The Fourth Chamber

The Fourth Chamber
Charcoal; 4 1/4" x 5 1/4"

A few minutes’ climb of moderate difficulty- though the steps here are in good repair, beware, as the balustrade is not- brings you to the mouth of the Fourth Chamber.

Though it seems you may choose here between two diverging ways, only the path to the right remains accessible. To your left, too, steps seem to beckon, but round their first turning, and you will find only a blind sealed archway: The passage beyond is choked with rubble, long since lost to use, closed.

To your right, then, the path skirts the basin, crosses a small footbridge, then the broadly veined face of the far wall, from which the walkway is in fact carved. Much of the stone used in nearby construction was taken from this wall of the chamber. Dain directed his stonecarvers to remove most evidence of quarrying here, in preparation for a colonnaded gallery to be let into this face behind the walkway. But this feature was deemed too costly, and never built.

The walkway leads to a small, unassuming doorway in the far wall, near the chamber’s corner. Within, more steps, lit at interval by great brass lamps in which gas flames once burned. The lamps, of course, have since been wired for electricity.

–from A Visitor’s Guide to the Waterworks, Third Edition, the Estate of Thomas Dain, publisher. Used by permission.

© Mark Reep 2007