Edinburgh Corporation Water Works, Crawley Cistern

Playfair carried out this work under the direction of Edinburgh Corporation Water Works engineer, J JArdine.

This project was undertaken to input site information listed in 'Civil engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders' by R Paxton and J Shipway, 2007.

Crawley Cistern, a distinctive masonry building 60 ft long with a stone-slab roof surmounting a semicircular vault springing from 3 ft above floor level containing the 45ft by 15 ft open-topped masonry cistern, was designed by W. H. Playfair under James Jardine’s direction (JArdine was the engneer to the Ediburgh Corporation WAter Works). The tank is at the head of a nine-mile cast-iron aqueduct, with a maximum diameter of 20 inches, passing via Liberton and under Castle Hill to Hanover Street in the New Town on a plinth in a 6 ft by 5 ft wide tunnel.

The pipes were supplied by the Butterley Company and each was proved by subjecting it to a pressure equal to that of a column of water from 300 to 800 ft high. The whole works cost £145 000 and were dubbed by The Scotsman in 1825, ‘the most extensive, perfect and complete ever executed in modern times’.

R Paxton and S Shipway 2007

Reproduced from 'Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders' with kind permission of Thomas Telford Publishers.

A water pipeline runs from Glencourse Reservoir to the mound and possibly Leith. Built by the Edinburgh Water Works/Edinburgh and District Water Trust, it was often referred to as the Crawley Tunnel, although through most of its distance it was actually a cast iron pipeline.

For related sites see

NT26SW 63 & 143

NT26SE 165

NT26NE 346

NT27SE 5844, 6016

Information from RCAHMS (AKK) 1 October 2014.