mb 1d (21 October)
...
| Also the said Iurie present Thomas Godfrey of the parish of St. Saviours to repaire and amend sufficientlie the Thames wharfe against his house & grounde att the Bearegarden on the banckside there being much decayed./ It is Ordered that the said Godfrey shall before the last daie of November next well and sufficientlie repaire and amend the said wharfe as aforesaid vpon paine to forfeict | xx s. °done° |
...
Godfrey
Record title: Surrey and Kent Commissioners for Sewers' Court Minutes and
Orders
Repository:
LMA
Shelfmark: SKCS/035/02
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.
21 October 1640; English; parchment; 7 membranes; approximately 250mm x 705mm; unnumbered; written on both sides; good condition; attached at head.
© London Metropolitan Archives (City of London), SKCS/035/02