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."4
The Times of August 1st, 1902, announced that the laying of
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 1st, and saw some
of the pipes mentioned in The Times. Most of the bark was gone,
but from what remained the trees were evidently 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 Water-Pipes.—Bond Street, among both its old and new
sections, is now littered with decayed and hollow tree-trunks. These have been
unearthed in the process of laying a Dew 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
10in., 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."
4 Small street reservoirs.