Page:Mediaevalleicest00billrich.djvu/22

 East Wall, and St. Margaret's Charity School was built on part of it. This piece of ground, which comprised $1 1⁄2$ acres or more, was at one time rented from the Crown, and afterwards became town property. A strip of land, on which were two pairs of butts, and which lay East of the Wall, "stretching in width from the King's Highway to the wall of Leicester," was taken on a 99 years' lease in 1458 at the rent of a barbed arrow.

Of the three Churches which once stood within this quarter, All Saints', St. Peter's, and St. Michael's, the two latter fell into disuse and decay, and were entirely demolished in or before the 16th century, when their parishes were absorbed in that of All Saints'.

The most important street in this quarter of the town for many centuries was the old between the North Gate and the High Cross. "It was lined on both sides," writes Thompson, speaking of the 14th century, "by houses which presented their gable ends to the road. They were not always close together as in a row, but sometimes surrounded by a plot of ground, used either as an orchard, garden, or small field. The principal inns were situated here, and were distinguishable from their size, outward appearance, and rudely painted signboards. … The better kinds of houses had windows; the poorer ones were supplied with lattice work in the openings. There was little, if any, pavement, and heaps of filth were frequently to be seen before the doors of the dwellings." The principal public buildings facing this street on the East side were the Church of All Saints, the Hospital of St. John, the prisona regis, or County Gaol, built in 1309, the Shire-hall, and later the Free Grammar School, built in 1573-4.

The Blue Boar Inn lay on the West side. On that side also stood the Cordwainers' Row, where the shoemakers carried on their trade, and nearly opposite to All Saints' Church, for more than three centuries, there was a Bell-foundry. Here, too, were many of the dwellings of the leading citizens, such as the house which John Reynold gave for the use of the Mayors of Leicester, and the "Stocks House," near the High Cross, with its orchard 4