Box People and Places
Latest Issue 31 Spring 2021 
  • This Issue
    • Celebrity Visits
    • Middlehill Tunnel
    • Doris Pepita Chappell
    • Local Roman Finds
    • Gingell
    • Jut the Ticket
    • Straightening & Levelling
    • Tottle Family
    • Rudloe Part 2
    • Bowdler
    • Bullocks Worldwide
    • James Shell of KIngsdown
    • Bill Peter Recalled
    • Rudloe WW2 Remnants
    • More Stink Pipes
    • Northey Tankard Found
  • Early Medieval
    • Britain in Late Antiquity
    • Box after AD 350
    • Why Speak English?
    • Art and Craft
  • Previous
    • Issue 30 - Georgian Rudloe
    • Issue 29 - Darkest Hour
    • Issue 28 - VE Day
    • Issue 27 - Northey
    • Issue 26 - Heritage Trail
    • Earlier Issues 1 - 25 >
      • Issue 25 - Slave Owners
      • Issue 24 - Highwaymen
      • Issue 23 - Georgian
      • Issue 22 - War Memorial
      • Issue 21 - Childhood 1949-59
      • Issue 20 - Box Home Guard
      • Issue 19 - Outbreak WW2
      • Issue 18 - Building Bargates
      • Issue 17 - Railway Changes
      • Issue 16 - Quarries
      • Issue 15 - Rail & Quarry
      • Issue 14 - Civil War
      • Issue 13: Box Revels
      • Issue 12 - Where You Live
      • Issue 11 - Tudor & Stuart
      • Issue 10 - End of Era 1912
      • Issue 9 - Health & Leisure
      • Issue 8 - Farming & Rural
      • Issue 7 - Manufacturing
      • Issue 6 - Celebrations
      • Issue 5 - Victorian Centre
      • Issue 4 - Slump after WW1
      • Issue 3 - Great War 1914-18
      • Issue 2 - 1950s & 1960s
      • Issue 1 - 1920s
    • Index By Author
    • Partner Sites & Book Reviews
    • Currency Converter
  • People
  • Places
  • General
  • Series
    • Northeys >
      • Early Family
      • World of the Northeys
      • Unpaid Bill: Smith & Northey
      • Family Tree
      • George Wilbraham
      • Life in Box
      • George Edward
      • Safe & Steady Son
      • Army Life
      • Theatrical Events
      • Rolls-Royce Pioneer
      • Northey Donkey Cart
      • Other Children
      • Later Family
      • Selling Up
      • Northey Legacy
    • Box School Series >
      • Box Charity School
      • Formation of Box Schools
      • Schools WW1 to WW2
      • Box Schools, 1920s
      • Boys' School, 1927
      • Evacuee Schoolboy 1941
      • Box School 1945-83
      • Class of 1954
    • Box Farms >
      • Weavern Farm and Mill
      • Old Jockey Farm
      • Hill House Farm
      • Coles Farm
    • Box Library Project
    • NATS Trails >
      • Heritage Trails 2019
      • Conservation Areas
      • Box NATS Trails 2018
      • Alcombe and Shockerwick
      • Mills on Box Brook
      • Saxon Footpaths
      • New History Trails 2017
      • Roman Road
      • Box Hill Trail
      • Georgian Middlehill
      • History Trails 2016
      • Mad House
      • Thomas Railway
      • Market Place Origins
    • Prehistory >
      • Kingsdown's Menhir Secrets
    • Roman >
      • Early History Hoard
      • Roman Road Finds
      • Ancient Discovery
      • Roman Mosaics in Box
    • Early Medieval
    • Feudal >
      • Magna Carta in Box
      • Monk's Tale
      • Norman Conquest of Box
      • Tracing Bartholomew Bigod
      • When it Rained and Rained
    • Late Medieval
    • Tudor & Stuart >
      • Box in Civil War 1642 - 51
      • Wolf Hall and Box
      • Marsh Family
      • People during Civil War
      • Original Box Revels
      • Tudor Local Government
      • Ordinary People
      • Religion in Box, 1475-1660
      • Where You Live in 1626 >
        • Ashley
        • Central Box
        • Ditteridge
        • Hatt, Old Jockey and Blue Vein
        • Hazelbury
        • Henley and Washwells
        • Kingsdown
        • Middlehill
        • Rudloe
      • Hugh Speke Shaped Box
      • Walter Bushnell
      • Reformation in Box, 1535
      • Ten Tudor & Stuart Mansions
      • Death at Thomas à Becket >
        • For Whom Box Bell Tolled
      • Tudor & Stuart Timeline
      • John Aubrey's Box
    • Georgian >
      • Napoleon versus Box
      • Revolutionary Times
      • Coaches in 1830
      • Agricultral Census 1803
      • Tithe Apportionment
      • Slavery Families
