The Side

In The Side there were shops for merchants, drapers and other trades. Bourne describes the street as a very great descent, narrow in width, from the Head of it to Castle Stairs, where it opens out in a spacious breadth into Sandhill. It had shops of merchants, goldsmith's, milliners, upholsters etc on either side. The east side of the street from the upper part to Allhallow Pant (HER 6529) was called Cordiner or Cordwainer Rawe. Gray reports that in the middle of The Side (presumably near Dog Leap Stairs) is an ancient stone house, an appendix to the Castle, which belonged to the Lord Lumleys (see HER 6591). According to Bourne, the tenements in The Side supported the chantries of St Catherine, SS Peter and Paul, St Cuthbert, in the church of St Nicholas. Welford describes a house once belonging to the nuns of St Bartholomew on the west side of The Side.