Wooden Water Pipes

Wooden Water Pipes

This image shows a preserved wooden water pipe, dating to around 1700, on display at the Museum of Scottish Fire Heritage. Made by boring through a solid length of tree trunk, this particular section was unearthed in Hawick by firefighters.

Today, we take clean, pressurised water for granted. Turn on a tap and there it is, ready to drink, to fight fires, or to fill the kettle. But go back a few hundred years, and it’s quite different. Finding reliable water sources wasn’t so straightforward.

Before lead (not so great in hindsight) and iron pipes and the easy-to-access hydrants we now enjoy, towns across Scotland, and plenty of other places, were using something much simpler. Wood.

Water pipes were made from hollowed-out trees and buried underground.

At the Museum of Scottish Fire Heritage, we’ve got one of these pipes on display (pictured above). It was dug up in Hawick, in the Scottish Borders, by firefighters, and dates from around 1700. It used to be part of the town’s water main.

Another similar pipe was uncovered in Newburgh in 1932 (image below). It’s not on display, but it’s part of the collection. And together, these two wooden pipes help tell the story of how timber was used for water mains across the country.

The pipes were usually made from elm or oak. A hole was bored or carved all the way through the middle of the log to turn it into a pipe. Metal collars were sometimes used to join sections, and in some cases, early hydrants or taps were fitted straight into the wood.

In Edinburgh, wooden pipes carried water from Comiston Springs all the way down to the Royal Mile. They just used gravity to make it work.

For firefighters, these pipes were essential. Engines didn’t carry water, so crews had to rely on whatever supply was nearby. A pond, a river, or a pipe like this running under the street.

Some of these timber systems stayed in use well into the 1800s, even after cast iron came along. They might look like logs now, but they were once part of the lifeline that kept towns, and firefighters, going.

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