ON TREE-TRUNK WATER-PIPES.
73
obtained by means of pumps and shallow wells, tree-pumps may
abound, but there will be no demand for tree-pipes to bring
water from a distance.
It will be remembered that in the Sixth Report of the Rivers
Pollution Commission (1874), Harwich was mentioned as a place
where an attempt was then being made to supply the town with
water from a bore hole driven into the Chalk. Though not a
large town, Harwich is one of the most ancient of our ports. It
happens also to be one of the extremely few places in Essex of
which the nature of the water supply is noted in Morant (1768),
Vol. 1., p. 499. There we learn that the inhabitants, "besides what
they save from rain in cisterns, in a drought are forced to have
water fetched in water carts from a spring near a mile from the
town by the road to Dovercourt; or to have it brought in boats or
schools from a fine spring at Landguard fort, or from a spring
at Arwarton in Suffolk, which they had by permission from Sir
Philip Barker, Bart., lord of the soil."
Of Landguard Fort it is stated (p. 502) "It is supplied with
fresh water by pipes under ground from Walton Colnesse." The
nature of the pipes is not mentioned.
Turning to the History of Essex by Wright (1830-40), I see
but the following remark bearing upon water-supply. It refers
to Colchester (vol. i. p. 339):—"When Windmill field, adjoin-
ing to Chiswell meadow was let by the Corporation in 1620, to
Thomas Thurston, one of the aldermen, liberty was reserved to
lay pipes, or trunks, for the conveying of the water from Chiswell
meadow." Here it is evident that we get the interesting allusion
to "pipes or trunks" simply because these words occur in a legal
document defining the rights reserved to themselves or granted
to an alderman by the Corporation of Colchester, and not to
illustrate the way in which the water is to be conveyed. We
learn nothing from Wright as to the date about which pipes and
trunks began to be not necessarily identical at Colchester. Nor
is anything to be gathered on that head from the History of
Colchester by Thomas Cromwell (London and Colchester, 1825),
who states that "the present Waterworks" are a revival of the
ancient plan of conveying water from Chiswell Meadow, the
steam engine being introduced. But the nature of the pipes is
not mentioned.
Nevertheless, Colchester, from its use of tree-trunk pipes for