The York's medieval quarter that is known as the Shambles is a favourite amongst visitors' attractions.
Shambles is an archaic term for an al fresco slaughterhouse and meat market.
An interestingly good amount of history could be revealed by a place name.
Such is the case of the aptly named "The Shambles", the beautiful medieval cobbled street in
York that was once lined with butchers' shops and stalls, or benches for
displaying meat known as "
Shamels" in the Anglo-Saxon dialect of the era.
The meat was hung up outside the shops and laid out for sale on what are now the shop window-bottoms.
It is still possible to see some of the original butcher’s meat-hooks attached to the shop fronts.
Lacking modern-day sanitation facilities, there was a constant problem of how to dispose of the waste produced by the slaughter of animals in the city.
The pavements are raised either side of the cobbled street to form a channel where the butchers would wash away their offal and blood twice a week.
As you walk down the ancient street and look up, the overhanging timber-framed buildings—some dating from the 14th century—appear to almost touch in places.
In some sections of the Shambles it is possible to touch both sides of the street with your arms outstretched.
The architecture which now appears so quaint had a very practical purpose. The overhanging timber-framed fronts of the buildings are deliberately close-set so as to give shelter
to the ‘
wattle and daub’ walls below. This would also have protected the meat from any direct sunshine.
"The Shambles" is sometimes used as a general term for the maze of twisting, narrow lanes which render York so unique in charm.
At its heart is the lane actually called the
Shambles, arguably the best preserved medieval street in the world.
It was mentioned in the Doomsday Book of William the Conqueror in 1086. Many of the buildings on the street today date back to the late fourteenth and fifteenth century (around
1350-1475).
Jettying was a building technique used in medieval times in which the upper floors projected beyond the lower floors, thus increasing available space without obstructing the street.
It had the added benefit of not raising property taxes, which were based on the ground floor area.
In 1872, there were twenty-five butchers’ shops lining the street, but now there are none.
Today, the Shambles is a wonderful place to stroll, to shop, and to eat.
Quaint little shops, cafes, tea rooms, and restaurants line the street—winner of Google’s Most Picturesque Street in Britain for 2010.
A View of York, Shambles
References:
1. http://www.historyofyork.org.uk/themes/medieval/the-shambles
2. http://britainandbritishness.com/2016/01/what-shambles-yorks-famous-medieval.html?cn-reloaded=1
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