Aldgate Pump is a historic

water pump A pump is a device that moves fluids (liquids or gases), or sometimes slurries, by mechanical action, typically converted from electrical energy into hydraulic energy. Pumps can be classified into three major groups according to the method they u ...

in London, located at the junction where

Aldgate Aldgate () was a gate in the former defensive wall around the City of London. It gives its name to Aldgate High Street, the first stretch of the A11 road, which included the site of the former gate. The area of Aldgate, the most common use of ...

meets

Fenchurch Street Fenchurch Street is a street in London linking Aldgate at its eastern end with Lombard Street and Gracechurch Street in the west. It is a well-known thoroughfare in the City of London financial district and is the site of many corporate office ...

and

Leadenhall Street __NOTOC__ Leadenhall Street () is a street in the City of London. It is about and links Cornhill, London, Cornhill in the west to Aldgate in the east. It was formerly the start of the A11 road (England), A11 road from London to Norwich, but th ...

. The pump is notable for its long, and sometimes dark history, as well as its cultural significance as a symbolic start point of the

East End of London The East End of London, often referred to within the London area simply as the East End, is the historic core of wider East London, east of the Roman and medieval walls of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It does not have uni ...

. "East of Aldgate Pump" refers to the East End or to

East London East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the f ...

as a whole.

Design

Aldgate Pump is a Grade II

listed structure In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. The metal wolf head on the pump's spout is supposed to signify the last wolf shot in the City of London. Historic photographs show that the pump was formerly surmounted by an ornate lantern. The pump can no longer be used to draw water, but a drainage grating is still in place.

History

As a well, it was mentioned during the reign of King John in the early 1200s.''Aldermary Churchyard – Aldgate Ward''
, A Dictionary of London (1918). accessed 14 September 2009 A structure is shown on Braun and Hogenburg's map of 1574, and shown as ''St Michael’s Well'' on the Agas map of 1633.

John Stow John Stow (''also'' Stowe; 1524/25 – 5 April 1605) was an English historian and antiquarian. He wrote a series of chronicles of English history, published from 1565 onwards under such titles as ''The Summarie of Englyshe Chronicles'', ''The C ...

recalled the execution of the Bailiff of

Romford Romford is a large town in east London and the administrative centre of the London Borough of Havering. It is located northeast of Charing Cross and is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. Historically, Romford ...

on a gibbet 'near the well within Aldgate'.The London Encyclopaedia, Weinreb and Hibbert This execution seems to have been carried out on the dubious basis that he was involved in

Kett's Rebellion Kett's Rebellion was a revolt in Norfolk, England during the reign of Edward VI, largely in response to the enclosure of land. It began at Wymondham on 8 July 1549 with a group of rebels destroying fences that had been put up by wealthy landowners ...

of 1549.

Served by one of London's many underground streams, the water was praised for being "bright, sparkling, and cool, and of an agreeable taste". These qualities were later found to be derived from decaying organic matter from adjoining graveyards, and the leaching of

calcium Calcium is a chemical element with the symbol Ca and atomic number 20. As an alkaline earth metal, calcium is a reactive metal that forms a dark oxide-nitride layer when exposed to air. Its physical and chemical properties are most similar to ...

from the bones of the dead in many new cemeteries in north London through which the stream ran from Hampstead. Several hundred people died during what became known as the

Aldgate Pump Epidemic Aldgate () was a gate in the former defensive wall around the City of London. It gives its name to Aldgate High Street, the first stretch of the A11 road, which included the site of the former gate. The area of Aldgate, the most common use of ...

, and on its relocation in 1876, the

New River Company The New River Company, formally The Governor and Company of the New River brought from Chadwell and Amwell to London, was a privately-owned water supply company in London, England, originally formed around 1609 and incorporated in 1619 by roy ...

changed the supplies to mains water.

