Esoteric London

Fleet Street, London, EC4. Photo © Roger Dean 2013

Dickens’s Dictionary of London, An Unconventional Handbook – Charles Dickens [Jr.], 1882:

Drinking Fountains.— Until the last few years London was ill-provided with public drinking fountains and cattle-troughs. This matter is now well looked after by the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association, which has erected and is now maintaining nearly 800 fountains and troughs, at which an enormous quantity of water is consumed daily. It is estimated that 300,000 people take advantage of the fountains on a summer’s day […].

[The photograph above shows a detail of the drinking fountain outside St Dunstan-in-the-West in Fleet Street. Designed by John Shaw Jr. and erected in 1860 it was the gift of Sir James Duke Bart MP. Even in its current sorry state it is a truly fine example and puts most other fountains in the City to shame. R.D.]