In the foreground is New River Head, the waterworks at Finsbury which supplied fresh water to the City of London. The viewpoint is from just above what is now Claremont Square, on the south side of Pentonville Road, a site identified in contemporary maps as 'the Bowling Green'. There are many versions of the view, which was also depicted by Canaletto, but this picture may be related to an engraving of 1730 by Thomas Bakewell. A key to this print enables all the buildings to be easily identified. Until the reign of Elizabeth I, most Londoners got their water from open water-courses, or from water-bearers who brought it from the river in barrels; the wealthy might have access to wells, or - rarely - to piped water. The sewage system was not separated from the water supply, so sources were easily contaminated. The Corporation of London obtained an Act of Parliament to cut a channel to convey water from springs at Amwell and Chadwell in Hertfordshire, and in 1608 transferred responsibility for the scheme to a private individual, wealthy goldsmith Hugh Myddleton. The scheme was very expensive and encountered many objections and obstacles from the landowners through whose estates the 'new river' had to be cut. Fortunately, Myddleton was James 1's goldsmith, and the King agreed to be a sleeping partner in the New River Company, paying half the costs in return for half the profits.

The New River was ceremonially opened on September 29 1613, when water was let into the Round Pond at New River Head for the first time. In 1660 a new Act enabled water to be drawn from the River Lee to increase the supply, and in 1709 the Upper Pond - seen in the left foreground of this picture - was constructed. It was some 200 yards further uphill from the Round Pond, and water had to be pumped up by the mill depicted in the centre of the painting. Sadler's Wells is visible on the extreme left of this picture, while on the right a fold of land represents the valley of the Fleet River; rising in Hampstead and opening into the Thames at Blackfriars, the Fleet's once wholesome banks were also lined with many wells, including the famous 'Black Mary's Hole'. These rural environs were destined in the next century to be overtaken by bricks and mortar. The land owned by the New River Company, now bounded by St John Street, Pentonville Road, Rosebery Avenue and
King's Cross Road, remained open fields until the 1820s, when the Company's director, William Chadwell Mylne laid out a handsome suburb. Hugh Myddleton's name was perpetuated in that of Myddleton Square, built 1824-27, and the Hertfordshire springs from which the water had originated in Amwell Street and Chadwell Street. The Upper Pond (now Claremont Square) remained open water until 1856. Water treatment ended at New River Head in 1946, and the course of the New River now finishes at Stoke Newington.
Purchased 2002 with the aid of grants from the Heritage Lottery Fund, ReSource (V & A Purchase Grant Fund) and the National Art Collections Fund.