The Aldgate Pump

The Pump of Death - blamed for a Victorian epidemic.

Location: Aldgate

Description: The historic grade II listed Aldgate Pump can be found at the junction of Aldgate High Street, Fenchurch Street and Leadenhall Street but is longer in working order.

The evocative metal wolf head is supposed to signify the last wolf shot in the City of London.

It was moved from its original location above a natural well where Fenchurch Street Station is after it was blamed in the Aldgate Pump Epidemic. It is thought more than a hundred died and the water tested had high concentration of calcium from the bones of the dead in local cemeteries.

In cockney rhyming slang 'Aldgate Pump' was used to describe someone in a bad mood - or had the hump!

It was once considered the symbolic start of the East End of London because of its location just outside the old Aldgate entrance to the City of London.

Themes: Health Health Theme