Progress of the work—1883. and at the Hill Pit, rather more than a quarter of a mile of full-sized tunnel had been completed also.
The open cuttings at each end of the tunnel were making rapid progress; four locomotives and three steam navvies being employed on the Gloucestershire side, and three locomotives with one steam navvy on the Monmouthshire side, besides large gangs of navvies filling by hand.
The 5-ft. barrel-drain, to take the water from under the ‘Shoots’ to the pumping-shaft, had been completed.
In the summer of this year, there was a very serious outbreak of small-pox at Chepstow. I had already (in 1881) had to deal with an outbreak of typhoid fever on the Gloucestershire side of the river, and had succeeded in stamping it out entirely by providing a fever hospital with a skilled nurse, to which all cases were removed, and then by making provision for a better supply of drinking water.
Fearing that the small-pox epidemic might very probably be brought to our works by the men who frequented Chepstow on Saturday evenings, I determined to lose no time in building a hospital for infectious diseases as near to the houses as was consistent with safety.
After consulting Dr. Lawrence (who was in medical attendance upon the men) and Dr. Bond, of Gloucester (the health officer of the district), I built a hospital, of which a sketch is given. There were