PLANS OF SCHEMES

Original plans with books of reference (stating owners, occupiers and field names of lands affected) relating to public utilities eg., canals, turnpike roads, railways, tramways, water supply, harbours, docks, gas, electricity and light, extensions of borough boundaries etc., with amendment and deviation schemes. Sealed copies of some 500 plans (post 1839) are held

Copies of orders are often found with the later schemes. Plans of county bridges, gaols, asylum, assize court mistakenly stored at some date with this series, have now been removed and relocated

Plans of public undertakings in Somerset were deposited with the Clerk of the Peace as early as 1791, responsibility for receiving them being transferred to the Clerk of the County Council on the Council's formation in 1889. Sealed duplicates of 529 plans also exist as a separate series from 1839. Plans of canals, river navigations and highway diversions are common at the beginning of the series; by the early 19th century, harbour works and turnpike improvements are also found, and from 1829 until the late 19th century railway undertakings predominate. Tramways, and gas, electricity and water undertakings become numerous in the late 19th century, as do schemes for street lighting. Copies of orders are often found with later schemes. Plans of county bridges, gaols, the asylum, and the assize courts, mistakenly stored with this series at an unknown date, have now been removed and relocated.

The legal deposit of plans of public undertakings was first provided for in 1793 by Standing Orders of the House of Lords (S.O. 136). The need for such deposit was recognised following the 'canal mania' of the early 1790s, when it became evident that canal bills were being hurried through Parliament without proper scrutiny. Thereafter, promoters of canal or waterworks bills (and later of bills for other public undertakings) were required to submit to the Lords plans of works, books of reference, and other papers before a bill was brought up from the Commons to the Lords. In 1837 (7 Wm IV and 1 Vict, c.83) an Act compelled the local deposit of plans of public undertakings with the Clerk of the Peace, although in practice local deposit had been taking place from a much earlier date.