§ XVIII. OF CISTERNS, ETC.
The use of lead pipes for conducting water was introduced into England by the Romans, the ordinary draw-off tap is another gift of theirs. The twelfth century plan of Canterbury cathedral shows a remarkable system of water pipes for collecting the water from the roofs and distributing it to the several buildings and fountains. Mr. Micklethwaite has described in Archæologia a lead filtering cistern with draw-off tap found at Westminster Abbey; and in the British Museum (Gothic Room) there is a small circular lead cistern with delicate fifteenth century ornament.
Fig. 61.—Poundisford Park, Taunton.
Some old country houses preserve the original scheme for conducting the rain water from the roofs into a lead cistern which, adorned by devices and gilding, stood close to the front door. [Poundisford Park], near Taunton, is one of these. Lead spouting, delicately ornamented, crosses the front and brings the water to the head of the vertical pipe, which has turrets and loopholes—a toy castle. This and its pipe stand over a circular fronted cistern panelled and modelled with a crest, pots of flowers, and the date 1671. There are some of these cisterns at Exeter; one of them, [here given], is much like that at Taunton, and is dated 1696; the ribs and devices are gilt. At Bovey Tracy, in Devonshire, there is another, as also at Sackville College, East Grinstead.
Fig. 62.—Cistern, Exeter.
In the London houses of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, ornamented lead cisterns seem to have been generally placed in the courtyards and areas. The earliest known was illustrated and described in the Builder for August 23rd, 1862. The centre was a coat of arms quartering the lions of England and the lilies of France, right and left two quatrefoil panels contained the letters E.R., and below in a long panel was the date 15—. Two upright strips formed the margins, which, with the ends, were covered with Gothic diaper. It was drawn while in the possession of a dealer, who obtained it in Crutched Friars.
There was quite a crusade preached against these cisterns, as the occasion of lead poisoning, in the first half of this century, and hundreds were destroyed, but a large number still remain; about Bloomsbury quite a dozen may be seen down front areas. For the most part they were decorated with panelling of ribs formed of squares and semicircles with strips and spots of cast ornament, flowers, fruit baskets, stags, dolphins, cherubs’ heads, and even the gods Bacchus and Ceres; others have nothing but the fretted panel with initials and date like [Fig. 63].
Fig. 63.—Cistern, London.
Fig. 64.—Cistern, S. Kensington Museum.
The ribs, with the stock enrichments in new combinations, the date and initials, were attached to a wood panel the size of the cistern front; this was moulded in the sand and the casting made of good substance; stout strips were soldered across the inside as ties. One of the finest known of these is that at South Kensington Museum, of which one half of the front is here [illustrated], the other half repeats exactly, even to the initials on the shield; the date is 1732. This is in every way well designed and beautifully modelled. A part of one in the Guildhall Museum is an early example of the ordinary pattern, dated 1674.
The ribs for the pattern were formed in lead—a plumber disdaining the assistance of wood if he could avoid it—by beating strips of lead into an iron swage block, that was cut as a matrix about four inches long; these strips could be easily bent to the curved lines. Plain panelled cisterns like this were made as late as 1840.
Old lead pumps are now very seldom to be found. One remains at Wick, Christchurch, which is 6 inches in diameter, and is decorated by a crest—a boar’s head in a wreath—and the initials “G. B.” as well as the signature “J. Jenkins, Plummer, 1797.”