Details
KINGSTON UPON THAMES
59/2/12 GEORGE ROAD
05-NOV-10 (South side)
IVY CONDUIT HOUSE (CIRCA 120 METRES SO
UTH OF HOLY CROSS PREPARATORY SCHOOL)
(Formerly listed as:
GEORGE ROAD
IVY CONDUIT (CIRCA 120 METRES SOUTH OF
COOMBE RIDGE HOUSE))
GV II
Conduit house. 1538-40.
EXTERIOR
A single building with two brick built compartments. The front elevation has a brick arch with brick voussoirs, and the side walls have their brick cores exposed.
INTERIOR
The outer compartment has a four-centred brick vault and includes recesses in the walls. Plasterwork survives in the interior above ground level. To the rear is the inner compartment entered by two steps through an arched opening. It has an irregular shape due to it having been built to follow the course of the feeder stream entering on the south side. Concealed beneath the current floor is the original floor and remains of a lead tank and pipes.
HISTORY
Ivy Conduit House, also known as Bush Conduit House, was constructed in 1538-40, as part of a new conduit to provide Hampton Court Palace with water from springs at Coombe about 5km to the north-east. An existing conduit had been established at Hampton village by one of the previous owners, Sir Giles Daubeney or Thomas Wolsey. However following the acquisition of Hampton Court by King Henry VIII, there was need for a greater supply of water, maintained at a higher pressure. After the suppression of Merton Priory in 1538, land was set aside in upper Kingston for a new water supply system. A summary account covering the period 1538 to 1545, mentions 'charges of the condyte from Combhill' and also a sum of £100 spent on the construction. The water was collected at the head of the springs in Coombe, in water tanks covered by secure brick buildings known as conduit houses. There were three conduit houses; Coombe Conduit, Gallows Conduit, and Ivy Conduit, all of which survive. The water flowed, under gravity in lead pipes, to the Palace. The route of the pipes passed under the rivers Hogsmill and Thames via several tamkin houses. These were small brick buildings with stopcocks and expansion tanks that allowed part of the pipe to be isolated so leaks could be identified and repaired. One of these tamkin houses, Gallows Tampkin, is still upstanding.
There are records of repair work to the conduit in the early C17 and early C18. In 1742 the Office of Works ordered a survey of the conduit and undertook a major overhaul to increase its efficiency. Ivy Conduit House is shown in a detailed plan of Hampton Court conduit system drawn by Thomas Fort as part of this survey. It continued to supply Hampton Court until 1876. The conduit house was damaged by a bomb during the Second World War.
SOURCES
Lindus Forge, J, Coombe Hill Conduit Houses and the Water Supply System of Hampton Court Palace (1959), In Surrey Archaeological Collections, Vol 56, 3-14
Thurley, S, The Royal Palaces of Tudor England (1993), 163-170
Thurley, S, Hampton Court: A Social and Architectural History (2003), 73-4, 112, 285, 322-3
Panizzo, P and Lown, S, The Conduit Houses of Coombe - the ancient water supply to Hampton Court Palace (2006), pamphlet
REASONS FOR DESIGNATION:
Ivy Conduit House is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Architectural interest: as a rare surviving mid-C16 conduit house that although no longer completely intact retains a large amount of original fabric;
* Historic interest: as a conduit house forming part of a Tudor water supply system to Hampton Court Palace;
* Group value: for its historical and functional association with Gallows Conduit House, Coombe Conduit House and Gallows Tamkin, buildings that formed part of the same water supply system, and Hampton Court Palace, the royal palace which the conduit supplied.
