Mediaeval Leicester/Chapter 2

by Charles James Billson

II.
THE SUBURBS.

I. THE NORTH SUBURB.

BEYOND the North Gate of mediæval Leicester a suburb was in existence from very early times. It contained the Hospital and Church of St. Leonard, and led up to the great Abbey of St. Mary in the Meadows.

The principal thoroughfares were Northgate, Wood Gate, Abbey Gate, The Skeyth or Senvey Gate, and Soar Lane or Walker Lane.

The road lying beyond the North Gate of Leicester, "the highway which leads to the North Bridge," as it is termed in several documents, was generally known as the Northgate. The road so called was outside the walls of the town, for it was parallel with Buxton Lane, and Buxton Lane is stated to have been without the North Gate. In 1462 it was described as "the King's Highway called le Northgate." During the 13th and 14th centuries the district was occupied mainly by dyers and fullers.

After passing over the little North Bridge, the highroad ran through Frog Island, and crossed the main channel of the Soar by another bridge, which was generally known as the North Bridge. Beyond this point the road divided; one branch turning westwards to the Forest, and the other north towards the Abbey. At the point of divergence stood the Church of St. Leonard. The westward road still retains its old name of Woodgate, which it is said to have received because it was the; way by which wood was brought into the town from the forest; and the other road which led to the Abbey was, and still is called Abbey Gate. About the year 1323 it was described as "the street of the Abbey of Leicester."

The Skeyth, or Senvey Gate, ran eastward outside the North Gate under the wall of the town. In 1322 it was called Le Skeyth, and in 1392 Senvey Gate, and in a late 15th century lease it was described as "Le Skeyth alias Senvey Gate." In the early years of the 18th century it was still known as

Senvey Gate, but it would seem that, in the course of that century, the name was altared to Sanvy Gate, and it appears as Sanvy Gate in maps of 1802 and 1828. Nichols rings the changes on Sanby, Sonvey and "Sanvy, quasi sanda via," and endorses the questionable etymology of Bickerstaffe or Carte, who satisfied themselves that the word was a corruption of sancta or sacra via, denoting the sacred way by which, in pre-reformation years, the great religious processions used to go up to St. Margaret's Church. A stone cross, called Senvey Cross, was standing, in the 16th century, at the end of this road, near the North Gate. It has been suggested that this cross was one of those erected to mark the stages of Queen Eleanor's funeral progress, but the evidence seems against this. It is more likely to have been the Cross which Henry, the third Earl of Lancaster, is said to have put up for the soul of his brother, Thomas, "outside the town of Leicester," but this is mere conjecture.

The Soar Lane "extra portam borialem" ran west, outside the North Gate, down to the river. It was also called Walker Lane, or Fullers' Street. In the year 1298 a member of the important family of Curlevache, when he was "amens et demens et ebrius," walked outside the North Gate down Fullers' Street ("invico Fullorum") into the river, and was drowned. In the 14th century it was still known as Walker Gate, or Walker Lane, and was so named in 1417, but, in the course of the 15th century, "Soar Lane" came into use. In 1594 it is referred to as "Soar Lane, or Walker Lane."

Soar Lane does not seem to have run immediately beside the town wall and its ditch; for in 1392 land was conveyed, which is described as being outside the North Gate in " Walkercrofts," and lying between the town ditch and the common footpath. The ditch and its environs were used as gardens; and part of this land belonged to the Priory of the Black Friars, whose grounds were intersected by the town wall.

