Cadgers

parrymac

Message 19230 · 2 Nov 1999 23:18:08 · Fixed-width font · Whole thread

Rosemary wrote:
<SNIP>
>...(not to mention
>the Edinburgh street name). I like to think of the cadgers among the
>(church) canons, not military cannons!

Further explanation comes from George S. Emmerson's Scotland Through Her
Country Dances:
"The Canongate is the most celebrated of Edinburgh's historic streets...The
word "gate" is the Germanic word for road, or way, and the Canongate has
taken its name from the fact that it was the "way" from the walled town
clustered on the castle rock down the long slope to the Augustinian abbey
of the Holyrood, established in 1128." The cadgers, or pack-men, hired
carriers of goods, conveyed their loads along this street. When the city
walls of Edinburgh were built in the 15th century, a great stone portal
opened in the wall on to the Canongate.

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Glyn & Nona Parry
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