Pete Stamp Clip 7 : Plumbers Mate Duties

Plumbers Mate, my duties were – my workshop was underneath where the stables are, if you go down behind the stables you will see lots of – I think it’s about six tunnels which went underneath the coach houses which were above. The first one that you come to was my workshop; the last one was Albert’s workshop and also the stores. My duties was to cut threads so that if we got burst water pipes I used to cut what we called long screws in all lengths and different sizes from half inch to inch and a quarter, all by hand. Albert learned me how to wipe joints in lead, how to make a join in lead pipe and also he taught me how to – obviously most of the plumbing things, how to repair plunger and rotary pumps ‘cause most of the cottages didn’t have tap water they – the ones that were above Tyntesfield tank, that would be I think you call it Rose cottage where Percy Vowles lived, that’s Summer Cottage, it’s now able to be rented out. A chap called Percy was living there, now the water for that was not mains, underneath the floor in the kitchen is a tank, lead lined tank under the floor in the kitchen, there is a flagstone marked on the floor, probably not today, perhaps it’s all been done away with, but that is where he got his water and there is a rotary pump on the wall which used to pump the water to the sink and it was topped up by rain water from the guttering, all the water from the guttering used to go into this big tank, how most of them along there were operated – except for the Gamekeeper Lodge. The one from the Gamekeepers Lodge which was the next one along. Did you do much work in the house itself? We used to have to do the tap washers and mainly go around and vent the radiators, of course most of the radiators are out of sight especially in the – I used to call it the Ball Room and the Music Room which was as you went into the house on the left hand side, that was two big rooms, when they used to have functions, that’s where they used to hold the dances, they used to roll the carpet back and have dancing in there.