Page:Mediaevalleicest00billrich.djvu/24

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shown on old maps of Leicester running down from near the North Gate in the general direction North-East by South, and which was known, in part of its course, as Elbow Lane.

St. Michael's Lane led west out of Torchmere towards the Church. It was described as "the common way which leads to St. Michael's Church," or "St. Michael's Lane," and in a deed of 1483 its position is indicated thus. There was a large piece of garden ground, which was bounded on the east by Torchmere, "near the Cross there," and it stretched from "a lane called Idyll Lane on the South in St. Peter's Parish to a lane called St. Michael's Lane in the Parish of St. Michael on the North." Idyll Lane seems to have been known later as Feill Lane, or Storehall Lane. St. Michael's Lane is also described as being parallel with "Blanchwell Lane."

The road leading from the High Street to St. Peter's Church is referred to in a Tallage Roll of 1354 in an abbreviated form as "Peter's" (Petri); in 1484 it was called "St. Peter's Church Yard Lane," and, according to Miss Watts, it was for some time known, at the beginning of the 19th century, as "Woman's Lane"; but in Cockshaw's plan of Leicester, published in 1828, it is marked "St. Peter's Lane." by which name it is still known. The Church is thought to have stood near the corner of St. Peter's Lane and the present West Bond Street.

There was a certain blind alley leading out of the High Street, known as the Dead Lane, a name found also at Nottingham. In the year 1307 nine taxpayers were living in this "mortua venella," and in 1335 a byelaw was passed prohibiting unringed pigs in a certain part of the High Street, and "from the Church of St. Nicholas as far as the lane of Deadlane in the Swinesmarket." At the division of the town Wards in 1484, the second Ward began "in the High Street at the Mayor's Hall Lane and the Dead Lane end on both sides the street unto the North Gate." It seems, therefore, that the Dead Lane was on the Eastern side of the Old High Street, below St. Peter's Lane, and nearly opposite to Blue Boar's Lane (as the Mayor's Hall Lane was afterwards called), on or near the site of Freeschool Lane.

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