Water gathered here on a Canterbury hillside once ran downhill by lead pipe to supply the monks of St Augustine's Abbey
Open accessfree to visit at any reasonable time
Masons built this small conduit house - a stone chamber that gathered and channelled spring water - into a steep Canterbury hillside in the mid-12th century, to supply St Augustine’s Abbey below. Four small tunnels fed water into a roughly octagonal tank, and a lead pipe ran downhill from there to the abbey buildings. The flint and chalk walls still stand about three metres high, though the roof came down in 1988 and rain has fallen straight into the tank ever since. Getting there means a short, fairly steep walk over grass from the abbey; there’s no charge and nothing to book.
