While digging the foundations for a garden room extension at the back of Smeath House, Horbury, last week builders came across this brick-lined cavity.
These two massive Yorkstone slabs covered the hole.
It was completely dry and hadn’t ever been filled in, so there was no dating evidence, other than the structure itself. As far as I could see the bricks had no maker’s name stamped on them.
Two lead pipes extended up from the base of the cistern towards the house. You can see that a few loose bricks have been placed around the open end of the pipes, perhaps either to keep them in place or to trap any sediment that might find its way into the cistern.
There were two inlet pipes close to the top of the cistern. One came from the direction of the house and would have channelled rainwater from the roof and the other presumably fed in rainwater from outbuildings which have since been demolished.
There was a small amount of mortar between the bricks, which had fairly shallow frogs. It’s not all that obvious in the photographs but the hole tapers in gradually towards the top.
The Wash House
Photograph by Amy Hacker
When my mum and dad bought Smeath House in the 1950s the Victorian extension to the original house (above, the window and door on the right) housed what we called the wash house. It was stone-flagged inside with a large enamel sink below the window which is now in use as a plant trough at Spinkwell House next door. We used the large Victorian mangle for years, until woodworm got into the wooden rollers.
There was a cylindrical galvanised boiler which my dad later used as water butt sunk into one of the beds of his greenhouse.
The Victorians used rainwater was used for laundry as it was softer than water from the well. A well which might have served both houses gave its name to Spinkwell and is still there, covered over, at the corner of an ivy-covered rockery.
My mum was resident at Smeath House for about 60 years but during that time we never suspected that there was a cavity under the back yard. The back yard was probably concreted over in the late 1940s or early 1950s when the house was converted into two flats.
The foundation trench for the garden room has exposed the foundations of the ‘wash house’ extension. l’m not sure if that the sandstone is bedrock or a massive flagstone.
Barbara and I got a chance to see the structure yesterday as they started to fill it in. It looks as if it is approximately half-filled here.
Capacity
Very roughly, I’d guess we’re looking at a storage capacity of a cylinder 6ft across and 6ft high, which would hold about 170 cubic feet of water, over 1000 gallons, nearly 5 cubic metres (my thanks to Harvey who pointed out that my original calculation was way out because I’d confused radius with diameter).
The Mortimer Row Mystery
In 1979, a very similar structure was found less that 100 yards to the north west of the Smeath House water cistern at the back of one of the houses on Mortimer Row.
When Gillian Simpson posted this article on the Horbury and Sitlington History Group Facebook Page, Bob Durham recalled:
We found all sorts of things in that ‘well’. Old childrens lace up shoes, bottles, cups and saucers. Metal work files. It wasn’t round tho! It was more egg shaped and the red smooth faced brickwork was so tightly. It was a pity to fill it in.
Bob Durham
As the article mentions one of the items was a cup, dated 1911, belonging to Horbury Urban District Council, unfortunately there was no similar dating evidence in the Smeath House water cistern.
Thanks Harvey, I realise that I’d gone for 6ft radius in my calculation instead of 6ft diameter. Glad my old maths teacher Mr Atkinson isn’t still around to hear about this!