When there was no well within reach and no “boss,” water was carried about by men. Those who lived on the banks of the river used the river water for their workshops and other purposes. Southwark was supplied partly from a great pond in St. Mary Overies open to any high tide, partly from springs, and partly from streams. In the City itself there were many springs, especially in the lanes ascending from Thames Street. But water had to be fetched. Therefore, the breweries were all placed on the river bank; and also as many of the industries requiring water as could find place there. As every gallon of water had to be paid for or carried by a servant, it is obvious that personal cleanliness could only be regarded in houses where money was plentiful or the service sufficient. We must not, however, conclude that the mediæval citizen went always unwashed; there were “stews,” or places for hot baths—which became notorious places of resort; and in great houses and castles the visitor was always conducted to the bath-room on arrival. The craftsmen, one supposes, were in the fourteenth century exactly like the craftsmen of the eighteenth century in this respect, that is to say, they did not often bathe.
The scarcity of water affected the house even more than the people in it. Where was the water for the continual scrubbing of floors and stairs on which the modern housekeeper insists? There was none. The ground floors were of hard clay: and, as we have seen, they were covered with rushes, which were not too often changed: the bedrooms were strewn with flowers in the summer, and with sweet herbs of all kinds in the winter: but all the rooms, as one would expect where there was little washing and little ventilation, were pestered with vermin.
Wilkinson (Londina Illustrata, vol. i.) gives an account of the City conduits:—
“In addition to the Great and Little Conduits in West-Cheap, the other public reservoirs of London consisted of the following. The Tun upon Cornhill, furnished with a cistern in 1401; the Standard in West-Cheap, supplied with water 1431; the Conduit in Aldermanbury, and the Standard in Fleet-Street, made and finished by the executors of Sir William Eastfield in 1471; the Cisterns erected at the Standard in Fleet-Street, Fleet-Bridge, and without Cripplegate, in 1478; the Conduit in Grass-Street, made in 1491; the Conduit at Holborn Cross, erected about 1491, and rebuilt by William Lambe, in 1577, whence it was called Lambe’s Conduit; the Little Conduit at the Stocks Market, built about 1500; the Conduit at Bishopsgate, about 1513; the Conduit at London Wall against Coleman-Street, about 1528; the Conduit without Aldgate, supplied with water from Hackney, about 1535; the Conduit in Lothbury and Coleman-Street, near the Church, about 1546; the Conduit of Thames water at Dowgate, in 1568.” “Of the fore-mentioned conduits of fresh water that serve the city,” adds Richard Blome, in reference to their state after the Great Fire, “the greater part of them do still continue where first erected; but some, by reason of the great quantity of ground they took up, standing in the midst of the City, were a great hindrance, not only to foot-passengers, but to porters, coaches, and cars; and were therefore thought fit to be taken down and to be removed to places more convenient and not of that resort of people; so that the water is still the same. The Conduits taken away and removed with their cisterns are the Great Conduit at the east end of Cheapside; the Great Conduit called the Tun in Cornhill; the Standard in Cheapside; the Little Conduit at the west end of Cheapside; the Conduit in Fleet Street; the Great Conduit in Grass-Church Street; the Conduit without Aldgate; the Conduit at Dowgate.”[5] The final disuse of these aqueducts took place about 1701. The Conduit at the Stocks Market after its re-erection appears to have been celebrated principally for the fine statue placed over it by Sir Robert Viner, the whole of which was removed for the building of the present Mansion House in 1739.
The accounts of the “Masters” of the Great Conduit in Chepe for the year 1350 (see Riley, Memorials of London, pp. 264, 265) touch on many points of interest. They show that the conduit was maintained and kept in repair by a rate levied on the houses of Chepe and the Poultry, and that this rate varied from 5s. to 6s. 8d.; that the whole line of the pipes was examined, which examination led to the repair of the fountain head at Tyburn, also to bringing a branch pipe to the King’s Mews at Charing Cross, mending the pipe between the Mews and the Windmill, Haymarket, withdrawing the fountain-head twice a quarter, and mending the pipe at Fleet Bridge, etc. The pay of the workmen was 8d. a day with a penny for drink, called none chenche, i.e. non-quencher, whence our word nuncheon or luncheon. The conduit as well as that at the other end of Chepe was provided with “tankards,” i.e. vessels shaped like a cone, narrow at the top, holding three gallons and provided with a stopper and a handle by which they could be carried. The men who took the water from the conduit to the houses were called Cobbs, or Water-leaders.
In the matter of crowding we must not exaggerate. The City was crowded even in the time of Henry V., but not nearly so crowded as it became later on. There were still fair gardens in it, extensive gardens, with fruit trees and lawns and flowers, all over the City, especially on the northern and eastern sides, where land was of less value than elsewhere. Every Monastic House had its garden, St. Paul’s Churchyard was on its south side a great garden, the Companies’ Halls had their gardens, the churchyards were spots of greenery, and there were whole streets whose houses looked out upon broad stretches of open garden ground. I have mentioned the way in which the great nobles’ and merchants’ houses stood about in the narrow streets among the tenements and workmen’s houses. These town houses were in the City until the nobles began to build palaces along the river for the sake of the open air and the pleasantness. Many of the town houses had been deserted, sold, and pulled down before the end of the sixteenth century.
