# Did the Romans really build (the beginnings of) the London sewer system? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 13, 2013, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-romans-really-build-the-beginnings-of-the-london-sewer-system/647051 "2013-01-13T07:50:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-romans-really-build-the-beginnings-of-the-london-sewer-system/647051/1 "2013-01-13T07:50:01Z")
In Terry Pratchett’s latest novel, [_Dodger,_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodger_(novel)) it is frequently mentioned that London’s sewers extant in the early 19th Century were dug/built originally by the Romans, an assumption which no character in the story, not even [Joseph Bazalgette,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Bazalgette) contradicts. I’m sure Roman [Londinium](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Londinium) must have **had** modern-for-their-time underground sewers, just because that was a Roman thing, but could they really have lasted that long? ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-romans-really-build-the-beginnings-of-the-london-sewer-system/647051/2 "2013-01-13T08:13:37Z")
[This seems](http://www.sewerhistory.org/grfx/wh_region/brit.htm) to indicate that whatever the Romans built in the way of infrastructure was pretty much abandoned or neglected over time and certainly would not have still been in service by the 1700’s or 1800’s. > [@](#): > > The Roman occupation of England brought Roman engineering – and baths – to England. The ruins of many Roman settlements include this quintessentially Roman invention. The Romans built an extensive complex at Aquae Sulis (Bath) around the natural spring, which they considered sacred. The magificent bath-house, still beautifully preserved, was visited by people from all over the Roman Empire. When the Romans withdrew from England, this technology was largely abandoned and English sanitation fell to the abysmal levels typical of the Middle Ages. > > London’s early sewers were basically open ditches sloped to convey the wastes to the Thames River, thence out to the sea. These ditches received everything that people could throw into them. King Henry VIII decreed in the late 1500s that homeowners were responsible for cleaning that portion of the “sewer” on which their property fronted. He also created a Commission of Sewers to enforce these rules. > > A law was passed during the reign of Henry VIII (in the mid to late1500s) that afforded the legal basis for almost all sanitary sewerage works well into the nineteenth century. For the next 300 years, the metropolitan area outgrew the city limits of London. By 1850, London contained only 5% of the metro area’s homes. Each community evolved its own drainage system – with no thought (physically or cooperatively) to interconnecting with an adjacent community’s drainage system. More here > **[Naga138 \> Tempat Bermain Game Online Terviral Terpercaya Di Indonesia](https://www.shoptempletons.com/)** > > Naga138 merupakan tempat bermain game online terviral di Indonesia dan terpercaya sejak tahun 2016.disini sudah terdaftar ribuan pemain yang telah memenangan game tersebut. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-romans-really-build-the-beginnings-of-the-london-sewer-system/647051/3 "2013-01-13T09:43:18Z")
There are a small number of drains here in York which are still in the same place as their Roman counterparts, and occasionally include Roman brickwork; you can see a section of Roman drain under the Minster, still with flowing water. I don’t suppose that London’s oldest drains are much different. If a drain is carrying water you still have to make sure it is connected to the drainage system, no matter how old it is. So I’m not surprised that some bits of the Roman drainage system are still in use. Here’s a huge drain in Bath still working; [http://jonathan.rawle.org/gallery/bath/roman-drain/](http://jonathan.rawle.org/gallery/bath/roman-drain/) ---
**Author:** ![BrokenBriton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@BrokenBriton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrokenBriton)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-romans-really-build-the-beginnings-of-the-london-sewer-system/647051/4 "2013-01-13T12:35:11Z")
The footprint of Roman London was obv. tiny - a snapshot: Ludgate to Aldergate to Bishopsgate to Aldgate. Perhaps one mile by half a mile. I guess sewers followed roads, and once roads are built property fits around - so generations of sewers would naturally follow the path of the original along roads. I’m sure it’s the same in Athens or Rome, even Paris. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-romans-really-build-the-beginnings-of-the-london-sewer-system/647051/5 "2013-01-13T18:36:47Z")
FWIW, Pratchett writes in the afterword to _Dodger:_ > [@](#): > > The Romans did build the sewers in London; they were haphazardly repaired as the generations passed. The sewers were mostly intended for rainwater, rather than human waste, cesspits and septic tanks effectively doing that job, and it was when those overflowed, simply because of too many human beings, that you were in the land of cholera and other dreadful diseases. > > \ > > I didn’t need to put a shine on Joseph Bazalgette, who appears in this book as a young but keen man. He was the leading light among the surveyors and engineers who changed the face, and most importantly the smell, of London sometime after the story of Dodger takes place. The new London sewers and sewer works were one of the technological marvels of the new Iron Age and so, with some maintenance here and there, they remain. ---
**Author:** ![VOW](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vow/32/3043_2.png) [@VOW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VOW)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-romans-really-build-the-beginnings-of-the-london-sewer-system/647051/6 "2013-01-13T18:41:37Z")
I remember (okay, I THINK I remember) reading that the Roman sewers in any Roman city were open ditches. Not exactly the cleanest environment, but it was better than the tradition of simply tossing slops out the windows of upper story rooms. Such ditches for sewer were called “cloaca.” This word has since been appropriated by biology to name the non-specific external opening of lower animals which served as the terminus for urinary and digestive tracts, and also functioned for reproductive purposes. ~VOW ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-romans-really-build-the-beginnings-of-the-london-sewer-system/647051/7 "2013-01-13T20:29:37Z")
> [@VOW](#): > > Such ditches for sewer were called “cloaca.” And the biggest one was called the [Cloaca Maxima](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaca_Maxima). Started off open then closed over. Based on the pic of the outfall, doesn’t look like it’s even used for rain runoff anymore. In any decent sized Roman city with good water service (aquaducts and such), they’d have been closed over at some point. Don’t know about Roman times but London has a bunch of former streams (which doubled as sewers) that are now lost under the streets. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-romans-really-build-the-beginnings-of-the-london-sewer-system/647051/8 "2013-01-13T21:13:02Z")
The Fleet was one of the last rivers to be enclosed, from 1730 to 1870, according to this page. > **[Going underground: Mile after mile of ornate brickwork and labyrinthine...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2038281/London-underground-photos-Miles-ornate-brickwork-tunnels-hidden-Fleet-River.html)** > > This key feature of London’s hidden past has been brought to life in a series of stunning photographs which show how the historic waters still flow through modern life. In certain London Underground stations you can see these encapsulated rivers flowing overhead in Victorian cast-iron tubes. Bazalgette would have been involved in this sort of work, I’m sure.