Building    From 1236  To 1666

Great Conduit

Categories: Engineering, Food & Drink

In 1236/7 the City of London was granted permission to tap the Tyburn Springs, at about where Stratford Place now is. Work to build the conduit began in 1245. it went via Piccadilly, Charing Cross, the Strand, Fleet Street, Ludgate Circus, north of St Pauls, to Cheapside. At the site of the plaque there was a a deep cistern and fountain.

At Ancestreemakers we learn that the conduit was "a wood and lead water pipe with an internal diameter of 90 mm, which lay, encased in clay, at the bottom of a deep trench". Already being superseded by other sources of fresh water the conduit was damaged in the Great Fire and abandoned.

The image shows the Conduit to the right, and comes via The Guardian from Guildhall Library & Art Gallery/Heritage Images/Getty.

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Great Conduit

Commemorated ati

Great Conduit in Cheapside - blue

The Great Conduit stood in this street providing free water, 13th century to ...

Read More

Great Conduit in Cheapside - stone

{Below the City of London crest:} The Great Conduit lies beneath this spot. B...

Read More

Other Subjects

Bagley's Foundry / The Foundery

Bagley's Foundry / The Foundery

There was a gun-manufacturing foundry at Windmill Hill, now Tabernacle Street EC2, until an explosion on 10 May 1716. Captured French guns were being melted and the liquid metal was poured into mou...

Building, Engineering, Religion

2 memorials
George Fearnley Carter

George Fearnley Carter

George Fearnley Carter was the Borough Engineer for Croydon.  Grace's Guide has some information, and it looks like he came from Yorkshire and worked for Croydon Council from at least 1899 till at ...

Person, Engineering

2 memorials
George Alexander Chisnall

George Alexander Chisnall

A boilermaker on the RMS Titanic. A résumé of his life can be found on the Encyclopedia Titanica website. He is also commemorated on a memorial at Craigton Cemetery, Berryknowes Road, Glasgow, and...

Person, Engineering, Tragedy, Scotland

1 memorial
first gas-lit street in the world

first gas-lit street in the world

The first public street lighting with gas was demonstrated in Pall Mall by Frederick Winsor in 1807.  In January he lit the street and in June he put on a special gas-lit exhibition here, celebrati...

Event, Engineering, Transport

2 memorials
Lesney Products & Co. Ltd.

Lesney Products & Co. Ltd.

The company's name came from the forenames of its founders Leslie Smith (1918 - 2005) and Rodney Smith (1917 - 2013). They were not related, but had been schoolfriends and also served together in t...

Group, Engineering

2 memorials

Previously viewed

John Howard

John Howard

Prison reformer. Born Hackney. Travelled throughout the UK and then further afield investigating the state of welfare in prisons and doing what he could to improve it. Died in Kherson in the Ukrain...

Person, Social Welfare, Ukraine

2 memorials
Charles X of France

Charles X of France

Last Bourbon King of France. Born Versailles. With the support of George III, he lived in Edinburgh and London to escape the revolutionary wars in France, 1792 - 1814. The monarchy was restored ...

Person, Royalty, France, Italy, Scotland

1 memorial