The White Conduit - Rugby Street, London, UK
N 51° 31.316 W 000° 07.071
30U E 699942 N 5711806
This blue plaque, marking the location of The White Conduit, is attached to the front of a shop on the south east side of Rugby Street in London.
Waymark Code: WMN5HT
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 12/30/2014
Views: 1
The inscription on the plaque tells us:
In the rear is
The White Conduit
(circa 1300AD)
Originally part of the water supply
to the Greyfriars Monastery
Newgate Street
The British History website has an article about the monsatery from which the following extract is taken:
The White Conduit was found in August, 1907, underneath a workshop in the rear of No. 13 Chapel Street. It is a chamber 9' × 6', with the entrance at the south, and a tank in the south-west corner. The walls are built of stone, probably obtained from Highgate, with an arched roof constructed of chalk, to which fact may be due the later name of the White Conduit. The tank would have served the purpose of a settling-chamber, before the water was passed through the pipes. In the Register it is stated that the friars obtained their principal supply from the older water-head; and also that there was much loss through waste. Probably there was always trouble; in 1661 the Court of Christ's Hospital were informed that the pipe was so defective that the house had little or no water. The whole distance from the farther Conduit to the Greyfriars was about a mile and a quarter, and the fall in that distance seems only to have been 24 feet, so that frequent clogging of the supply is not to be wondered at. The Christ's Hospital plan shows a number of cesperils (or suspirals), vents to avoid the danger of the pipe being burst by pressure; they probably also served as settling-tanks and as inspection-chambers for examination and repair of the pipes. These seem to be the "spurgella," of which three are mentioned in the account preserved in the Register; the first at Holborn Bridge, the second at the north end of Leather Lane, and the third at Basing's mill. The Christ's Hospital plan shows cesperils at the first and third of these points; the second was then off the line of the aqueduct.
The building, 13 Rugby Street, is Grade II listed with the entry at the English Heritage website telling us:
Terraced house incorporating medieval conduit. c1721, altered. Brown brick with red brick dressings. 4 storeys and cellar. 3 windows. Mid C19 wooden shopfront with pilasters supporting a dentil entablature flanked by foliated consoles with lion masks. Dark blue tiles to shopfront; on the riser a panel of white tiles with blue lettering "Dairy". House and shop doorways with rectangular overlights and panelled doors (the shop part-glazed). Stucco strip above the shop and 1st floor sill band. Gauged red brick flat arches to recessed 2-pane sashes. Parapet (rebuilt).
INTERIOR: with panelling to some of the rooms and beneath the floor of the rear extension a rectangular conduit chamber.
HISTORICAL NOTE: plaque on front of shop inscribed "In the rear is the White Conduit (circa 1300) originally part of the water supply to the Greyfriars Monastery, Newgate Street."