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The Religious and Civic Significance of Archbishop Abbot’S Conduit in St Andrew’S, Canterbury, 1603-1625

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The Religious and Civic Significance of Archbishop Abbot’S Conduit in St Andrew’S, Canterbury, 1603-1625 ‘WHERE STREAMS OF (LIVING) WATER FLOW’: THE RELIGIOUS AND CIVIC SIGNIFICANCE OF ARCHBISHOP ABBOT’S CONDUIT IN ST ANDREW’S, CANTERBURY, 1603-1625 anne le baigue and avril leach In 1620 the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbot, gave the gift of a decorative, stone water conduit with fve stopcocks to the city of Canterbury to provide running water to the city’s inhabitants. Shortly afterwards, a local clergyman, James Cleland, preached a sermon in the Cathedral which focused both on the importance of the gift itself and on the signifcance of water for the inhabitants of the city, spiritual water as well as physical water.1 The sermon was published under the title Iacobs Wel and Abbots Conduit, paralleled, preached and applied to the use of the city of Canterbury in 1626. The gift and the sermon came at an interesting time in Canterbury’s development. Over sixty years after the reintroduction of the Protestant religion, following the accession of Elizabeth I to the throne in 1558, conservative religious elements still existed within the city. The archbishop, in common with many post-reformation archbishops, rarely visited Canterbury and, despite the gift, seems to have had a less than amicable relationship with the city’s governors. Cleland, as a parish priest with previous Court experience stands here between the provincial city and the prelate, and this article uses the gift of the conduit and subsequent sermon as the organising idea to explore relationships between Archbishop Abbot, Canterbury Cathedral, the parish church of St Andrew’s, and the city’s borough corporation during the reign of James I. After introducing features of the conduit and the circumstances of its construction, the character and importance of parish religion in St Andrew’s is examined before turning to consider James Cleland and the context and content of his sermon. Drawing evidence from Cleland’s words, this article explores these overlapping relationships to support the argument that the sermon reveals a complex picture of civic and religious life in Jacobean Canterbury whilst also serving to boost the declining public profle of Abbot in the city and with a wider audience. Abbot’s Gift: The Conduit Archbishop Abbot’s conduit was built in the parish of St Andrew’s, a parish in the heart of Canterbury; surrounded by fve other parishes and the cathedral precinct, it had a commercial character, encompassing dwellings, shops, markets and inns. The parish church was located in the centre of the High Street thoroughfare with 111 ANNE LE BAIGUE AND AVRIL LEACH narrow passes either side, so representing a signifcant landmark to inhabitants and visitors alike.2 Slightly further along the High Street towards St George’s parish was the run of butchers’ shambles, where rented stalls were tightly controlled by the city corporation. The conduit sat between the church and this market, in Cleland’s words, sited ‘as the sunne is set in the midst of the Planets, and the Heart as the Fountaine of life and heate’ it is ‘placed in the midst of the members’.3 Piped water in towns, such as Canterbury enjoyed, was not universal but neither was it unusual in this period. Though it has been noted that inhabitants of Sevenoaks continued to use buckets to collect water in the 1640s, nearby Maidstone had had a town conduit since at least 1562 and by 1645 had no less than three sited in the main thoroughfare.4 Other major English towns such as Oxford, Cambridge and Norwich also constructed centrally located conduits around this period, often paid for by generous local benefactors.5 In Canterbury, piped water had entered the city via lead pipes from a mile away as early as 1134, though at this early date it supplied only Christ Church Priory.6 For the early seventeenth-century inhabitants of the city outside the precinct, individual water pumps were placed at key street sites including the High Street location chosen for Abbot’s conduit. In about 1622, a pump – possibly that removed from the ‘ancient well’ next to the new conduit – having been temporarily stored nearby in alderman John Pearce’s house, was carried along the High Street to ‘be laied into the house att the Courthall’ by ‘two poore fellowes’ who received three shillings each for their trouble.7 Nevertheless, the pump site appears to have been retained for use by the inhabitants even after the conduit was built and in 1629 chamberlain John Watson was presented at the quarter sessions for ‘not maintaining and keeping of the Comon’ pumpe neere adioyning to the Cundit at the end of st Andrewes Church to the use and great be[n]iftt of the Inhabitants there formerly knowne of auntient standing’.8 The city corporation therefore