Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/430

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

x. NOV. 29, im

woodcut of 'The Conduit House of water,' which is nearly identical with J. T. Smith's handsomer picture, and says that it stood "in a garden about half a mile to the west of the Edgware Road, and at the same distance from Bayswater [? meaning], within two or three hundred yards of the Grand Junction Water Company's reservoirs." This description of the site is not of much use to us now, and it is very desirable that if there be still living witness we should have it before it be too late. Incised on a stone over the little pointed door was REP. ANNO 1632, and in another place the City arms, with the date 1782. To this Mr. Walford adds the report that the water was constantly issuing from under the door through a wooden pipe, an interesting fact in view of similar pipes lately discovered.

Since former correspondence I have given attention to a plan in the Crace Collection (Portfolio 14, No. 9) entitled " A Plan of the Drains, Openings, Conduits, Pipes, &c., from the Spring-Head at Paddington to the Receipt Conduit. From a drawing made by John Rowley and George Dance the City Surveyor, December, 1746. Copied by George Gutch, lithog. 1852." It is not much more than a skeleton plan, showing the line of pipes, the bends, openings, and " tompions," i.e., stops or plugs ; there are, however, a few other indica- tions. The starting-point is the "Round Head Conduit," which is evidently the little round house at Bayswater. Into it has been conducted the water of two auxiliary springs -"First Spring," 120 yards westward, and " New Spring," which is nearer. Round Head Conduit is in the eastern corner of "Ox Close," a common field-name not now afford- ing any local identification. Hence eastward runs the water in two pipes of lead, 3 in. diameter ; the length thus traversed is 500 yards, and then the " Drain begins" ; we are not told of what it consists, but perhaps may surmise of such wooden pipes as have just been discovered. Taking the Round Head Conduit as the initial point, at 1,104 yards a branch drain runs off at right angles southward ; the point reached is where we now find Stanhope Place, Connaught Square. At the distance of 1,295 yards the drain has almost reached the western border of the Edgware Road at Tyburn. Here it forms an obtuse angle, and obliquely crossing the main road Oxford or Tyburn Road close by the gallows (in tripod form faithfully portrayed on our plan) con- tinues its course along the south side of Oxford Road. Tyburn Lane is crossed, and at 1,688 yards that is to say by Park Street we have "Oliver Cromwell's Conduit," where

was a "pump erected by the parish of St. Marylebone. " At 1,869 yards is " Ann Wood's Conduit," by the end of North Audley Street, and here also is a pump. Further 317 yards, or 2,186 yards from our starting-point the Round Head Conduit, the drain appears to join the old brook, the Aye Brook or Ty bourne, flowing south twenty yards east of South Moulton Lane ; but doubtless the watercourse we have followed was connected with the " Receipt Conduit," or reservoir opposite the end of Marylebone Lane. Eastward of this point the plan of 1746 does not inform us, and New Bono Street is unmarked.

The plan is to the large scale of about 43 in. to the mile, and therefore allows accurate measurement of distances to be obtained. Thus it has enabled me to verify the position of Gilbert de Sanford's wells as obtained previously from Stow's figures. The wells were, it cannot be doubted, represented by the Round Conduit House at Paddington, i.e. in that part of it which came to be called Bayswater; and using Stow's lengths from the Cross at Cheap, it is found that this water-source lay at the distance of Sussex Square, that is to say, in the vicinity of the square. The "Round Head Conduit" on the plan we have now considered must represent the same spot, and taking the distance from the western angle of Edgware Road at Tyburn, it is found almost to touch the parish church of St. James, Paddington. Thus the indication obtained is practically the same as that afforded by Stow's measurements, a result which must be deemed satisfactory. Conduit Mews, off Craven Road, probably marks the site of the old Round Conduit House, or is in its close vicinity.

In regard to the wooden pipes lately dis- covered, it is to be hoped that they are sufficiently represented in London museums ; for although they may have been frequently met with in the past, the time must come when no more will be found. At the Guild- hall Museum there is a good specimen, a length of 5|ft. The thick end of the tree- trunk has been hollowed out to 9 in. diameter bo receive another pipe : the thin end, with a bore of 6 in., is taperea so as to be inserted into the next length of pipe. Were the junction actually shown the example would ae more complete. Also in the collection is shown the " Front of a City Conduit from the corner of South Moulton Street, Oxford Street." The word "conduit" more literally bears the meaning of aqueduct, or pipes con- veying water, than a place in the system where the water is drawn for use. But it las the latter meaning in old books. Of