Page:Mediaevalleicest00billrich.djvu/27

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Nichols followed Throsby in identifying Millstone Lane with Hangman Lane, a name which occurs as early as 1337. But Hangman Lane would seem rather to correspond with Newarke Street, as in Combe's plan of 1802. This is indicated by the terms of the extension of the Cattle Market, in 1783, "down the South Gate to the Horse Pool, and also along the Welford Road to St. Mary's Workhouse or across Hangman Lane if necessary."

Kirk Gate is now called Town Hall Lane. In 1354 it was described as "Venella Martini," "Martin's Lane." In 1458 it appears as "Kirk Lane," in 1478 as "Kirk Gate," in 1483 it is called "the church lane unto the High Street"; in 1493, "St, Martin's Church Lane"; and, in 1505, "Church Lane." In 1494 the Abbot of Leicester paid rent to the Corpus Christi Guild for a house which he then occupied, called "The corner house" in the "Kyrke Lane End." It was also known as Holy Rood Lane. One of the objects of "squinting Pollard's" defalcations, in 1670, was a tenement described by Throsby as being in "Holy Rood Lane, now Town Hall Lane."

The Sheepmarket is the modern Silver Street. It was described in 1352 as "the lane which leads from the East Gate to the Church of St. Martin." In the next century it was known as the Sheepmarket, being so named in 1458. It was afterwards known as "the lane at the backside of the Lion," because, says Nichols, "where now is the sign of the King's Arms there was formerly the sign of the Lion till about 1670." He was, however, mistaken in identifying it with vicus calidus, or Hot Gate, which was the old name of St. Nicholas Street. When the market for sheep ceased to be held in the old Sheepmarket, at the beginning of the 16th century, the street became known as Silver Street, and is so named in Hall papers of 1587. The name may have been an old one revived, suggested perhaps by the shops of silversmiths. There is a Silver Street, as well as a Gold Street, at Northampton, the latter being the place where the Goldsmiths worked, and the former, part of the old Jewry, the locality of the Silversmiths. That silversmiths worked at Leicester is indicated by the occurrence of the name Silver, or

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