Hot lofts in Summer months........

Quite a few towns and cities watered the dust down in the Edwardian era if they had electric street tramways , streets tended to be dirtier with Horse droppings and in dry conditions the dirt and dust build up on the rails affected the traction current return via the rails which in extreme cases could make the vehicle live giving passengers boarding or alighting a shock. If a tram did get stalled that way the conductor was supposes to jump rather than step off and lower the trolley pole, then obtain a bucket of water from a nearby premises or horse trough and give the rails and wheels a soaking before putting the pole back on the wire. So the water car was sent out in the early morning Colourised Photo of a water car here

GH

I remember them doing that in Gibraltar - but from fixed hydrants rather than bowsers - and they used sea water (drinking water was too precious) which gave the place a distinctive smell.

Nice photo.

In message <koE*yB+ snipped-for-privacy@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>, at 15:08:34 on Tue,

FSVO "local". It's about three miles south of Gt St Mary's

The conduits runs all the way to kings College AFAICR

When I worked at Barts Hospital in the mid 1970's, the Corporation of London did precisely that, but only all around Smithfield meat market which is opposite the hospital.

That was to wash the blood away...

No blood from carcases, Smithfield hasn't slaughtered animals for a long time, but the fat from the carcases seemed to end up on the markets steel trolley wheels and ended up coating the pavements and concrete aprons.

The market porters used to sit on the benches around the hospitals Henry 8th gate main entrance (as was) wearing their coats covered in grease and some blood stains, which caused some concern to outpatients and visitors attending the hospital who (not surprisingly) thought that they were hospital workers.

I only got round to listening to R4 Inside Science today, on housing in heatwaves. A lot of overlap withhere and excluding esoteric reflective paint and counterproductive AC (how did we get to this situation in the first place. One extra relevance, with your night time secure (presumably anti-burglar but not explicitively stated) cool air intake, make sure there is plenty of vegetation adascent to the intake, not heated tarmac/patio etc.