Work on the city's new water supply almost certainly began in 1237, since in that year, in return for a grant of trading privileges in London, the merchants of Picardy gave the citizens £100 towards the conduit bringing water from the Tyburn spring to the city. The date at which the Great Conduit in Cheapside was constructed is uncertain. An entry in the London annals under the year 1245 states that in that year the foundation of the conduit (fundamentum conducti) was begun. (fn. 3) This is probably a reference to the Great Conduit itself, but could concern some other part of the system which brought water to Cheapside. Certainly, the Great Conduit was in existence by 1261, when a property on the S. side of the street (105/10) was said to be 'opposite the Conduit'. In an earlier, but not closely dateable, reference the same property was said to be opposite a house on the N. side of Cheapside (105/19), as if at that time the Conduit had not yet been built. The Conduit quickly became established as a major landmark. In 1268 the house of St. Thomas of Acre was said to be prope Conductum, (fn. 4) and by the early 14th century the properties in the immediate neighbourhood were frequently described in relation to the Conduit (105/2, 9, 10, 19, 25, 26; 145/39). In 1286 an upper room in a house to the E. of the Conduit was said to be encontre le frount de Condut de Lond', a statement which implies that the late 13th-century Conduit was a substantial structure, possibly rising some way above ground level. Stow notes that the Great Conduit 'was begun to be made' in about 1285, a statement presumably drived from those 15th- and early 16th-century chronicles which attribute its construction to 1283 or 1283-4. (fn. 5) The Conduit may have been rebuilt at about this date, but the similarity of phrasing between some of these references and the London annal for 1245 suggests that they may be based on a garbled and misdated version of that annal rather than on an actual event.
By about 1270 people dwelling near the Conduit had begun to take their names from it. In 1271 a vintner, Gilbert Cusin, was dwelling apud Conductum, and in 1271 another vintner was known as 'of the Conduit'. (fn. 6) Several of these late 13th-century neighbours were vintners or kept taverns. In 1279 Elias de Conductu kept a tavern at the house opposite the Conduit on the N. side (105/19) which in the early 14th century was known as the 'tavern of the Conduit'.
The Great Conduit was ruined by the Great Fire of 1666, and in 1669, as a 'hindrance to the neighbourhood' it was ordered to be removed. The materials were to be sold, apart from the cistern which was to be taken to the Guildhall. (fn. 14) By this date the Conduit was perhaps no longer greatly used, since many, if not most, of the houses in the neighbourhood enjoyed their own piped running water, supplied from the New River.
1. LBA, 14-15; LBL, 130; Cal Pat R 1441-6, p. 198; Memorials, 265; T. F. Reddaway, The Rebuilding of London after the Great Fire (1940, repr. 1951), facing p. 54; Memorials, 265; Rep 21, ff. 389v-390v; A. Morely Davies, 'London's first conduit system: a topographical study', Trans LMAS n.s. 2 (1913), 1-59; C. T. Gatty, Mary Davis and the Manor of Ebury (1921) i, plate V.
2. For the Little Conduit and the Standard, see Harben, 353, 545; see also LBH, 343, 354.
3. Liber Custumarum, ed. H. T. Riley (RS, 1860), 66; Williams (p. 85) is wrong in stating that the 50 marks to be paid annually to the city by the Picard merchants under this agreement was devoted to the Conduit. Chronicles of the reigns of Edward I and Edward II, ed. W. Stubbs i (RS, 1882), 44.
5. Stow i, 17, 264, ii, 160; The Great Chronicle of London, ed. A. H. Thomas and I. D. Thornley (1938), 19; The Historical Collections of a Citizen of London in the Fifteenth Century, ed. J. Gairdner (Camden n.s. 17, 1876), 71; A Chronicle of London from 1089 to 1483 (1827; printed from BL, MS. Harl. 565), 31; Fabian's Chronicle (4th edn. 1559) vol. 2, p. 128; Grafton's Chronicle (1809 edn.) i, 287.
6. PRO, E210/309, London Eyre 1276, no. 228.
7. Williams (pp. 84-5) invented an official whom he described as the marshal of the Conduit. Marshals (or smiths), with an interest in the iron trade, were common in this area of the city. Williams was confused by the aliases of a local property holder (105/26) and vintner known as Thomas Cary, Thomas de Conductu, Thomas dictus le Mareschal, vintner, or Thomas dictus marescallus de Conductu.
8. LBC, 9, LBE, 204, 205, 220-1; LBF, 28-9, 303-4; Memorials, 264-5; AN, no. 458; Rep 2, f. 71v.
9. LBD, 236-7, 299; LBF, 28-9, 128, 303-4; LBI, 617; Memorials, 77-8, 107, 201-2, 225, 264-5; Cal EMC, 167; Cal PMR 1323-4, pp. 143-4.
10. Stow i, 17, 110, 264, ii, 177; Chronicles of London ed. C. L. Kingsford (1905), 200; Folger Shakespeare Library, V.a. 318, FF 145.2, f. 15.
11. LBG, 223-4; LBH, 79; Chamber accounts of the sixteenth century, ed. B. R. Masters (LRS 20, 1984), nos. 24b, 35, 286c, 289c, 292c, 295e.
12. Cal PMR 1381-1412, p. 3; Cal Pat R 1381-5, p. 114; The Great Chronicle of London ed. A. H. Thomas and I. D. Thornley (1938), 164, 304; Chronicles of London, ed. C. L. Kingsford (1905), 108; The Historical Collections of a Citizen of London in the Fifteenth Century, ed. J. Gairdner (Camden n.s., 1876), 186; S. Anglo, 'The London Pageants for the Reception of Katharine of Aragon: November 1501', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 26 (1963), 53-89; S. Anglo, Spectacle, Pageantry, and Early Tudor Policy (1969), 198, 255, 284-90, 321. For the painting of the procession of 1547, see 104/0, n. 19.
13. Cal PMR 1323-64, p. 102; Cal PMR 1364-81, p. 252; Memorials, 436, 508; Rep 21, f. 543.
14. Rep 74, f. 261v.