In the main thoroughfares it was at some time or other found necessary to rank the houses, the stalls, and the selds, in line along both sides of the street; the earliest representation of Cheapside shows such a line. But with the bye-streets this was by no means the case. Their raison d’être was the passage from one main artery to another. How did the merchandise get itself carried out of Thames Street and from the Quays? By means of the narrow ways from Thames Street north. Observe that these were for the most part straight, because the easiest way to carry a burden up a short hill is to take it with a run; the porters ran straight up the hill to Eastcheap and walked thence to London Bridge, Cheapside, the markets of London, and the high roads, north, south, east, and west. In other parts of the City the bye-streets were not always, or even generally, straight. Was it that the lane was formed by the proverbial cows following each other? Not at all. There was no cow, in other words, the cow was not consulted in forming the lane. It was for this reason. The craftsmen gathered together, each according to his own trade and with his fellows for convenience of production, price, and common furnaces and appliances; it was necessary that there should be a lane of communication from the place of work to the place of sale; the workmen, however, set up their houses, without much regard to this lane of communication, beside each other (see also p. 251), opposite to each other, at right angles, anyhow, and the lane wound its way through and among these houses; at first there were gardens behind the houses, but, when the ground became more valuable, courts and narrow streets were thrust through these gardens—Ogilby’s map of 1677 (see London in the Time of the Stuarts) shows in parts the very process of building through the gardens. We must again remind ourselves that in the early centuries there were no attempts to make the streets straight, except for those which were wanted for the main thoroughfares, and for convenience of carriage. Even as late as the seventeenth century, and after the fire, there were streets where the houses projected right across the roadway. In Mark Lane one house projected twelve feet. I have in some places thought that indications of the former projections may still be discovered, but cannot insist upon the theory in any single instance. Most of them, certainly, were either entirely removed or greatly reduced, and the houses were set in line after the Great Fire. Illustrations of the way in which a street wound and turned among houses, built without regard to line, may be found in many old villages; especially in Bunyan’s village of Elstow, where many of the houses are quite irregular, and the road (wider than a London bye-street) follows the houses rather than the reverse. In this way, especially, the lanes or narrow streets round the old Palace of Westminster and beside the river gradually made themselves.
I have already mentioned the houses of nobles, ecclesiastics, and merchants, which stood among these narrow lanes. Many of these had to be large enough to accommodate the immense following of the noble lord to whom they belonged—perhaps five hundred men or more; yet, since the standard of accommodation was by no means so high as our own, the number of rooms wanted would not after all be so very great. If the men-at-arms lay side by side on straw or rushes, each wrapped in the coarse blanket called hop-harlot with a log for a pillow, thirty or forty could sleep in a single room of moderate size, just as in a man-o’ -war the sailors are allowed fourteen inches in width for a hammock.
Such, then, was the appearance of London in the fifteenth century; always and everywhere picturesque, whether for the courts of its stately palaces, or the topheavy gabled houses, or the carvings, paintings, and gilding of the exterior, or the tumble-down courts and lanes, or the many old churches, or the magnificence of the religious houses, or the trade and shipping on the river, or the people themselves. Of the old City houses there now remain but a portion of one, namely, Crosby Hall, and the front of another, Sir Paul Pindar’s house, which is in the South Kensington Museum.
If we consider the ancient names of streets and places in London, we find that while a great many have been lost or changed out of recognition, there still remain many which are the same to-day as they were six hundred years ago and more, I have drawn up a list of those streets which are mentioned in the books most useful for this purpose—the Memorials, the Calendar of Wills, the Liber Custumarum, and the Report of the Commission. (See Appendix IV.) The names may be divided into classes. Thus, the natural features of the City, while they were yet dimly marked and still visible, are indicated by such names as Cornhill (unless that is the name of the old family of Corenhell), Ludgate Hill, Tower Hill, Lambeth Hill, Bread Street Hill, Addle Hill. These names remind us of the time when the low cliff overhanging the river was gradually cut away till it became a short and steep hill running along the north side of Thames Street. The name River of Wells given to the Fleet commemorated the number of springs or wells which bubbled up in and round the place called Clerkenwell, so named after one of them. Walbrook is only remembered in the City by the street which covers the stream. Next, the ancient holders of City property are still remembered by many surviving names. Among the wards there is Bassieshaw, which takes its name from the family of Basing. Cornhill, as stated above, may refer to the hill or it may be the name of the family of Corenhell; Farringdon Ward retains the name of the Farringdons; Portsoken Ward marks the estate whose rents were formerly reserved for the defensive purposes of the City; Baynard’s Castle preserves the name of the first recorded owner of property in this place; Orgar (St. Martin’s Orgar), Billing, Gresham, Guthrum, i.e. Gutter Lane, Philpot, and others, preserve the names of old families.