The modern road which answers to this old Soar Lane seems to be the present Castle Street, "one of the most narrow entrances of the town" in the time of Throsby, which was formerly known as St. Mary's Church Lane.
IV. THE WEST QUARTER.
The remaining quarter of the town is that contained by the Town Wall on the North, the river on the West, the High Street on the East, and Hot Gate and Applegate on the South.
It comprised the ancient Churches of St. Nicholas and St. Clement, and the Monastery of the Black Friars, which occupied 16 acres. There, too, lay the old Blue Boar Inn, and the earliest halls of the Guild Merchant.
Among the few lanes in this quarter were the Guildhall Lane, St. Clement's Lane, Friars' Causeway, Deadman's Lane, Jewry Wall Street, and Talbot Lane.
The Guildhall Lane was described in 1301 as "the lane which leads from the High Street to the Moothall"; and in 1341, when it was paved, as "the lane towards the Guildhall." In the next century it was called "Mayor's Hall Lane." It ran out of the High Street by the side of the Blue Boar Inn, and has since been known unto the present day as Blue Boar Lane — a name said by Hutton to have been at one time corrupted into "Blubber Lane."
St. Clement's Lane was a long passage running from the North Gate westward to the Black Friars and St. Clement's Church, and afterwards turning south, and passing between the grounds of the Black Friars and the backs of the houses which stood facing the old High Street opposite All Saints' Church. It was also known as "The Black Friars Lane." Thus, the first Town Ward of 1484 beginning at the High Cross extended to "the Black Friars Lane." Another name was "the lane of the Friars Preachers." The parcels contained in a deed of 1498 throw some light upon the topography of this quarter. Four cottages were demised which lay together "in the lane of
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