What the dickens is this capped pipe for?

I'm totally stumped...and nothing can be seen from below or underneath to give a clue.

http://spaces.msn.com/stephslawoffic...&_c=photoalbum

you house must be pretty old about 1870?? or so

Somewhere out in your back yard their is probably an
old brick lined 2000gallon systern probably capped off and buried and
now full of debris.

Look for an old round steel lid ...looks like a man-hole cover
they used to take the rianwater from the gutters and use it as
a back up system for the house water supply... and for laundry
uses in the basement---it was rain water soft----


look down in the basement and you will most likely find some old pipies
that are cut off at the back wall.
or perhaps you still have an old
hand pump sitting in an old concrete laundry tub down in the basement

that is probably what its all about


how they pumped it up to the second floor is anybodies guess.

I have seen where years ago some of the faucet spouts came out from that point. That is my guess.

That is a fixture from one of the classier homes of the day.

I've seen spigots in that location where the china china handle or push botton said "ICE WATER".... and it came from a refrigeration unit ......

It was a third water faucet, whether it was cold water, drinking water, or something else, depended on which system it was connected to.

Cistern it is, thanks for the insight--I knew folks here would know!