I’ve never researched Chiswick House, but it’s impossible to research any part of Chiswick without understanding a bit of its history. The claim is not that it was once filled by a spring in Spring Grove, but that it is still fed from there today. I think if you went back far enough in time, before the Thames meandering created the peninsular of Chiswick the route of the Thames would of been close to where the spring also flowed. The first detailed map of Chiswick I have found from 1840’s shows the outflow above ground, there don’t appear to be any sluice gates, so presumably the lake would fill with every high tide. But there is no sign of any connection to Spring Grove above ground. Looking at the Tithe map there are two land boundaries in roughly that location, a good clue there was once something there, except one doesn’t reach Spring Grove and the other looks a bit too far north, so presumably the stream had already disappeared by then. I’ve never researched Stand on the Green, but I didn’t think it was ever part of Chiswick or Sutton Court, so Lord Burlington would never have owned the spring. I would of thought when the laundries opened around Spring Grove they would of diverted any spring on their land to their business rather than onto someone else's land. Google says Pier House Laundry opened in 1860’s, but there looks to be buildings there in the 1840’s. I knew the cascade never worked at intended but never realised they had hoped it would work with a pipe under the lake. Can you confirm if the pipe/culvert has only ever existed under the lake. A 500 meter pipe/culvert on his own land for an idea that didn’t really work seems excessive but makes sense. A 1500 meter pipe just to get to the edge of the lake, some of it across other peoples land doesn’t seem plausible to have been built in the first place or to have survived with all the houses now built above it. I think this is probably where the confusion comes from, that the pipe that does exist connects beyond the grounds to Spring Grove still today. Although I think we agree that the lake and the pipe has never been connected to the Bollo. Rivers south of the High Road, is a subject worse than religion or politics, I don’t think I’ve ever found two sources that agree.
Colin Potter ● 21h