WOODEN WATER-PIPES AT CLERKENWELL, LONDON. 273
converted into the Parcels Post Office, but some portions of the Prison walls still
remain.
The Bagnigge Wells Road, now King's Cross Road, is seen crossing the
picture from left to right in the mid-distance, marked by the line of fence.
Directly in the foreground is the Fleet Ditch, spanned with an arch to carry the
mains formed of four lines of wooden pipes.
The second view is from nearly the same point, about the present Calthorpe
Street, not far from Rowton Mansions, the spectator looking towards King's
Cross.
Conspicuous in the distance to the right are the Tile Kilns ; these remained
until comparatively recent times. The trees adjoining are those of the gardens of
Bagnigge Wells, at this period a flourishing pleasure garden, and through which
wandered the stream of the Fleet.
Between the Tile Kilns and the gardens ran the Bagnigge Wells Road, and
immediately in front of the Tile Kilns is the Bun House. The bridge in the
foreground appears to be the same as that shown in the former view.
These drawings were made for Sir John Soane, not on
account of their topographical interest, but for the special
purpose of showing the defective system of the New River
mains by the employment of these wooden pipes, the Company
having incurred the displeasure of the eminent architect.
The question therefore arises, were these mains uncovered as
they are here represented, or are we to consider the drawings in
this respect diagrammatic ?
It appears, on the face of it, improbable that pipes of this
description would simply have lain on the surface, unprotected
from the weather and from the attentions of mischievously-
inclined people.
With all their shortcomings as regards perspective, these
drawings show, on comparison with old engravings, such
accuracy of detail that one is disinclined to suppose that they
are not wholly realistic.
Britton, describing these fields as he remembered them about
the same period, says2 :—
" Spa Fields from the south end of Rosoman Street to Pentonville, and from
St. John's Street Road to Bagnigge Wells Road, were really fields devoted to
the pasturage of cows and to a forest of elm trees, not standing and adorned
with foliage in the summer, but lying on the ground to the southward of the
New River Head, being destined to convey water in their hollow trunks to the
northern and western parts of London in combination with similar pipes laid
under the roadways of the street."
From this it would appear that the pipes were actually
exposed, though the writer may have been speaking from his
2 Bruton's Auto-Biography, 1850, p. 62.
S