Aldgate Pump
An old stone water pump on a City corner with a brass wolf's head and a dark Victorian secret.
FREE
The lowdown
On a busy corner where the City meets the East End stands the Aldgate Pump, a handsome old stone water point that for centuries marked the symbolic start of the East End. Look closely and you will find a brass wolf's head spout, said to commemorate the last wolf shot in the City of London.
Its darker fame is the Aldgate Pump epidemic of the 1870s, when hundreds fell ill and a number died from drinking its water, eventually traced to the spring being contaminated as it filtered through new cemeteries upstream. The pump was connected to clean mains water and the deaths stopped. It is free to find and a grimly fascinating little City survivor.
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