CHAPTER XIV.
THE PONDS AND WATER-WORKS.
In the chain of ponds which make so charming a feature between Highgate and Caen Wood, or in some of them at least, we have, according to the brothers Storer,[226] all that remains visible of the river Fleet, which originally formed them. The others are as old as the time of Henry VIII., and owe their existence to the necessities of the citizens of London for a better water-supply. The ancient springs, which previous to 1544 abundantly supplied the city, had about that time ‘diminished and abated to the great discomodity of the inhabitants, and the threatened decay of the said Citie, if a speedy remedy was not provided.’ We learn that Sir William Boyer, Knight (subsequently Mayor of London), called ‘unto him dyvers grave and expert persons,’ who, by ‘diligent search and exploracion found dyvers great and plentiful springes at Hamstede Heath, and other places within five miles of London, very meet, proper, and convenient, to be brought and conveyed to the same.’ Upon which an Act was passed to empower the said Mayor and Commonalty to lay pipes, dig pits, and erect conduits in the grounds of all persons whatsoever, making satisfaction to the proprietors of the soil. Special provision being made for the protection of the springs ‘at the foot of the hyll of the sayde Heath, called Hamstede Heath, now closed in with brick for the comodity and necessary use of the inhabitants of the towne of Hamstede.’
These works were carried on in 1589-90 by Sir John Hart, and about the same time the course of the ancient river Fleet, which rose on the south slope of Hampstead Hill, and fell into the Thames at Blackfriars, being much choked and decayed, it was undertaken that by draining divers springs about Hampstead Heath into one head and course (for which £666 17s. 4d. were collected by order of the Common Council), and connecting the rivulets with Turnmill Brook, or the river of Wells[227] and the Old Bourne, which rose in a clear stream near Holborn Bar, that both the city should be served of fresh water in all places of want, and also that by such a follower (as men call it) the channel of this brook should be scoured into the river. But by continual encroachment on its banks, and casting of refuse into the stream, after much money had been spent to little purpose, the Fleet became more ‘choaken’ than before. Subsequently the springs were leased out by the City of London (1692), and the Hampstead Water Company was formed, whose office, Maitland tells us, was in his time in Denmark Street, St. Giles’s, to which belonged two main pipes of 7-inch bore, which brought water from the ponds at Highgate and Hampstead.
In a terrier of the Manor of Hampstead, taken about the end of the seventeenth century, to which Park had access, he found among the copyholds ‘the Upper Pond on the Heath, stated to contain three roods thirty perches. The Lower Pond on ditto, one acre one rood thirty-four perches.’ In Park’s time the Hampstead Water Company still supplied some parts of the neighbourhood of Tottenham Court.
As a result of this speculation, it may not be uninteresting to subjoin the following paragraph, which appeared in the Times of August 4, 1859:
‘Yesterday at the Auction Mart, Mr. Marsh offered to public sale twenty-five shares in the property of this company (the Hampstead Water-Works), which was formed in 1692, having for its object to raise a capital for the supply of water from springs within the parishes of St. Pancras, Hampstead and Hornsey, the right to which had become vested in the promoters under the lease from the City of London, the lease being renewed from time to time. By an arrangement recently effected with the New River Company, the renewed lease and the property have been transferred to the New River Company for the consideration of an annuity of £3,500, payable in perpetuity by the New River Company, being at the rate of £5 16s. 6d. per share on the 600 shares of the company.’
The shares sold at from £100 to £110 per share. In 1870, when the preservation of the Heath was almost accomplished, Mr. Le Breton stated at a vestry meeting that he had been ‘to the New River Company to make out the history of these ponds, and he had heard what we have just recited, that they had formerly belonged to the Hampstead Water-Works, whose rights were bought by the New River Company. So far as they could learn, the land was still vested in the Lord of the Manor. The company had a right to the easement of the water, but not in the land. It was said there was a lease of the ponds for 999 years; the secretary of the New River Company seemed to think they only had a right to the water, and Sir John Wilson was very anxious that the ponds should remain as ornaments to the Heath’—a desire in which every lover of the picturesque must join him.