The land in this district was called "Walkercrofts," or "Crofts." It was divided by ditches, and dykes or raised paths, such as Acedyke, or Ash-lane, and the path called Benacre, both of which seem to have been parallel with Soar Lane, and to have run down towards the river. There was one large plot of land in Walkercrofts, bounded by these ditches and dykes, which lay between the Northgate and the river, known as the Pingle. Its memory is still preserved by Pingle Street. It was described by Nichols as "a large close on the side of Northgate Street, towards the bottom of Soar Lane, edging on the Soar westward not far from the North Gate," and is marked on most of the old plans of Leicester. The word was used in the Midland Counties to denote any small enclosure, and there were other "pingles" at or near Leicester. One at Nottingham was known as Friars' Pingle, "Le Frere Pyngile." On the eastern side of the North Gate in the Parish of St. Margaret, were other lanes and paths, among which were Buxton Lane, parallel with the highway, and perhaps corresponding in part with what was formerly known as Paradise Lane, and a path over a ridge or dyke, known in the 15th century as " Abbot's balk,"

II. THE EAST SUBURB.

The East Suburb, which was far the more important of the two, and was often referred to as "the Suburb," contained the Church of St. Margaret, which was annexed as a Prebend to the Cathedral Church of Lincoln, and the populous districts of Belgravegate and Humberstonegate. Most of the land comprised in the Suburb was the fee of the Bishop of Lincoln, whose Grange lay south of St. Margaret's Church.

The main thoroughfares were Churchgate, Gosewellgate, Belgravegate, Gallowtreegate, and Humberstonegate. Archdeacon Lane, which runs east from Churchgate, a little south of St. Margaret's Church, is mentioned in 1465 ; and Plowman Lane, which also led out of Churchgate, is referred to at the beginning of the 14th century.

Most Churches had a lane of approach, sometimes called the "churchgate," as St. Martin's Lane was called; but the thoroughfare which came to be, and still is known as Churchgate, par excellence, is the road leading to St. Margaret's Church from the south outside the East Wall. A deed of the year 1478

relates to land in St. Margaret's Parish, which lay on the west side of "the street called Kyrkegate"; and that the name was established at the beginning of the 16th century is shown by a benevolence roll of that time, in which the fourth Ward is defined as "Belgravegate on both sides street to the corner fore agaynste Berehill crosse with the Kyrkegate to St. Margaret's Church."

The name Gosewellgate occurs as early as 1302; and in the year 1305 a messuage was granted which stood "outside the East Gate in Gosewellgate." In the Leicester Hearth Tax Roll of 1664, Alderman Palmer's Ward is described as comprising "Church Gate from St. Margaret's Church to the Round Hill, Gosewell Gate and Belgrave gate." Hence it may be gathered that Gosewellgate was identical with the Haymarket, lying between the East Gates and Belgrave Gate.

The term Gallowtree Gate, or Galtregate, was applied to the highway in St. Martin's Parish South of Churchgate. The point of division, the Roundel opposite to the East Gate, is made clear by the boundaries of the old Wards in 1484 and 1557.

The name of the street occurs in the Borough Records, as Gallowtree Gate, Galughtregate, Galowe tre gate, Gaultrygate and Galtregate. In the title deeds of the old Angel Inn it is said to have been named "Gallows Lane." It does not appear ever to have been known as Gartree Gate, which the late Mr. F. T. Mott thought might be its original title. In his opinion it had borne the name of the Hundred, and formed part of the old Roman Road called "Gartree Road." But, apart from the unlikelihood of the word "Gartree" being lengthened into "Gallowtree," the course of the Gartree Road does not seem to have corresponded with Gallowtree Gate. There was a gallows placed on the top of the London Road Hill, above Gallowtreegate, at the corner of Evington Lane, set upon what was described in 1316 as Galtre "cultura" (a cultivated plot, or wong), afterwards known as Gallow-tree or Galltree Hill. Gallowtree Gate, a northern continuation of the same road, might have been named after this. As Col. G. C. Bellairs has pointed out, it occurs in other places, as "The Gallowtree" at Glasgow.

