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108
STREETS.
Names and Architecture.—^Many of tlie streets of
York, notwithstanding considerable recent improvements,
are still very narrow and irregular. Up to within the
last forty or fifty years, numerous houses with overhanging
stories, through whose topmost windows people living
on opposite sides of the street could easily shake hands,
might be found in several localities. Of these relics of
the middle ages, built of timber and plaster, scarcely
any now remain. Probably the quaintest and most
interesting streets to the visitor are Stonegate, Fossgate,
College Street, Goodramgate, Finkle Street, Water Lane,,
Walmgate, and Petergate.
In and about the city are a number of large mansions,
once the town houses of the nobility, when York was a
fashionable city, and the centre of attraction for the
north of England. Occasionally a sedan chair may even yet
be seen—and two or three examples of the extinguisher for
the torches, carried by the link boys before the age of gas,
remain affixed to certain old residences. Bootham, Monkgate,
Parliament Street (in which fairs and markets are held), St.
Leonard's Place and Museum Street (both containing very
fine houses), are all broad open thoroughfares of modern
construction.
We append some of the old names which still survive,
and their origin :
Bootham.—Said by Drake to have derived its name from
the booths annually set up during the fair kept by the Abbot
of St. Mary's ; but probably it is of more ancient orgin,
dating from the time of the Romans, who had their funeral
piles here—the derivation from hoeth " to burn.
Coney Street, from the Saxon word " Conyng '' a king,
Davygate derives its name from David le Lardiner,
Keeper of the King's Yenison in the forest of Galtres, time
of Henry IIL He resided in a mansion called Davy Hall.
Finkle Street (sometimes called " Mucky Peg Lane ")
is derived from the Danish word " Fmc/e," an angle or
corner.
GiLLYGATE, SO called from the Church of St. Giles, which
formerly stood there.