In the next century the churchyard of the old church of St. Peter was being used, according to Sir John Lambe, as "a cabbage ground."
A small piece of stained glass in the window of the Mayor's Parlour at the Old Town Hall, which is marked with the letter P. is pointed out as a relic, said by tradition (but on no other authority), to have come from old St. Peter's. Part of a holy water stoup, and several small fragments of masonry, that were discovered on the church's site about 1892, are now in the possession of Mr. Henry Hartopp of Leicester. A stone wall which runs along part of the yard of Salem Chapel, in Free School Lane, may have been one of St. Peter's boundaries. What is reputed by an old tradition to be the font of St. Peter's Church, is now standing within a garden in Guthlaxton Street.
(3) THE CHURCH OF ST. MICHAEL.
The history of St. Michael's church is not unlike that of St. Peter's. It was also one of the six churches existing at Leicester when Domesday Book was compiled, and belonged to Leicester Abbey. It suffered in the sack of 1173. Some historians say that it was nearly, others that it was wholly "demolished." It is certain that, after that great catastrophe, the parish was left in a ruinous state, and long remained desolate and uninhabited. Its "streets became green lanes; and the sites of the houses, which for centuries afterwards remained unbuilt upon, were converted into orchards."Almost all the extant deeds relating to real estate in the old parish of St. Michael are concerned with "gardens," "plots of ground," and "crofts," and hardly ever refer to houses. One large area, known as "St. Michael's Croft," comprised a considerable number of gardens. The extremely rural aspect presented by this part of the town as late as 1495 may be gathered from a deed of that date, which describes a piece of land in St. Michael's parish. It was surrounded by hedges, which were said to contain 88 ashtrees and two aspens.
The church itself probably escaped any very serious damage in the great sack. At any rate, it seems to have been in use some twenty or thirty years after the siege, for two of the witnesses
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