Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/429

 9">s.x.Nor.29,i902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

421

LONDON. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1903.

CONTENTS. -No. 257.

NOTES: Old Conduits of London, 421 Hacket's Life of Archbishop Williams, 423 "Praia," 424 "Lead, kindly Light" English Literature in French Homes St. Mary Axe Index: How not to Make Nelson Letter, 425 H. K. Haweis July: its Pronunciation, 426.

QUERIES : -English Residents in Bengal, 42fi Fitzalan of Arundel Fenton Family Sir T. Browne King's Weigh House Pendugum : Carlyng "The Fifes of June" ' The Golden Stairs' Dive Lord Salisbury on Decaying Nations Cabinet Ministers and "University Honours A. H. Hallam, 427 Parish Registers" To eat cherries with princes" " Transcendant " St. Katherine's Hos- pital, Regent's Park" Furlong"" Typulator " " Were Nature just to Man" Poyer Family French Historical Novels Sir J. Richards's Pedigree Misquotations, 428.

REPLIES : Coleridge's ' Christabel,' 429 Introduction of the Hop, 430 "Utilitarian" Queen Anne Chinese Junk- Lesbian Rule, 431' Hymns Ancient and Modern' Clergy of the Seventeenth Century English Contingent in the Last Crusade -Phipps Family Stamp Collecting Forty Years Ago Villon, 432 Heriot Descendants of Elizabethan Worthies German Armour Napoleon's Last Years, 433 Irish Saying on Michaelmas Day Sexton's Tombstone " Licence to depart," 434 Wadham Family "Kit-Cat" Portraits Mitre Oxford Street, 435 " Beatific vision " " Quiz," Junior Home Alley, London Bishop S. Wilberforce, 436 Pulpit in Chapter-House Arms of Eton and Winchester Colleges Saints in Lind- say's ' Monarchic.' 437.

NOTES ON BOOKS : ' Cambridge Modern History : The Renaissance' Mallet's 'Mallet du Pan and the French Revolution' Gissing's ' Forster's Life of Dickens' Gordon's 'Old Bailey and Newgate.'

Notice* to Correspondents.

OLD CONDUITS OF LONDON. INTEREST in the old conduits is revived by the unearthing at 3f t. depth of old wooden water-pipes in New liond Street, where iron tubes for telephone wires are being laid. The situation of the discovery is a short distance from the junction of the street with Oxford Street, and therefore not far from the ancient cisterns which are said yet to exist in dark oblivion under or very near Stratford Place. Over the cisterns once stood the " Banqueting House " whither it was the wont of the Lord Mayor and Councillors to resort periodically, for the inspection of the City water supply, for feasting, and for the hunting of fox and hare in the vicinity. The cisterns were I read arched over and abandoned in 1737, and probably about that time was made the " Receipt Conduit," which appears on a plan of 1746 (presently to be referred to) on the south side of Oxford Street, nearly opposite the end of Marylebone Lane. The age of the branch conduit now revealed is perhaps known ; it would be interesting to have it stated, and to learn, if possible, until what date these old wooden pipes were used ; but we must think that between their day and that of the telephone the march of time has been of considerable length.

The old pipes says the Builder of 4 October

"are for the most part of oak, elm, and beech wood, and consist of trunks, a few of which retain their bark, varying up to 7 ft. in length, and bored to a diameter of from 6 in. to 8 in. The joinings are made by the simple means of inserting the tapered ends into the sockets, the latter in a few instances being strengthened with an inlaid ring of metal. These pipes, which of late years had belonged to the Grand Junction system, are relics of the old water service belonging to the City of London," &c.

This latest revelation of the old conduit system is worthy of notice in ' N. & Q.,' which has frequently been occupied by communica- tions in reference to it. Last year (9 th S. vii. 383, 489) " the watercourse from Paddington to the Cross in Cheap " was referred to But on that occasion the conduits had only relative interest as touching the difficult question of the extent of Tyburn manor, in which, according to evidence adduced, were situated the springs granted in 1236 by Gilbert de Sanford to the citizens of London. The exact position of tbese springs interested me greatly, and making use of the measurements of the watercourse given in three lengths- by Stow, I found that the total length, 3 '43 miles, measured from the Cross in Cheap, reached to the centre of Sussex Square, Paddington. And as in this longitude is found evidence of the springs in the names Spring Street, Conduit Place, Conduit Mews, and Lower Conduit Mews, I felt considerable satisfaction in this proof of the trustworthi- ness of Stow's figures.

It would, however, confirm the evidence had we living witness to the picturesque little round house of stone built to preserve the principal spring. It existed well into the nineteenth century, and is excellently repre- sented by a plate, published in 1798, in J. T. Smith's 'Antiquities of London ' (plate 70). Smith, one of London's historians, assumes that the water thus preserved was that which formed the object of Sanford's grant to the City. Mr. Walford reproduces the picture in ' Old and New London ' (v. 186), and, giving a full description of the little conduit house, says that it stood " on a slanting grassy bank about a hundred yards from the^back of the line of dwelling-houses now bearing the name of Craven Hill,'' a reference not quite definite. He says also that it was removed about 1820, yet goes on to quote the Saturday Magazine of 18 May, 1844, which mentions it as ^ still existing. To find a person who knew it in 1820 might not be possible, but if the conduit stood so late as 1844 it should be well remem- bered. The magazine accompanies its article on 'The Old Conduits of London' with a