| Chapter 1: | Water Supplies |
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Henry McNeill acquired Garron Tower in 1899 and opened it as a hotel. After being gutted by fire between the wars, it was restored to become a school.
Lake Water
Estate rivers frequently supplied a natural or artificial lake that formed a convenient water reservoir and a scenic attraction in the demesne. In winter, the lake also provided a supply of ice for storage in the ice house. Its use for early refrigeration is described in chapter 3. Where there was insufficient fall in the river to operate a ram or waterwheel pump, the lake water was often pumped manually by a force pump to the big house for the same domestic purposes as river water. Since the water in a lake was often still, there was the tendency for more impurities to be present in the form of mud, aquatic weeds, insects, and, possibly, tadpoles and small frogs. A strainer on the end of the suction pipe did not entirely keep out the smallest of these unwanted extras. Sir John Leslie remembered the interesting additives to the bath water at Castle Leslie, where
Considerable daily effort was required to hand pump the large quantities of water used for baths and flushing water closets. David Thomson made this point in Woodbrook, in which he wrote, “the fewer [baths] you had the better for the household, because every gallon of water had to be pumped up to a tank on the roof from a pool four or five hundred yards away”.41 Thomson also noted that, at that time, landlords were the only people in rural areas to have baths in their houses and that they were a “mark of rank as well as money, for the upper class of [female] servants were allowed to use them too”.42 For example, the lady of the house could allow the cook the privilege of using the bath, “like a bottle of scent, a share in the luxuries she enjoyed herself”.43