Plaque: Hyde Park Conduit House - 2
Erection date: 1870
A supply of water by conduit from this spot was granted to the Abbey of Westminster with the Manor of Hyde by King Edward the Confessor. The manor was resumed by the crown in 1536 but the springs as a head and original fountain of water were preserved to the abbey by the charter of Queen Elizabeth in 1560.
Site: Abbey Spring monument (2 memorials)
W2, Hyde Park, to east of Serpentine Bar and Kitchen
The river Westbourne used to run though Hyde Park following the course of what is now the Long Water and the Serpentine and left the Park at what is now Albert Gate. It was culverted and rerouted through the Park sometime in the mid 1800s by which time it was more a sewer than a sparkling stream. So it ran very close to the spring from which Westminster Abbey was supplied with water. We wonder whether the phrase "the spring was cut off by drainage in 1861" indicates that the water supply had become contaminated from the river and so was discontinued.
