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Amongst the explosion of new modern buildings surging skywards in the City you can still find relics from the past dotted around that remind us of the city’s extraordinary and sometimes tragic history.

One example is the ‘Aldgate pump’ found on the pavement at the junction of Leadenhall and Fenchurch Street. This modest and unassuming monument to one of London’s long lost drinking fountains, hides an awful and deadly secret.

Served by one of London’s underground streams, people had been taking water from this well for hundreds of years, it even getting a mention during the reign of King John in the 12th century.

During the 1800s, people flocked to drink from the Aldgate pump as the water was said to be ‘bright, sparkling and cool’. What they didn’t realise was that the ‘agreeable taste’ was from decaying organic matter that had inadvertently seeped into the underground stream from newly formed cemeteries as it wound its way from Hampstead in North London. Not to put to fine a point on it, people were drinking calcium from the bones of dead Londoners. Needless to say, there was never going to be a good outcome and it is said that several hundred died from drinking contaminated water in what became known at the time as the Aldgate Pump Epidemic.

If you look closely at the pump, you will see the pump handle and even a button but if you’re tempted to press don’t fear, as in 1876 the pump was moved to this location from the original site (where Fenchurch Street Station now stands) and the New River Company changed the supply to mains water. Of course, nowadays, this is not a working pump, but simply a reminder of how Londoners used to draw their water.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

And if you’re wondering why there’s a sculpture of a wolf’s head on the monument, there’s an urban myth that says that the last wolf to be slain in London was killed on this spot!

INTERESTING FACTS. Aldgate gets it name from the ‘Alde Gate’, one of the original Roman Gates, that stood here until 1761 until it was demolished to make way for a  road widening scheme. It would have marked the spot where the London’s East End meets the city. The famous author Geoffrey Chaucer (Cantebury Tales) lived and worked in the gate as a customs official in the 14th century, so that’s its more than likely that he drank from the Aldgate well.

In Cockney rhyme and slang, to have the Aldgate Pump was to have the ‘hump’ ie: to be annoyed!

Image courtesy of Wikipedia