There was some ground between this road and the town wall and ditch. In 1290 land was conveyed "with the buildings," which stretched "from the highway which is called Gallowtree Gate as far as the walls of Leicester"; and in 1337 a messuage in Galtregate stretched from "the said street to the town ditch." The space outside the East Gate, where the Clock Tower now stands, and where Church Gate meets Gallowtree Gate, and the roads branch off towards Belgrave and Humberstone, was known as Town's End, Galtregate Town's End or Galtregate End. There stood the Berehill, with a pair of stocks near it. This is mentioned in the Records of the Borough as early as 1260. It was a mound, formerly surmounted by a cross, used for many different purposes, and sometimes called the Roundhill, or Roundel. In 1317 the Mayor complained that Alan of Gissing used to stand with two grooms on the Berehill on Saturdays, waylaying woolfells coming by road, and forestalling them. It was a convenient place for the view of frankpledge for the East Gate, which was held there on the eve of the Epiphany. At the division of Wards in 1484, the fourth Ward began at St. Margaret's Church "unto the corner at the little bridge without the East Gate and Belgrave Gate on both sides unto the corner foryeinst the Berehill Cross." The Berehill adjoined the Haymarket, and it is possible that its name is derived from the word "bere," or barley, and that it was once the site of a market. Mr. Kelly thought that it was used of old as a place for bear and bull baitings, and derived its name from the word bear, but this is not very probable. "Bere" is a common name in Devonshire, especially for orchards, and this word seems to be derived from the Saxon bearu, a grove of trees — another possible ancestor of our bere-hill. In later days it became known as the Coalhill, "from its being the place where coal was formerly brought for sale in panniers on the backs of horses." In 1493 the Roundel belonged to St. Margaret's Guild.

The cross, after being repaired in 1552, seems to have been pulled down, together with the old wooden cage which stood beside it, about the year 1575, The cross itself was never replaced, but at a Common Hall, held in 1600, it was agreed "that there shall be a cage presently made and to be set up in the old place," or "in the place called the Barrell Cross or near thereabouts."

In the middle of the 18th century. Assembly Rooms were built on the site. "The building," wrote Mrs. Fielding Johnson, in her "Glimpses of Ancient Leicester," "which had no architectural pretensions, consisted mainly of a large upper room, supported upon columns, and facing the Humberstonegate. The other end, looking towards High Street, was occupied by one or more shops."

Belgravegate is first mentioned in the published Records of the Borough in the year 1305, when a rent was granted from a messuage outside the East Gate in "Bellgravegate," lying between Richard Norman's land and "the lane which leads to the Earl of Leicester's bakehouse." Belgravegate does not seem to have been within the Bishop's Fee, as Churchgate and Humberstonegate were. The tenants there, in 1322, under the leadership of Richard of Belgrave, certainly made an attempt "to draw the street which is called Belgravegate to the county for making contributions and tallages." But they did not then succeed, for it remained attached to the borough, and was for a long time after included in the borough tallage rolls. In 1478 a messuage "in the East Suburbs of Leicester in the street called Belgravegate," which stretched from the King's highway to the lane called Barkby Lane, was granted to the Borough for an obit. In 1484 the thoroughfare was included in the fourth Ward of the town.

"The street which is called Humberstonegate" is mentioned in the Borough Records from 1286 onwards. It belonged to the Bishop's Fee, and the tenants paid taxes with Gartree Hundred, and not with the Borough. It was provided, in 1273, that no one living on the fee of the Bishop might be a Jurat of Leicester. It would appear that the great causeway in Humberstonegate was erected in 1344, when the Earl of Derby, the eldest son of Henry, Earl of Lancaster, sent his serjeant, Walter of Bintrey, to Leicester "for the lord's business for the repair of ways in Humberstonegate and Belgravegate." The making of the causeway is not mentioned directly in the Mayor's accounts for that year, but they are endorsed in an old hand "Humberstonegate, Great Cawsey there erected."

In the Ward division of 1484, the fifth Ward included the whole of Humberstonegate ; but in the division of 1557 the point in Humberstonegate at which the Ward commenced was more strictly defined. It began "from the bridge by the Antelope." The Antelope was a piece of ground, apparently belonging once to the College of the Newarke, for in 1493 the Guild of Corpus Christi were paying an acknowledgment of 3d. to the New College "for the outshoot " (or drainage) "of the water of the tenement late in the holding of Robert Couper going out through the Antelope." A bridge there is mentioned in 1551; and in 1566 there was "work at the Antelope for paving and laying of the same bridge." In 1595 "the cawsie beyond Antelope Bridge" was repaired.