Excerpts from ‘Our Old Town’ by Thomas Miller

The House in ‘Our Old Town’ hardly ever contained passages.  When the door opened, you entered at once into the principal apartment that was always called ‘the house’.  The other rooms: back-room, side room and kitchen were as they are in others’ houses; but the room you first entered from the street, passage, yard or lane was called ‘the house’ and only known by that name.

In this room the household took their meals; there the householder was found at the head of his table, and there also the housewife sat at her work.  The holly and mistletoe were hung at Christmas; in this apartment the christening was kept and here the coffin stood before the funeral.

This Beck-lane, or Water-lane – for every reader knows that beck is an old Saxon word for brook, stream of any description of water-course – was one of the three ancient roads that cut across the town from the hills to the river.  Riverward this ancient lane came out opposite the old town staithes, under a low dark archway, whose thick ironbound gated opened up into the main street.  Hillward it ran up in a level line with a deep dry ravine.  This lane was the only road from the hills, and that water-staithe was the only ferry across the river for leagues, as a little village a mile or two inland from the opposite bank still bears a name that signifies the hamlet of the beck.

The name of the field that faces, and is divided from the ancient staithes by the intervening river is called Chule-garth, meaning the boat-field, for chiule is both old Saxon and Danish for boat.

The first shop nearly opposite the bridge-foot was a cobbler’s.  Next to the cobbler’s was the ‘good-stuff’ shop, so called because an old woman who would make black jack, butter-scotch, pincushions, bulls’-eyes and cakes kept it.  Then came the old milk house, and then the public-house called the Bridge Inn.  Beyond this was a row of houses with a sprinkling of small shops selling such as second-hand clothes, a watchmaker and then the ever-busy tailor.

Then came the house with the Doric columns whose history is unknown.  The gigantic columns supported the front, underneath a wide pavement ran.

On the river side of the street, nearly opposite the large old mansion, were a public house, a flax-dresser’s shed, a sailmaker’s and a blacksmith’s then came the immense wharf, with a few warehouses scattering among which were a few dwelling houses.

The 29^th of May was kept as a holiday in that Old-fashioned town.  Many of the houses were decorated with boughs of oak, and garlands of flowers and ribbons and strings of blown bird’s eggs of every description.  It was called Oak-apple Day and no doubt kept in commemoration of Charles the Second.  Maypoles were put up for dancing and May-games were played.

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