| Chapter 1: | Water Supplies |
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examples of blacksmith involvement in the repair of the iron parts of pumps at Bessborough, County Kilkenny, can be seen in appendix D. At Tullynally Castle, the seat of Lord Longford in County Westmeath, there were many pumps in use to serve the requirements of the castle, its farm, garden, woods, and the estate grounds generally. Extracts from the general cash (1853) and estate expenses books (1857 to 1862) in appendix H record twenty-one repairs in six years, costing over £30 (about £2,300 today).21 Even where workmen's wages were avoided by having river-powered ram pumps, there were still repair bills. Ram pumps were prone to blockage and damage by waterborne debris and to frost damage due to their often exposed positions. This latter problem could be alleviated somewhat by installing the pump in a lined pit sunk in the river bank, similar to the one at Turlough Park pictured in plate 9.22 A bundle of Mourne Park bills for the years 1894–1895 include one dated December 1894 for repairs to “burst pipes and Ram on several occasions”.23
When the water source was a spring, which could be some distance from the big house, several factors determined its exploitation. If it issued at a higher altitude than the house, it could be piped to a storage cistern in or near the residence. Only a small-bore pipe was required, as the rate of flow was small and the water could accumulate in the cistern over time. An early but long-lived water supply of this type was installed at Petworth in Sussex in the early sixteenth century. A 1-mile-long lead conduit was laid from a water house at a “great spring”. Maintenance of the system was shared between the lord of the manor and the manorial court. This supply served both the town of Petworth and the manor house for nearly three centuries until 1782, when the third earl of Egremont replaced it with a pump, reservoir, and supply pipes. By 1839, the system supplied seven public cocks and one hundred thirty-seven private taps in the town and those in Petworth House.24 Unlike the manorial system in England, the big house owner in Ireland was quite independent and installed and maintained his own water supply.
Where the spring was at the same or a lower elevation than the house, the water could be pumped from a pool filled by the spring. Rainwater