The Story of Southampton's Medieval Water

Southampton had one of England’s first medieval urban water systems and it lasted for over 500 years.
The story begins in 1233 when a man called Walter le Fleming gifted the area north of where God’s House Tower is to a religious order called the Franciscans, who followed the teachings of St Francis of Assisi. These Franciscans built a friary here; by rights their accommodation should have been no more than wattle and daub, in line with the vows they had made, but by 1276 their friends in the town had constructed stone cloisters for them, and in 1280 a stone chapel followed.
In 1290 the Franciscans gained permission to pipe water from a spring close to the Common all the way to their friary, over two kilometres away. Over the following decades this task was accomplished and it must have been a huge undertaking, both financially and logistically. The pipes were usually made of lead and were placed underground and led to a number of watering points called ‘conduits’. They allowed the important town officials to have access to the water supply through the a tap in the friary. Excess water was then fed back into the cloisters of the friary.
The upkeep of the pipes was particularly expensive for the Franciscans and in 1420 they handed their precious water to the town. After this time considerable improvements were made to the system, including new conduits outside of Holy Rood Church and later by All Saints Church.
One document from 1665 records an incident of people ‘of the meaner sort’ washing, rinsing and hanging out their clothes at the town conduits.
Perhaps the most intriguing story is from the coronation of King Charles II in 1661. Apparently the four water conduits in the town ran with claret wine.
Two 15th century buildings survive from the water system: Conduit House and Conduit Head. Conduit House is located opposite the Mayflower Theatre on Commercial Road and served as a meeting point between two water sources.
The second building, Conduit Head, is hidden away in Rollesbrook Greenway, an ancient area of woodland and water tucked behind the bottom of Hill Lane. An incredible stone honeycomb structure houses Colwell Spring, which supplied the town with its precious water. There are three chambers within. The water then fed down to Conduit Head.