MEDIÆVAL LEICESTER.
I.
THE STREETS.
THE little mediæval town of Leicester comprised about 130 acres. It was guarded on three sides by walls, which occupied, at least approximately, the site of the ancient Roman walls, or earthen ramparts. On the West lay the river Soar, and on that side no trace of any town wall has yet been found, although there was a gateway and a gate house, like the others, which stood in front of the West Bridge. The four gates of the town, over which, as early as 1322, hung the arms of the Sovereign, stood nearly at the North-West, North-East, South-East, and South-West points of the compass. The main road entered the town at the South Gate, and passed out at the North Gate, and the only other streets of importance were those which intersected the main road at the High Cross and ran to the East and West Gates. Other ways were mere lanes. The Borough Records sometimes describe the four chief streets leading to the four Gates as the four high streets, "quatuor altas stratas Leycestriae," but the High Street, par excellence, was that part of the King's highway which ran from the South Gate to the North. Of the two intersecting streets, that which led to the West Gate was called in part Hot-Gate, and in part Apple-Gate, and that which led to the East was known from an early date as the Swinesmarket. There were two suburbs beyond the walls, the North Suburb and the East. Outside the West Gate the Priory of the Austin Friars lay between the two arms of the river, and beyond it stretched the West Fields. The common lands of the town, known as the South Fields, or South Crofts, lay without the South Gate.
1