      • Mullins Family, Schoolmasters
      • Box Churchyard
      • Sheridan's Duel
      • Tree of Life at Middlehill
      • Box's Highwayman
      • 1752: Very Odd Year
      • Witches, Quakers and Chapels
      • The New Road, 1761
      • Vulgarity in Box
      • Rebuilding the Village
      • Speke Family
      • Georgian People
      • Georgian Timeline
    • Rail & Quarry >
      • Crane 57
      • Railway Men Remembered
      • Old Clay Pipe
      • Recalling Box Quarries >
        • Oily Series
      • Quarrymen and their Families
      • Built in Stoneyards
      • Quarries in 2000
      • Single Ticket
      • Trainspotting in Box
      • Light Through Box Tunnel >
        • More Light on Tunnel
        • Brunel Myth
        • Sunrise at Box Tunnel
      • Marl at Middlehill
      • James Moodey
      • Railway Staff in Box
      • Impact of Railways
      • Vivash Follow-up
      • Underground Quarries
      • Lambert's Stoneyard
      • Cranes at Work
      • Railway Policeman
      • Terror in Tunnels
      • Vivash Family
      • Railway Buildings and More
      • Why Railways Came to Box
      • Box in 1830
      • Building Box Tunnel
      • Boxing and Quarrymen >
        • More Jem Mace
      • Clift Quarry Steam Loco
      • Timeline 1830 - 1870
      • Trial Shaft
      • Underbridges
    • Late Victorian >
      • Edwardian Love Story
      • Northey Estate Sale 1912-1923
      • Box Fete & Friendly Societies
      • Methodism in Box
      • George Reeves, Quarryman Ganger
      • Dipsomania in Box
      • 1870 Start of Era
      • Victorian Farming
      • Ashley Leigh
      • Steam Mill and Cottages
      • Class Division
      • Grove Inn
      • Box House
      • Celebrations >
        • Jubilee Mug 1887
      • Parish Magazine History
      • Postcards of Box >
        • Postcard Solved
      • Skeate, Speck and Ponting
      • 1899 A Year of Festivities
      • Valens Terrace
      • Village Outings >
        • Excitement for Outings
        • Cycling Craze
      • Timeline 1840 to now
      • Local Pubs
    • Great War >
      • Photos 2014
      • Cecil Lambert's War
      • VAD Working Parties
      • After the War
      • Box School Research
      • School WW1 Projects
      • List of Servicemen
      • Embroideries
      • In Memoriam
      • Never Forgotten
      • Where They Lived
      • Christmas 1913 and 1914
      • Children in WW1
      • Neighbour Against Neighbour
      • Home & Far Away
      • Finding Private Hall
      • Box Before the War
    • Inter War Years >
      • Shops in 1920s
      • Fascism
      • Sports Day 1931
    • WW2 Index >
      • Land Girl Remembers
      • World War 2 Scrapbook
      • Box in 1943
      • Aircraft Factories
      • D Day Implications, 1944
      • Peace
      • VE Day 1945
      • After the War
      • Epitaph to WW2
      • Wartime Memories
      • Wartime People
      • Bath Blitz 1942
      • Invasion Threat 1942
      • Children in War
      • Air Raids on Box
      • Military Camps
      • Royal Visits
      • Your WW2 Tributes
      • Dunkirk Evacuation
      • Box Home Guard >
        • Home Guard Names
      • Life at Home
      • Evacuee Children
      • Village & Ammunitions Depot
      • Memories of WW2
      • In Service at Home
      • At War
      • Lead up to War
      • Servicemen & Women
      • Timeline 1939-45
      • VE Day Remembered
      • Dennis Moss >
        • Hazelbury Air Crash
        • Air Crash Wreath
        • Flight Crew Lost
        • Graham Brayshaw
      • Evacuated From Belgium
      • WW2 Resting Place
      • Sherman Tank Disaster
    • Modern >
      • Modern Art
      • Centre of Commerce
      • Shoe Sculpture >
        • Stiletto Sculpture
      • Characters in 1940s
      • Teenage Rebels, 1960s
      • Swingin Sixties or Not?
      • A Box Childhood
      • Box People from 1950s
      • Shops in 1950 Box
      • Box in 1950s
      • Village in 1950s
      • Summer of 1959
      • reCollections
      • Residents After the War
      • Coach Trips 1950s
      • Never Had It So Good !
  • Contact
    • Blog
    • Q&A
Sewage Ventilation Stack:
​Not a Gas Lamp

