Cox Street - River Excavations

August 1933

COX STREET EXCAVATIONS (Continued)

Close by was a pond of water called "Hobb's Hole," and a Mayor of Hobb's Hole was chosen yearly, and dipped in the pool. The small brook running through the Swanswell empties itself at the new bridge. The fields (now Godiva Street) had large beds of marshy ground, and willows growing in large quantities, which were cut for the making of baskets, fencing, etc, while the bark was carried away and used by the wheelwrights for heating the cart and wagon tyres when hooping.

Mill Lane was a very narrow lane, and old citizens still living remember when it was difficult to take a load of hay down without fouling the house fronts. A Mr. Brown, of Ford Street, aged about 96 years, and still able to walk around, remembers the Mill Gate, or Bastill Gate, when he was a lad of about 10 years old. At that time it was occupied, and when taken down in 1847 Mr. Brown kept as a memento a part of the old lock from the door. Close by the Gate and on the right hand side of Godiva Street from Cox Street end, beneath the brick houses are yet to be seen the stone foundations of the old Malt-house. This building joined up to the Gate, and the houses were built there about 80 years ago. Mr. Molesworth's house and shop with stone fronts, and standing at the bottom corner of Cope Street, was built about 1843-7 by a Mr. Connop, who was a builder, and who lived at the opposite corner house, now a butcher's shop. The stone front which was thought to be from Mill Gate, was stone from the Earl's Mill, and not Mill Gate.

It is still within the memory of some when only a small bridge of wood crossed the river.

Now to come to the many finds of various things - a rubbish tip of hundreds of years ago is the paradise of an antiquary, and so this spot proved to be, as will be seen. Scores of bones for the making of buttons were found. Usually rib bones were used, as they needed very little paring to make the required thickness. The method of cutting must have been by an instrument with three cutters, the centre cutter or borer being longer than the two outer, as in no instance was the bone cut clean through, but only half way, when the bone was turned, and the centre cutter inserted in the hole it had pierced, so the boring was as level as though it was done from one side. Bones found in a Norman fort in another part of England were cut out in the same manner. If a bone was wide, and two buttons could be cut from it, this was done, and each button was cut close to prevent waste. As the bone narrowed one larger button would be cut. Strange it seems, but up to the present no buttons have been found.