Fenchurch Street railway station Fenchurch Street railway station, also known as London Fenchurch Street, is a central London railway terminus in the southeastern corner of the City of London. It takes its name from its proximity to Fenchurch Street, a key thoroughfare in the ...

was built in 1841 upon the site of Aldgate Pump Court. As the

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London fr ...

developed, it is thought to have been taken down and moved a short distance to the west, to its current location in 1876, as a result of road widening.

East End

The line of the former eastern walls and gates of the

City A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

are taken as the usual start point of the East End, but the pump lies just ''inside'' the site of the former

. The pump is a suitable symbolic start point for several reasons: *The removal of the gate and associated walls in the late 18th century gave the pump added significance. *The social importance of pumps as meeting places *The pump marks the start of the originally Roman

A11 road This is a list of roads designated A11. Roads entries are sorted in the countries alphabetical order. * A011 road (Argentina), a road connecting the junction of National Route 11 in Clorinda with Puerto Pilcomayo * ''A11 road (Australia)'' may r ...

, later known as the ''Great Essex Road''. Distances to locations in the

Tower division The Tower Division was a liberty in the ancient county of Middlesex, England. It was also known as the Tower Hamlets, and took its name from the military obligations owed to the Constable of the Tower of London. The term ‘Hamlets’ probably ...

of Middlesex,

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

and

East Anglia East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...

were measured from here.

Cultural references

Phrases

''East of Aldgate Pump'' is a term used to apply to the East End or East London as a whole. It is also used in two phrases which seem to hark back to the epidemic: *As

Cockney Cockney is an accent and dialect of English, mainly spoken in London and its environs, particularly by working-class and lower middle-class Londoners. The term "Cockney" has traditionally been used to describe a person from the East End, or b ...

Rhyming Slang Rhyming slang is a form of slang word construction in the English language. It is especially prevalent among Cockneys in England, and was first used in the early 19th century in the East End of London; hence its alternative name, Cockney rhymin ...

; Aldgate Pump, or just Aldgate for short, rhymes with “get (or take) the hump”, i.e. to be annoyed. *''A draft on Aldgate Pump'' refers to a harmful, worthless or fraudulent financial transaction, such as a bouncing

cheque A cheque, or check (American English; see spelling differences) is a document that orders a bank (or credit union) to pay a specific amount of money from a person's account to the person in whose name the cheque has been issued. The pers ...

. The pun is on a draught (or draft) of water and a draft of money. *''There's a pump up Aldgate, mate. Pump that!'' was an East End phrase directed at rent collectors believed to be pressing tenants unreasonably hard.

Music, TV and literature

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...

refers to the pump in ''

The Uncommercial Traveller ''The Uncommercial Traveller'' is a collection of literary sketches and reminiscences written by Charles Dickens, published in 1860–1861. In 1859 Dickens founded a new journal called '' All the Year Round'', and the "Uncommercial Traveller" ar ...

'', published in 1860: "My day's no-business beckoning me to the East End of London. I had turned my face to that point of the metropolitan compass…and had got past Aldgate Pump." ''Aldgate Pump'' was also the name of a song, written by G. W. Hunt for the ''

lion comique The ''lion comique'' was a type of popular entertainer in the Victorian music halls, a parody of upper-class toffs or "swells" made popular by Alfred Vance and G. H. MacDermott, among others. They were artistes whose stage appearance, resplenden ...

Arthur Lloyd Arthur Lloyd may refer to: * Arthur Lloyd (rugby league), rugby league footballer of the 1930s for Wales, and York * Arthur Lloyd (musician) (1839–1904), Scottish singer, songwriter, comedian and stage producer * Arthur Lloyd (bishop) (1844–19 ...

in 1869. In the song, the raconteur is abandoned by the girl "I met near Aldgate Pump". Not without hyperbole, the pump was once referenced thus: "East of Aldgate Pump, people cared for nothing but drink, vice and crime".Hoping to find the original source http://spitalfieldslife.com/2019/07/11/at-aldgate-pump/

References

{{coord, 51, 30, 47.4, N, 00, 04, 40.4, W, display=title Grade II listed buildings in the City of London Tourist attractions in the City of London