Geograph - photograph every grid square

One of several communal street wells that once supplied water to the residents of the Royal Mile. The town's water was originally drawn from the Nor Loch (now Princes St. Gardens) and the South Loch (now the Meadows) until 1674 when a German engineer, Peter Brusche, created a gravitation supply from springs at Comiston on the slopes of the Pentland Hills, three and a half miles away, to a cistern near the top of Castlehill. The water was then conveyed in lead pipes (later by elm-wood pipes, some of which can be seen in the Huntly House museum) to ten smaller cisterns at various locations throughout the city (the wooden pipes were replaced by cast-iron pipes in 1790). Porters, called 'Cadies' (from whom modern golf caddies take their name) carried the water from the wellhead to houses for one penny per cask. NT2673 : Old Town water pipes, Huntly House Museum