to the Town’s Meeting, was appointed as the Surveyor of Highways, ‘Collector and Inspector of Nuisances’ and Book Keeper to the Local Board of Health. He was in charge of two newly employed men who started work to improve the surface of the roads. Along with more paving, the roads and streets were kept cleaner, with fines imposed upon offenders. The Local Board of Health ‘Minute Book’ started in August 1851, kept a record of their work and gives an insight into the state of the town and the behaviour of some of its occupants, who were brought before the Board to be fined. Over the following months, the Board of Health also set up an effective system of control of new buildings. Owners of existing buildings with the worst cases of poor sanitation, were taken to task. There was also the registration and regulation of the 26 overcrowded common lodging houses, to improve their “dirty and unhealthy state”, which Rawlinson had highlighted. Later, in 1853, the Board undertook the building of the voluntary Lloyd’s Fever Hospital, in part funded by Elizabeth Lloyd of Oldfield Hall in memory of her husband, Jeremiah.

Commissioning the Survey

In the June 1851, with a clear and detailed example of a town plan and its services supplied by Rawlinson, the Board commissioned the Civil Engineer, Charles Edward Cawley of Manchester, to undertake a detailed survey. Sections and levels were also commissioned, but these have not survived. In November 1851, each building and plot of land was recorded in a notebook, along with the name of the owner, the occupier and a brief description, including details such as the rare pump or cistern. Cawley’s young assistant, John Newton (1829 – 1896), father of Charles E. Newton (1859 – 1937) who built Watling Gate, Timperley, seems to have been mainly responsible for the work. This resulted in the initial ‘Altrincham Survey. Book of Reference. 1852’, now held at Trafford Local Studies Centre. The information aided the drawing up of the ‘Detail Plans’, but it was also compiled to establish a General District Rate, later set at six pence in the pound. A second, more formal ‘Altrincham Survey. Book of Reference. 1852.’ was subsequently handwritten into table format and bound, additionally giving the sizes of the plots. A transcription of it can be found on the Historic Publications and Documents page. Along with the associated set of fifteen ‘Detail Plans of the Township of Altrincham’ (described below), the work was completed by March 1852 at a cost £115.

Transcriptions have been made by a team of 14 volunteers of the second ‘Altrincham Survey. Book of Reference.’, as part of the Altrincham Heritage website project, under our Heritage Lottery Fund grant. Once the individual numbered plots of the ‘Detail Plans’ were marked or outlined in a newly created software program, the details were linked to them on the page where you can Compare 1852 and 1876 Plans. The plot numbers and names of owners or occupiers can also be searched on the Related 1852 Plans Data web page. A PDF of the ‘Altrincham Survey. Book of Reference. 1852’ can be downloaded for a fuller search.

The Detail Plans

The original set of watercolour Plans are on sheets numbered 1 to 15 and along with the and an overall Index Sheet, are each double elephant size (c. 40” X 26 ¾” or c. 1.02m X 0.68m). They are delicately painted on heavy paper and have been mounted on linen. The scale of the fifteen Plans is 10 feet to the mile (1:528) and the Index Sheet is 2 feet to the mile (1:2,640). The Plans were made using triangulation, with the station marks fixed on substantial oak posts, no longer extant. A ‘Reference’ key to the type of materials of the buildings and the ground surfaces appears on the Title Sheet. Being stored on the top of the Plans over many decades, the sheet became dirty and discoloured, but at least saved the rest pf the sheets from damage.