Text and photos Jonathan Parkhouse
December 2019
 
The intriguing and elegant iron column described as a Gas Lamp in the last issue of the website has intrigued me for a long time. It is a Grade II Listed structure. The 2001 listing description identifies it as a sewage ventilation stack, and goes on to assert that it is dated 1886, and that the [single] inscription on the base has the maker’s name and date:[1]
Sewage ventilation stack. Dated 1886; made by J. Stone and Co. Ltd. of Deptford, London. Cast-iron. Moulded fluted pedestal with inscription on base with maker's name and date, tall plain shaft and flared top with pierced cresting.
Picture
There are in fact two inscriptions on the base of the column, but neither is dated. I took a photograph of the larger inscription on the downslope side in October 2012 in fairly fortuitous lighting conditions; as you can see the inscription reads
J STONE & Co L
DEPTFORD LONDON
REGD NO 341995 [or possibly 941995 ]
Picture
The other inscription on the upslope side of the base (photographed in October 2019 in less favourable lighting) is shorter, but set within a rectangular border with scalloped corners:
J STONE & CO LTD
●DEPTFORD●
LONDON.S.E.
 
Thus, the dating of the column to 1886 is erroneous; the numerals on the base are not a four-digit date but part of a six-figure sequence. Whilst the overall decoration is not necessarily incompatible with a late nineteenth century date, the 1886 date is not supported by the inscriptions and there is no evidence for any date elsewhere on the structure. 
Perusal of the National Archives website reveals that a Registered Design number 341995, of 27th October 1879, was in respect of paper hangings, and registered to James Brown and Company of London, so it is not entirely clear what the number on the first inscription relates to, but it is clearly not a date. It is possible, although in the author’s view less likely given the generally good legibility and lack of serious corrosion, that the first digit is a 9. However I have been unable to find information on any number relating to a Registered Design higher than 408896 or later than 1884.

​The engineering company J Stone and Co was founded in 1842 and survived in various corporate guises until 1958 when it became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Platt Brothers, which was the largest textile machinery manufacturers in the world at the end of the 1800s, who were based at Oldham, Lancashire.[2] Stones manufactured a wide range of goods, specialising in railway and marine work (including some of the largest ship propellers ever made); trade brochures from 1912 and 1926 indicate that they also manufactured ironwork for sewage systems.[3]
The sewage ventilation shaft expands our understanding of the Quarry Hill area. The concept of the stack was to let air into the sewage system to aid the flow of the contents by equalising air pressure in the pipes. It also helped to provide oxygen to stop some of the bad smell from the decomposing contents. The stack dates from after the earliest domestic development of the area but the discovery that the supposed date was a product number doesn’t allow us put the development into a timeline.
 
However, the company only became incorporated as a limited company on 7 May 1904, so the stack must be later than that.
​We might venture a suggestion that the 1912 advertisement came to the notice of local builders with its claims for an entirely new design which marked a new epoch in Sewage Purification. It seems unlikely that major service structures would have been started after 1914. The residential buildings on this part of Quarry Hill were present at the time of the 1886 25” map, and indeed the 1839 Tithe Map. The stack thus represents not so much new development as the provision of services to existing properties.
Picture
The 'crown' at top of the stack
Interestingly, a search of the Historic England website suggests that this is one of a very few listed sewage ventilation stack in the country.[4] One wonders how many originally existed, and whether they were mainly installed in urban sewage systems. Some have survived in London, including a few made by Stones. The best preserved of the London examples (deserving of the protection afforded by listing in the writer’s opinion) is outside the Maudsley Hospital on Denmark Hill in Camberwell[5], but although it is apparently a Stone product the design differs from the Box example, with a shorter crown whilst the pipe is in four sections joined by decorative collars; as far as can be ascertained from Google Streetview there is no obvious inscription.

​In Beckenham, ventilation stacks were used to support street lighting, and in one instance the stack (evidently manufactured by a different firm) had been adapted to support a gas lantern and subsequently an electric light[6].  Whatever the date and circumstances of its erection, it is a highly unusual item, both in terms of its rural location and its survival in such an excellent state of preservation.
References
[1] https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1246870
[2] https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/J. Stone_and_Co
[3] https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/File:Im1912Grays-Stone.jpg and https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/images/6/64/Im1926EYB-Stone.jpg 
[4] Former resident Paul Davies has contacted us about the Stink Pole ​and recalls that another once existed at the bottom of Barn Piece. He added:
The only other pole I can remember seeing was in Bath. This was situated somewhere in Landsdown , Beacon Hill area. 
[5] Illustrated at
http://stenchpipes.blogspot.com/2005/10/jstone-co-ltd.html
[6] Illustrated at http://www.simoncornwell.com/lighting/install/beckenham1/index1.htm​
Back to Issue 27