The accounts of the “Masters” of the Great Conduit in Chepe for the year 1350 (see Riley, _Memorials of London_, pp. 264, 265) touch on many points of interest. They show that the conduit was maintained and kept in repair by a rate levied on the houses of Chepe and the Poultry, and that this rate varied from 5s. to 6s. 8d.; that the whole line of the pipes was examined, which examination led to the repair of the fountain head at Tyburn, also to bringing a branch pipe to the King’s Mews at Charing Cross, mending the pipe between the Mews and the Windmill, Haymarket, withdrawing the fountain-head twice a quarter, and mending the pipe at Fleet Bridge, etc. The pay of the workmen was 8d. a day with a penny for drink, called _none chenche_, _i.e._ non-quencher, whence our word _nuncheon_ or luncheon. The conduit as well as that at the other end of Chepe was provided with “tankards,” _i.e._ vessels shaped like a cone, narrow at the top, holding three gallons and provided with a stopper and a handle by which they could be carried. The men who took the water from the conduit to the houses were called Cobbs, or Water-leaders. In the matter of crowding we must not exaggerate. The City was crowded even in the time of Henry V., but not nearly so crowded as it became later on. There were still fair gardens in it, extensive gardens, with fruit trees and lawns and flowers, all over the City, especially on the northern and eastern sides, where land was of less value than elsewhere. Every Monastic House had its garden, St. Paul’s Churchyard was on its south side a great garden, the Companies’ Halls had their gardens, the churchyards were spots of greenery, and there were whole streets whose houses looked out upon broad stretches of open garden ground. I have mentioned the way in which the great nobles’ and merchants’ houses stood about in the narrow streets among the tenements and workmen’s houses. These town houses were in the City until the nobles began to build palaces along the river for the sake of the open air and the pleasantness. Many of the town houses had been deserted, sold, and pulled down before the end of the sixteenth century.