Conduit House, Southampton

3D ModelNoAI

In 1290 the friars were granted permission to pipe water for over a mile to the friary. It took about 20 years to complete as pipes needed to be installed below the streets of the town and buildings called conduits were constructed to help maintain water pressure and direct the water through the town.

By 1420 the cost of maintaining this system was too much, so town corporation took over the day to day management of the water system. It was one of the finest pieces of medieval hydrological engineering on the south coast and was in use in one form or another for around 500 years, only falling out of use in the nineteenth-cent

The building is one of several which has been laser scanned as part of a collaborative project between Southampton Cultural Services and the Department of Archaeology at the University of Southampton using an Leica RTC360 3D Laser Scanner. The model was cleaned and constructed by Neil Cooper.