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Lamb's Conduit Street is a street inHolborn in theWest End ofLondon. The street takes its name fromLambs Conduit, originally known as theHolborn Conduit, a dam across a tributary of theRiver Fleet.
Lamb's Conduit was named afterWilliam Lambe, who in 1564 made a charitable contribution of £1,500, an enormous sum in those days,[1] for the rebuilding of the Holborn Conduit.[2] The Conduit (a cistern[3]) was fed by a dam across a tributary of the River Fleet. The Conduit also supplied water to the nearbySnow Hill area by a system of pipes. Lambe also provided 120 pails to enable poor women to make a living selling the water.[4] The tributary ran west to east along the north side of Long Yard, followed the curved course of Roger Street and joined the Fleet nearMount Pleasant. This formed the boundary with theAncient Parishes ofHolborn (to the south) andSt Pancras (to the north).[5]
The importance of the conduit diminished when theNew River opened in 1613 and the conduit was demolished in 1746. The remains of the head of the conduit can be seen on the side of a 1950s building on the corner between Lamb's Conduit Street and Long Yard. On the stone, an inscription reads: "Lamb's Conduit, the property of the City of London. This pump was erected for the benefit of the Publick".
A fountain at the north end of Lamb's Conduit Street, at the junction withGuilford Street, on the boundary between the former Metropolitan Boroughs ofHolborn andSt Pancras, was built to commemorate the social benefit of the conduit.
Notable buildings includeThe Lamb public house, andThe People's Supermarket food cooperative. There are many independent traders along the street.
Adjoining streets includeRugby Street, Guilford Street and Great Ormond Street.
Notable residents have includedJohn Lind (1737–1781), the barrister, political activist and pamphleteer;John Haslam (1764–1844), the apothecary, physician and medical writer, known for his work on mental illness; andHenry Revell Reynolds (1745–1811) the physician.John Mason Neale (1818–1866), the Church of England clergyman, author, ecclesiologist, hymnologist, and poet, was born at 40 Lamb's Conduit Street.
John Turner lived together with his wife Mary at 7 Lamb's Conduit Street, where they hosted the American anarchistVoltairine de Cleyre in the summer of 1897.[6]
Virginia Woolf used the architecture of Lamb's Conduit Street to arouse her "historic sense" in the 1922 novelJacob's Room: "The bitter eighteenth century rain rushed down the Kennel."[7][8]
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51°31′19″N0°07′07″W / 51.5220°N 0.1186°W /51.5220; -0.1186
