f 161 (24 April)
...
| ffinchley Pope & Napton |
You shall levye of Phillip ffinchley Morgane Pope & Iohn Napton or one of them x l. for that they had day geven them to hav clensed and scowred the common sewer lyeng against their groundes in the parish of Sainct Saviors & to hav topped their willowes hanging over the saied sewer to hav beene done by the last day of Iuly last past to the quantytie of x pole vppon paine of xx s. every poll then vndone & hav made defaulte. | x l. |
...
f 161 (24 April)
...
| Finchley [ie Hinchley or Henslowe] Pope and Napton |
You shall levy of Philip Finchley, Morgan Pope, and John Napton, or one of them, £10 for that they had [a] day given to them to have cleansed and scoured the common sewer lying against their grounds in the parish of St Saviour and to have topped their willows hanging over the said sewer, to have been done by the last day of July last past to the quantity of ten poles, upon pain of 20s every pole then undone, and have made default. | £10 |
Pope and Napton shared responsibility for the Bear Garden side of the common sewer, while Philip 'ffinchley,' an obvious error for 'Hinchley' (or Henslowe) as he was sometimes referred to, was required to clean and clear the sewers running immediately beside his new playhouse.
Record title: Surrey and Kent Commissioners for Sewers' Court
Repository:
LMA
Shelfmark: SKCS/018
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 collections catalogue succinctly describes this source 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.
John Norden's 1593 map
shows the lines of the Bankside sewers (or drainage ditches). There were
three running along the Little Rose property: two to the south
along Maiden Lane and
one on the west side adjacent to the Bear Garden property.
3 January 1568/9–25 April 1606; English with some Latin; paper; i + 520 + i; 410mm x 280mm (text size variable); index foliated in pencil 1–24 relating to ff 1–210 of the text, ink foliation follows, 1–444, pencil foliation 445–70 (all blank), a second index numbered in pencil 1–21, 21b, 22, 22b, 23, 23b follows the text for ff 211–444; restored, conserved and rebound in beige vellum with corded bands on spine with leather ties. Now stored in a box; within the box also are the previous red leather boards and spine with 'SEWERS | SURREY & KENT | MINUTES | 1 | 1557–1606.'
© London Metropolitan Archives (City of London), SKCS/018