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
seventy years ago. A Mr. William Hall, who had been Mayor of Hull, procured
some of them for the purpose of using them as drains under the gatesteads on his
property at Bottesford and Yaddlethorpe near here. They were fashioned like
those of London as above described. I cannot be sure of what kind of wood
they were made."
In Notes and Queries for July 1st, 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, for the 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-booh 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, inter alia,
we learn from him that "at the beginning of this (19th) century,