68 ON TREE-TRUNK WATER-PIPES. . 



and for more than ten years afterwards, all the bricklayers' 

 labourers were women ; " and that, " in 1822 a bull was baited 

 on Cullercoats sands," the only remark on water supply is 

 this : — " Until a comparatively recent period the great proportion 

 of the inhabitants of Newcastle were dependent for their daily 

 supply of water upon the public pants."^ 



The Times of August ist, 1902, announced that the laying ot 

 new gas-mains in Finsbury Pavement had been the cause of " an 

 interesting discovery in the shape of old trunks of trees which 

 were in old times laid as water conduits." They were well 

 preserved, about 4ft. beneath the surface, and some of them were 

 20ft. or more in length, having been " hollowed out to a bore of 

 6in. or 8in.," &c. As to their antiquity, we learn that "there is 

 an opinion that they must have been 150 years in the ground." 



I visited Finsbury Pavement on August ist, and saw some 

 of the pipes mentioned in The Times. Most of the bark was gone, 

 but from what remained the trees were evidentl}^ elm. Some- 

 what later in the same day I saw an excavation in Oxendon 

 Street, on the eastern side of the Comedy Theatre, between 

 Leicester Square and the Haymarket. A portion of an old tree- 

 trunk pipe had been removed, and another could be seen in place. 

 Its upper surface was not more than 18 inches below the level of 

 the street. But, as might be expected in the case of a narrow^ 

 street which had never been a main thoroughfare, the pipes had 

 a much smaller channel than those of Finsbury Pavement. And 

 on August 6th, I saw a wooden water pipe resembling those of 

 Oxendon Street, which had just been removed from an excava- 

 tion in Whitcomb Street, between Oxendon Street and Leicester 

 Square. Both these streets are shown on Rocque's Map 



(1741-5)- 



I am indebted to Mr. Cole for the following paragraph from 



the (London) Daily Chronicle, of Sept. 23, 1902 : — 



" Tree- Trunk AVater-Pipes. — Bond Street, among both its old and new 

 sections, is now littered with decaj'ed and hollow tree-trunks. These have been 

 unearthed in the process of laying a new water-main, and are said to have 

 reposed 350 years below the roadway. At one time they served to carry the 

 water supply to St. James's Palace, and as their diametrical measurement is about 

 loin., no reasonable complaint could have been sustained in the past against their 

 carrying capacity. Each length is about 6ft. to 8ft. of roughly-trimmed tree- 

 trunk, with one end tapered to insert in the butt end of another." 



4Small street reservoirs. 



