mb 3 (10 October)
...
| Also the said Iurie present (blank) and (blank) Nurce the tenant of the bearegarden for makeinge dreyners into the sewar whereby greate abundance of noysome soile and filth issueth there into out of his garden to the poysoning of the water and annoyaunce of the Inhabitantes thereaboutes wherefore hee is fined att | v li. |
| Also it is ordered that the said Nurce shall before the last daie of December next stop and make vp the said draynes soe sufficientlie as that noe solie or filth maie thereafter issue out of the said garden into the said sewar vpon paine to forfeict | v li. °not done° |
...
Nurce
At this time John Nurse (Nurce) was operating the Bear Garden as deputy and tenant of Edward Alleyn's cousin and executor, Matthias Alleyn (Honigmann and Brock, Playhouse Wills, pp 150, 154). A further presentment of Nurse, as well as of Matthias Alleyn, Edward Alleyn's executor and cousin and his tenants, on 12 February 1626/7 could not be examined because the document, LMA: SKCS/028, is unfit for production at this time. For a modernized text see Ingram and Nelson, 'Parish of St Saviour.'
Record title: Surrey and Kent Commissioners for Sewers' Court Minutes and
Orders
Repository:
LMA
Shelfmark: SKCS/027
Repository location: London
Most of the pre-1642 records of the Surrey and Kent commissioners for sewers are now deposited at the London Metropolitan Archives. The LMA online catalogue succinctly describes the sewer records as follows: 'Early Commissioners of Sewers were solely concerned with land drainage and the prevention of flooding, not with the removal of sewage in the modern sense. In 1531 an Act of Sewers was passed which set out in great detail the duties and powers of Commissioners and governed their work until the 19th century. Gradually a permanent pattern emerged in the London area of seven commissions, five north and two south of the Thames, with, after the Great Fire, a separate commission for the City of London... Letters Patent for the Surrey and Kent Commissioners of Sewers were issued in 1554. Its minutes begin in 1570 and it was the earliest of the London Commissions to be established on an organised basis. The area of its jurisdiction ran from East Molesey in Surrey to the River Ravensbourne, and included Lambeth, Southwark, Bermondsey, Newington, Deptford, Rotherhithe, Clapham, Battersea, Camberwell, Vauxhall, Wandsworth, Putney, Barnes, Kew, Lewisham, Walworth, Kennington, Nine Elms, Peckham and New Cross. The area of jurisdiction remained the same throughout the three centuries during which it functioned.' See further Ida Darlington, 'The London Commissioners of Sewers and their Records,' in Prisca Munimenta: Studies in Archival & Administrative History presented to Dr A.E.J. Hollaender, Felicity Ranger (ed) (London, 1973), 282-98.
Two further Sewer Commission Reports for this period, 12 February 1626/7 (SKCS/028) and 30 June 1630 (SKCS/030, mb 6), could not be examined for inclusion because they are now unfit for production.
10 October 1627; English with some Latin; parchment; 7 membranes; 247mm x 745-810mm; unnumbered; written on both sides; dirty and worn at edges, mbs 3, 5, and 7 fragmentary at bottom, mb 7 fragmented along sides; attached at the top with a string and tied. Now stored in a box with other rolls, SKCS/019-029.
© London Metropolitan Archives (City of London), SKCS/027