Board of Health

Information relating to the Township of Altrincham surveyed for the purposes of the Local Board of Health 1852

Mr. Broadbent and Mr. Robinson surgeons gave evidence as to the sanitary state of the town. They reported that Typhus fever prevails more or less in the town every year and not infrequently with great severity, as also dysentry and other complaints of the bowels. These diseases they find, originate almost always in the low lodging houses and in the dirty, unpaved, undrained and ill-ventilated squares and alleys inhabited by the working classes, from which typhus fever often of a malignant character spreads to the better streets and affects the shopkeepers and others. The town of Altrincham situated as it is on the slope of a hill composed of red sand and gravel, of great depth and having no manufactures carried on within the town, ought to be a singularly healthful place. The plans furnished in this report will show the faulty arrangement of the cottages, yards, middens and privies. Hope-square, New-Street, is an enclosed yard, unpaved and undrained. The open middens are pits, several yards in depth, bricked round and divided into compartments. The refuse of a year or more is thrown into these places. The plan of cottages in Victoria Street shows the position of two cottages, manure heaps, pigsties, midden, privy and pump.

Related Name Code: DS/UK/471