Standard, Cornhill

Names

Standard, Cornhill
The Waste Pumpe

Street/Area/District

Standard, Cornhill

Descriptions

from A Dictionary of London, by Henry Harben (1918)

Standard, Cornhill

At the east end of Cornhill, where the four streets met, in the middle of the street (S. 189).

It seems probable that it may have been erected soon after 1378, when at a common Council it was decided to consider means to be taken for the repair of the conduit in Chepe and carrying it up to the cross-ways on the top of Cornhull, for which purpose the executors of Adam Fraunceys had promised to contribute 500 marks (Cal. L. Bk. H. p. 108).

In 1582 it was supplied with waste water from Peter Morris' artificial forcier, and in a plan of the parish of St. Martin Outwich, 1599, it is called "The Waste Pumpe" (Wilkinson, Plate I.).

It was disused by 1603 (S. 189) and removed 1674 (N. and C. 6th S. 10, 149).

from London Past and Present: Its History, Associations, and Traditions, by Henry Benjamin Wheatley and Peter Cunningham (1891)

Standard in Cornhill, a water-standard, with four spouts, made (1582) by Peter Morris, a German, and supplied with water conveyed from the Thames, by pipes of lead. It stood at the east end of Cornhill, at its junction with Gracechurch Street, Bishopsgate Street, and Leadenhall Street, and with the waste water from its four spouts cleansed the channels of the four streets. The water ceased to run between 1598 and 1603; but the Standard itself remained for a long time after. It was long in use as a point of measurement for distances from the City, and several of our suburban milestones were, but a very few years ago, and some perhaps are still, inscribed with so many miles "from the Standard in Cornhill." There was a Standard in Cornhill as early as the 2d of Henry V.¹ [See Cornhill.]