appears to have continued to provide and maintain this particular water pump at its own expense even after the conduit was built. The conduit Abbot bestowed on the city was a large, tiered, stone structure decorated with columns and statuary and providing fve separate stopcocks, no doubt a welcome addition to the existing water supplies. A documented inscription confrms it was built, or at least completed, in 1621 at the cost of Archbishop Abbot: ‘Structura Georgij Domini Archiepiscopi Cantuar’ in usum Civitatis Cantuar’: anno domini 1621’.9 The antiquarian, William Somner, aged about fourteen at the time the conduit was built, later described it as a ‘goodly Conduit…built for the common good and service of the same’.10 Though taken down in 1754, we gain a sense of its appearance from three different sources. The most detailed image accompanies the sermon delivered by Cleland and is described further below (Fig. 1). A second image decorates a city plan published in William Gostling’s Walk in and around Canterbury (frst edition 1774) and confrms the conduit’s tiered structure, showing the lower level as entirely closed with an external staircase allowing access at a level higher than the road surface (Fig. 2).11 A more extensive search of city records might provide clues as to whether the base was indeed enclosed from the outset or initially open as in the sermon image; most likely the latter represents artistic licence to include the fgures of Jesus and the woman of Samaria at the well and better support the sermon’s text. The fnal image is included on a seventeenth-century map of 112 ‘WHERE STREAMS OF LIVING WATER FLOW’: ARCHBISHOP ABBOT’S CONDUIT Fig. 1 Image of conduit from James Cleland’s sermon, © British Library 4473.aaa.50. Canterbury; a tiny feature on the original, recent digital enlargement has enabled a better view of the conduit and again shows the grey, stone, three-tiered structure, apparently topped with a pinnacle (Fig. 3).12 Though not providing great detail, the inclusion of the image on this map does provide an exact siting for the conduit in the city’s High Street, set between St Andrew’s church and the butchers’ shambles. 113 ANNE LE BAIGUE AND AVRIL LEACH Fig. 2 Image of conduit in Gostling, A Walk in and around the City of Canterbury (copy held at Special Collections and Archives, Templeman Library, University of Kent). To return to Cleland’s sermon illustration, this shows the structure at ground level supporting two hexagonal tiers decorated with statues and topped by a tiled ogee dome. The dome contains a small opening within which sits a new market bell ‘thereby to ring into our eares on every market day this advertisement, Remember the Poore, or bee charitable’.13 The whole structure is fnished off with a decorated pinnacle including a pennant sporting Abbot’s coat of arms and ‘a Gilded Crowne in the top of this Conduit’ which Cleland likens to the ‘Crowne of glory that fadeth not away’.14 A series of heraldic shields adorn the structure between the frst and second levels. Left to right these represent: the English version of the frst Union fag, used from 1606; the arms of Christ Church cathedral; Canterbury city arms; Abbot’s own arms of three golden pears; centrally placed, the royal coat of arms of James I; the arms of Charles Stuart, Prince of Wales; an unidentifed set of arms showing three feur-de-lys; the arms of Edward, Lord Zouche of Harringworth who was Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports until his resignation of the post due to failing health on 17 Jul 1624; and a second unknown set of arms featuring a cross.15 Cleland refers to these also in his sermon: ‘look likewise to the painting on or about this conduit for ornament’, he writes, indicating that they are likely to 114 ‘WHERE STREAMS OF LIVING WATER FLOW’: ARCHBISHOP ABBOT’S CONDUIT Fig. 3 Detail from Map/123 (Reproduced courtesy of Canterbury Cathedral Archives). be representative of the actual decoration of the conduit rather than included solely for the illustration.16 The statues shown on the frst tier are (left to right) Prudence, Justice, Fortune and Temperance; on the second tier are Faith, Hope and Charity; Cleland writes of them: ‘Above the Armes you may observe the speaking power of Pictures’.17 A number of these features are seen on other town conduits of this time; Oxford’s extant Carfax conduit is perhaps the most similar in style and decoration. Built by lawyer, Otho Nicholson, at a personal cost of £2,500 in 1616, this extant conduit also exhibits a tiered structure: a square enclosed base is surmounted by arches bearing an octagonal column featuring classical and other statues.18 Prominently placed mid-arch are statues of Prudence, Justice, Fortune and Temperance as seen at Canterbury.19 The top line of the base carries a series of heraldic arms representing the city, the university and Nicholson, and royal insignia are included elsewhere, again refected in the design at Canterbury.
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