Origins of 'Hornpot Lane'

The origin of the name Hornpot Lane has been the object of speculation for some time. The first known written example of the name, as 'Hornepottelane', was written in 1295 (Palliser 1978, 11).

Before Wenham's excavation others, such as Lindkvist , Smith and Raine, had attempted to uncover the origin of the name. They tentatively associated it with horn working, and suggested horn-pot meant 'drinking horn' or 'cup' (Wenham 1964, 28).

In an article for the Yorkshire Philosophical Society in 1964 Wenham suggested a plausible explanation. Having simply looked up the word 'pot' in the Oxford English Dictionary he found that the word has a particular use in Northern English, especially in areas where there was a strong Scandinavian linguistic influence, to mean 'a deep hole or pit dug in the ground, a tan pit…'

On the basis of his discovery of what he interpreted as a horners' retting pit during the 1957-8 excavation (Wenham 1964, 28), Wenham believed that its origin lay in the Northern English use of the word pot to mean 'pit, or tan pit' and that it combined reference to the horners and their retting pits (pots).

Dr. Sarah Rees Jones (Rees Jones 1987) has added to this that the etymology of Hornpot Lane may combine references to both the horn workers (horners) and the metal workers (potters), who also worked in the area. Medieval metal-workers were known by many names depending on the types of objects they made and the metals they worked with. The York Freemen's Roll, 1272-1671 (Collins 1897) lists metal-workers as blacksmiths, horsmarshals, founders, goldsmiths, founders, bladesmyths, cutlers and armorers, among numerous other names. In the medieval period one group of metalworkers were known as potters, a name probably derived from the manufacture of clay moulds made for casting, or possibly from the production of domestic cooking pots.

Hornpot Lane in the early 1900s, looking towards Holy Trinity Church.
(Photographer unknown. Reproduced courtesy of City of York Council from ImagineYork.co.uk)

1957–58 Excavations by Peter Wenham

In 1957-8 three trenches were dug by the noted York historian and avocational archaeologist Peter Wenham, before the construction of a new school building on the site of recently demolished Fox Inn, which at that time, prior to re-numbering of the street, was 65 and 66 Low Petergate and is now 68 Low Petergate. His three trenches were located below and behind the present 68 Low Petergate. The excavation was carried out by students from St. John's College, pupils from York College for Girls, members of the York Excavation Committee, volunteers, and by excavators paid by the Ministry of Works (fore-runner of English Heritage) (Wenham 1972, 65).

Location of trenches excavated by Peter Wenham in relation to modern buildings and 2004 excavation

Wenham identified both Roman and medieval structures. He identified four phases of Roman buildings, one of wood and three of stone (Wenham 1972, 65). Post holes and a brick oven-base or hearth were the only surviving evidence for the earliest, probably first century, structures. The later structures dated from the second to the fourth centuries and comprised limestone rubble, cobble and opus signinum wall foundations and floors (Wenham 1972, 88).

Wenham's team also found the limestone and rubble foundations of an Anglo-Norman building constructed on timber piles and sill beams. Overlying the remains of the building foundations there was a thick layer of what Wenham described as 'domestic rubbish'.

In about 1300 wooden piles were driven into the deposits for the foundations of a building constructed in 1300-1350; which is almost certainly to be equated with structures found during the 2004 excavation. Wenham associated this structure with deposits containing quantities of horn cores and part of a lined retting pit for soaking horn, which led him to interpret this as the site of a horner's workshop.

A second later medieval building was identified, associated with two clay lined furnaces or hearths used for bronze working, in the north-eastern part of the site. The foundations were made from cobbles in a U-sectioned foundation trench and were interpreted as the footings of a possible 14th or 15th century building.

The latest medieval building which he recorded was built around the middle of the 15th century and comprised massive stone walls built of roughly shaped, irregular blocks of magnesian limestone. Parts of this building had survived, incorporated into the York College for Girls. This building was recorded by the RCHM before its partial demolition in advance of the extension of the York College for Girls.

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W. A. Pantin

The demolition in 1957 of the majority of 68 Low Petergate, formerly the Fox Inn, to make way for a new school building was a great loss. However, the building made a significant posthumous contribution to the development of our understanding of medieval town houses.

W. A. Pantin used the building as an example in what was the first major typological study of English medieval urban houses along with forty other buildings from seventeen other English towns (Pantin 1962-3, 202-39; Grenville 1997, 165). The 15th-century building had four stories and was most probably jettied like the buildings opposite on Low Petergate. It was of notable for its unusual first floor hall, built at a right angle to the street. This configuration was adopted to allow a respectable sized hall to be created within the narrow urban tenement. Pantin categorised this form of building as the 'narrow plan, right angle' type.

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