Nowadays we expect every house to have a supply of clean water and indeed hot and cold water at the turn of a tap but this pump is a reminder that this was not always the case. In the nineteenth century and, for some houses, into the twentieth century every drop of water used had to be drawn from a well or a pump in buckets. A household uses a lot of water in a day so there were many trips to the pump and if you met your neighbour there you could have a yarn and catch up on the local gossip. Pumps had a variety of mechanisms for drawing up the water. This one has a knob type that is twisted to operate but look out for the cow’s tail ‘pump action’ type. There are some about!
This post is part of the What’s That? Project. Funded by The Community Arts, Culture and Heritage Fund & The Community Foundation for NI. The aim of the project is to highlight local historical sites and give people a short history of what is there. Photos by John Healy.