SWAMP BED FOUND

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 174, 20 April 1937, Page 8

SWAMP BED FOUND

Jessie Street Culvert The laying in the eastern part of Jessie Street, Wellington, of the 4ft. 6in. concrete pipes as part of the new stormwater drainage system in the Cambridge Terrace area has now been completed, and a start has been made with the placing of the 2ft. 6in. pipes for the continuation of this branch of the work. These are being laid in an open cut, eight feet deep, through to Taranaki Street. This cut traverses what was known in the old days as “Johnny Martin’s Paddock,” which was always partly swamp. The swamp bed was found by workmen on the culvert to be as near the surface as three feet, below which the formation is a peatish mud, dark brown in colour and water-logged, which makes the going for the shovel men difficult, as this sticky soil has to be lifted to the street surface by hand-throw. Apparently the old swamp has never been thoroughly drained. About a third of the way through Jessie Street, working from Tory Street toward Taranaki Street, the workmen, five feet down, came upon a spring of cold, clear water which some of the old-timers, who occasionally inspect the work, said used to bo used by the early settlers before the days of a gravity supply. At the half-way mark the old 2ft. culvert which runs north and south was picked up. This is being conducted into the new culvert. The whole of the work in connection with this rehabilitation of the stormwater drainage of this area will be complete by the middle of next month, in good time fo» the winter rains.