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Sewage farms

mw0njm.

mw0njm.

A Brummie Dude
When I was at senior school and my biology class was learning about the water cycle we were taken to a sewage works to see how everything worked - I found it so fascinating!
I don't remember the route we took to get there but I think it was probably the Minworth place.
 
Not sure if they still do it, but my wife and I went on a tour of Minworth some years ago. Was indeed fascinating and educational. Well worth a visit if you can.
Just an aside for your amusement. I had some friends who lived in a little village called Ulleskelf, just outside Tadcaster. Before taking my wife there I told her to go to the toilet before she left home because their's was at the bottom of the garden next to the river, which meant no flushing facilities [ the men came once a week to dig it out]. Of course, the inevitable happened, whilst there she needed the toilet. As they say, "Once bitten, twice shy"
 
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there was a sewer farm in shardend that was decommissioned,we used to ride our scrambler bikes on the old beds, there was tomato plants growing all over the place with huge toms on but we never touched them,as we knew were the seeds come from
1bc851fb837a9caa815462a80c714a8e.png
 
The sewage farm situation in September 1899, according to the Mercury.

22 years since Birmingham Tame and Rea District Draining Board came into existence (1877). Sewage treated by precipitation of lime in tanks and irrigation of tank effluent.

In 1881 the nucleus of farm set up being 800-900 acres, extensions made from time to time up to 1240 acres. Exclusive of addition now being made the farm lies between Nechells on the west to Water Orton on the east and extends nearly 5 miles down the Tame Valley, principally on the northern side of the Midland Railway.

Precipitation tanks at Nechells, 19 in number. Sludge is run into beds to solidify and then dug in, the land not being available more than once in 3 years. The tank effluent is passed along an 8 foot culvert which extends to Tyburn a distance of 3 miles. Through valves, constructed at intervals, water is drawn for land irrigation and discharged into the River Tame.

Land purchased to practically double the farm area to 12,000 acres in parishes of Minworth, Curdworth and Sutton Coldfield, thus extended reaches for a distance between 6 and 7 miles with maximum width at Minworth of about a mile and a half.
 
There was a network of pipes used to distribute the sewage used to distribute the sewage on adjacent farmland. In Egginton & Etwall, Derbyshire, the rising mains are still in place in some fields. The bacteria in the soil would quickly break the sewage down, but the ever increasing volumes and industrial waste made this practice impractical.
 
I remember seeing the sewage train at Water Orton Lane, Minworth as late as 1964, although I have a feeling that the engine had been replaced by diesel at that time. At the very extent of my memory, when Kingsbury Road was a single carriageway, I recall that the railway line crossed the road via a gated level crossing in order to access barges on the Birmingham-Fazeley Canal. You could also stand on a large grating on the south side of Kingsbury Road watching the effluvia from Birmingham passing under your feet and down into the depths of the sewage farm.
 
I too remember the diesel engine train and the man at the level crossing in Water Orton Lane. He would stop the traffic with his red flag. I have also looked down the grating to see the incoming sewage. The guy at the works said they pull all sorts of stuff out of the grid including a bike once.
 
I called into Claymills Victorian Pumping Station, Burton today to have a chat to some of the staff and try to locate a photo I had seen a while back showing the rising mains that distributed the sewage across the farms. Here is it below.

Sewage-Farm-2.jpg

Once there was an established link between cholera and water in the mid nineteenth century, the various boards of heath began building organised clean water and sewage disposal infrastructures. These evolved over time to meet the rising demands of the growing nearby towns, but the basic principals were similar.

Sewage was collected, usually by gravity to low lying land. The sewage was them pumped via a system of distribution mains to risers in the various fields in the sewage farm. These typical farms were over 800 acers as with the Burton and Minworth farms. The untreated sewage, that had been mangled up into a slurry at the pumping station was run over a field to a depth of 5 inches or so, then left to dry in the warmer weather. The surplus water would slowly drain into the soil below, eventually finding its way into the river Trent through land drains etc. The sewage company would then plough the field and plant a crop in it. There would be a rota of fields in the various states of treatment.

You can see on the map below the various fields used for treatment.

Sewage-Farm-1.jpg

Complaints about the smells made the sewage company’s try other methods. One was the plough the sewage slurry directly into the ground with flexible pipes connected to ploughing traction engines. They also mixed lime with the sewage to abate smells.
 
Morturn said:
I called into Claymills Victorian Pumping Station, Burton today to have a chat to some of the staff and try to locate a photo I had seen a while back showing the rising mains that distributed the sewage across the farms. Here is it below.

View attachment 178236

Once there was an established link between cholera and water in the mid nineteenth century, the various boards of heath began building organised clean water and sewage disposal infrastructures. These evolved over time to meet the rising demands of the growing nearby towns, but the basic principals were similar.

Sewage was collected, usually by gravity to low lying land. The sewage was them pumped via a system of distribution mains to risers in the various fields in the sewage farm. These typical farms were over 800 acers as with the Burton and Minworth farms. The untreated sewage, that had been mangled up into a slurry at the pumping station was run over a field to a depth of 5 inches or so, then left to dry in the warmer weather. The surplus water would slowly drain into the soil below, eventually finding its way into the river Trent through land drains etc. The sewage company would then plough the field and plant a crop in it. There would be a rota of fields in the various states of treatment.

You can see on the map below the various fields used for treatment.

View attachment 178237

Complaints about the smells made the sewage company’s try other methods. One was the plough the sewage slurry directly into the ground with flexible pipes connected to ploughing traction engines. They also mixed lime with the sewage to abate smells.
Click to expand...
thanks morturn
 
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