Instead, the real story of hosepipes begins in late 17th century Amsterdam with two Dutch brothers, Jan and Nicholas van der Heyden, who manufactured the hoses not for garden watering, but for fire fighting.
Incredible though it might sound, they made a tube out of leather relying on tight sewing to hold it together, and with brass fittings to allow sections of tube to be joined up. Unsurprisingly it wasn’t a complete success! The pipes leaked and the stitching burst under pressure and of course the tubes were heavy and incredibly cumbersome as well as being ineffective. Back to the drawing board!

Attempt two in 1698 used another Dutch speciality, canvas sailcloth. As you can imagine it too had problems! It needed to be sealed to make it thoroughly waterproofed and a range of methods were used to try and do that, usually with a mix of oils and other substances. In the 18th century attempts were made to use other textiles such as linen and hemp but with the same problems and as late as the mid-19th century patents were still being taken out for techniques to make canvas etc. impermeable.

Around the same time rivets started to be used instead of stitches to try to eliminate leaks and although this resulted in enormously heavy weight these hosepipes continued to be used right through until the 1870s.