In those good old pig-sty days there were some powerful smells here, but they did not carry far, and the air was always fresh; and there were much worse smells in towns, with no fresh air to counteract them. A builder writes to my father about a house in London, 12 October 1862, “I beg to acquaint you that the works are going on, and on opening the ground I find a large cess-pool in the front area under the steps, a most improper situation for such a place.” That house was not built till 1820, and older houses usually were worse. There were no sewers here, at Wreyland or at Lustleigh, until 1892, when a joint sewer was laid down for the sewage of both places. A joint water-supply was included in the scheme; but that part of the scheme fell through, and sewer-gas was thus laid on to every house that had no water of its own. This state of things continued for ten years, although there was no practical difficulty about the joint supply. The great Torquay reservoir is less than two miles off; and the engineers were ready to lay the water on, just as they had laid it on to other places between here and Torquay. But water-supply is in the jurisdiction of the Rural District Council; and the Council appointed Parochial Committees without experience of anything much bigger than a parish pump. The joint supply was rejected, as Wreyland is not in Lustleigh parish. A separate supply was found for Lustleigh; and when that failed, a further supply was found, as far off as the Torquay reservoir. Being in Bovey parish, Wreyland was supplied from a Bovey reservoir as far off on the other side; and this reservoir was a futile thing--intended as storage to supplement a small supply in drought, needless when a big supply was brought in from another source, and ineffective now, because the mains are nearly choked with rust. With their ineffective schemes and alterations and additions, these two rural parishes incurred a debt of about £24,000 for water-supply, besides about £8000 for sewage; and there are special-expenses rates for interest and sinking-fund, and water rates as well.