ON TREE-TRUNK WATER-PIPES. 67 



In the same number of Notes and Queries, Mr. Edward Peacock, 



of Kirton-in-Lindsey, remarks that : — 



*' London was not the only place where water was conveyed in wooden pipes. 

 They were used in Hull, I am not sure of the exact date, but I think they were 

 taken up in that town and their place supplied by iron tubes somewhere about 

 isevenly years ago. A Mr. William Hall, who had been Alayor of Hull, procured 

 some of them for the purpose of using them as drains under the gatesteads on his 

 ])ro})erty at Bottesford and Yaddlethorpe near here. They were fashioned like 

 those of London as above described. I cannot be sure ot what kind of wood 

 they were made." 



In Notes and Queries for July ist, 1899, Mr. Richard Welford, 

 asks: — "Were not wooden pipes for the conveyance of water 

 used almost everywhere in the seventeenth century." He then 

 mentions the construction of a reservoir at Coxlodge and the 

 laying down of a four-inch wooden pipe, in 1697, fo'^ ^^^^ supply 

 of Newcastle on-Tyne. Other wooden pipes are mentioned, the 

 trees employed being elm. Mr. Welford adds that sometimes 

 the old elm woodpipes are exhumed in making excavations, one 

 having been dug up near the Tyne Theatre, Newcastle, in 

 August 1893. He thus concludes by saying : — " Much curious 

 information upon this subject is contained in a pamphlet entitled 

 History of the Water Supply of Newcastle-on-Tyne^ 1851.'' 



Mr. John Robinson (Notes and Queries, same page) says that 

 these wooden pipes are often dug up at Newcastle-on-Tyne when 

 gas pipes are laid down, and that "they are usually about 20ft. 

 long, 10 inches in diameter, and of a 3-inch bore. Many of the 

 •oak pipes are as solid as when first put down." 



I am indebted to my cousin, Miss E. Graham, for calling my 

 attention to the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle of Oct. 4, 1902, which 

 •contains a sketch of a tree-trunk water-pipe dug up in Newcastle 

 this autumn. 



The following case illustrates the difficulty of getting 

 information about tree-trunk water-pipes from local histories. In 

 the Hand-hook to Newcastle-on-Tyne by the late Dr. J. Collingwood 

 Bruce, published in 1863, we have a work second to none of its 

 -class, whether for varied learning or general attractiveness. Dr. 

 Bruce by no means confines himself to Roman or mediaeval 

 antiquities, but gives much information as to the ways and 

 customs of Newcastle people during the eighteenth and the 

 early part of the nineteenth centuries. But though, tnter alia, 

 we learn from him that "at the beginning of this (19th) century, 



