Features / history
What is St John’s Conduit?
Walk up the left side of Park Street and close to Nando’s, look down by your feet to see a small paving stone no bigger than a peri-peri chicken wing.
Carved onto this paving stone are the words ‘St John’s Conduit’, marking the route of a water supply that once served the old walled city of Bristol.
St John’s Conduit begins on Brandon Hill and runs through pipes down Park Street until it emerges at St John on the Wall church on Quay Street, where during the Blitz it was used by citizens after German bombs destroyed modern water mains.
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St John’s Conduit originally stood on the inner side of the gate but was moved to its present site in 1827 when the footway on the eastern side of the gate was made – photo: Martin Booth
A plaque above the recently restored tap on one side of the church informs that the conduit was granted to the vestry of St John in the 14th century.
Water was conveyed by feather pipe from the Carmelite Priory cistern on the site of what is now Bristol Beacon, through Host Street and Christmas Street to St John’s Gate.
St John’s Conduit was just one such supply of fresh water from surrounding hills that served Bristol for centuries.
Names of streets and areas of Bristol are reminders of some of these water supplies: Boiling Wells in St Werburgh’s, Jacob’s Wells Road on the other side of Brandon Hill to Park Street, Springfield Road in Cotham and the former Richmond Springs pub in Clifton.
A former source of water on Brandon Hill – photo: Martin Booth
Main photo: Martin Booth
Read more: What did Bristol’s centre used to look like?
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