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Summary

St Mary's conduit, by St Mary le Wigford church

Full description

70135
A conduit head constructed of reused medieval fragments in the churchyard of St Mary-le-Wigford. Repaired in 1672 but said by Leland to have been built of materials from the Carmelite Friary shortly before his visit in 1540. None of the fragments have a 14th century character. {1}{2}{3}{4}
A rectangular structure standing at the west of the church. There is a small buttress at each corner. The north and south sides are similar with reused fragments of carving in the make-up, and blind windows with tracery. The east side has a wooden door halfway up the side, and the west side has a lead pipe which presumably gave water. Below this is an iron grill in the pavement. All of the structure has reused fragments of carving within it. A plaque in the west side reads 'set up by the inhabitants of the south ward of the city and supplied with water in 1540, believed to have been built from fragments of the Whitefriars, which formerly stood on the site of St Mark's Station'. {4}
The first part of the system was built by the Greyfriars in about 1535 with an intake to the east of the Blackfriars and a conduit head perhaps at the south-west corner of the Greyfriars site, serving both the monastery and the city. The second part of the system followed the Dissolution of the Greyfriars in 1539 with the city extending their system to a faucet on High Bridge (by 1540/41) and subsequently to the conduit head at St Mary's (by 1644). The High Bridge faucet was replaced by an obelisk in 1762-63, which was itself removed in 1939. The St Mary's conduit head has had several modifications. In 1828 the faucet was moved from the west to the south side and in 1864 it was apparently dismantled and re-erected about 1m to the east (that is into the churchyard) and the faucet moved back onto the west side (it was also re-roofed in 1954 and underwent restoration in 1979). The system was also extended in 1864, with the construction of a new conduit head at St Peter at Gowts and again in 1869 with a conduit head (a low octagonal tower) at the junction of Baggeholme Road, Croft Street and Winn Street. This latter was demolished in 1958. The whole system was disused by 1914. For the full description and the legal address of this listed building please refer to the appropriate List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest.{5}{6}{7}{8}

<1> AM 7, - (Scheduling Record). SLI4066.

<2> Murray, John, 1903, Handbook for Lincolnshire - Second Edition, p.61 (Bibliographic Reference). SLI1021.

<3> VENABLES, E., WALKS THROUGH LINCOLN, - (Bibliographic Reference). SLI1136.

<4> HBMC, 1988, AM 107, SAM 22 (Scheduling Record). SLI4050.

<5> Trueman, Michael, 2000, MPP Step 3 report: Water and Sewage Industries, St Mary's conduit file (Unpublished Document). SLI6702.

<6> Department of Culture, Media and Sport, Dec 1999, Revised List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest, 1941-1/14/175; 269.287 (Index). SLI5854.

<7> Nikolaus Pevsner and John Harris, with Nicholas Antram, 1989, Buildings of England: Lincolnshire (Second Edition), page 525 (Bibliographic Reference). SLI1062.

<8> Stocker, D.A., 1990, ‘The archaeology of the Reformation in Lincoln’ in Lincolnshire History and Archaeology, Vol 25, pp.22-23 (Article in Serial). SLI6707.

Monument Types

• CONDUIT (Medieval to First World War - 1300 AD to 1914 AD)
• CONDUIT HEAD (Post Medieval to First World War - 1540 AD to 1914 AD)

Associated Events

• Site visit to St Mary's conduit
• Site visit to St Mary's conduit

Protected Status

• Scheduled Monument
• Listed Building
• Conservation Area

Sources and further reading

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