Lion of Leyburn: The story behind this historic water fountain

We stumbled, quite literally, over the smallest of those buildings recently: the lion’s head drinking fountain which, unnoticed we’d guess by most visitors, is at the north east corner of the Town Hall.

A fondle around the fountain’s backside reveals a plate with the maker’s name: “Glenfield Coy Limited Kilmarnock”.

The rear of the lion's head fountain showing the maker's name

“The Glen” was probably the largest hydraulic engineering company in Britain, founded in 1865 by Thomas Kennedy, the inventor of the water meter.

Glenfield marketed the cast iron lion fountain as “Kennedy’s patent, self-closing, anti-freezing pillar fountain” and its heyday seems to have been the 1880s.

The Leyburn lion's head fountain

It has a pineapple on top – a symbol of hospitality – which a thirsty person would turn to let the water come gushing out of the lion’s mouth. A tin drinking cup would have been chained to the fountain, and there’s a tray at the bottom for dogs to use.

Leyburn Town Hall, with the lion's head fountain bottom right

The lion’s head fountain was a popular ornamental feature to many towns and parks across the country – indeed, around the world.

There are lion’s heads from Stirling to Shrewsbury. Several are to be found in the Irish Republic and there’s a very good sprinkling of them in the Scottish borders – Kelso, Peebles and Midlem. Plus there’s a lion’s head fountain identical to the one in Leyburn Market Place in Port Stanley on the Falkland Islands.

A 1906 postcard of a very empty Leyburn Market Place with the lion's head fountain clearly visible as a white shape to the bottom right of the town hall