BEFORE the construction of Deansway and the Worcestershire College, the area around the Bishop’s Palace formed a series of narrow streets and courtyards, sloping down from High Street to South Quay.
Much of the area’s timber-framed structures were cleared from the 1930s onwards but a few streets remain as do some clues to their historical significance.
Copenhagen Street ran as it does today, directly from the Guildhall to South Quay, where it met the quayside between the Wherry Inn and the Sunday School.
Fish Street, as is illustrated by this 1888 F S Bayley sketch, ran uninterrupted all the way from the Guildhall to St Alban’s Church, now Maggs Day Centre.
Deansway now cuts this street in two but at one time you would have wandered between overhanging timber-framed buildings and brick frontages to the rear of St Alban’s.
A little dissected section of Fish Street still exists alongside the church where it terminates at the college.
Here you would have faced the rear of the large Dents glove factory, demolished in 1960.
At this junction, Palace Yard led south past the Bishop’s Palace to Worcester Cathedral or north up Little Fish Street to join with Copenhagen Street.
And what about the name?
The proximity to the quay was the reason for the construction of a fishmongers’ hall and the name Fish Street.
The giant sturgeon that can be seen on display at Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum is rumoured to have been caught nearby.
A similar-sized fish is inscribed into the stonework of the Water Gate near Cathedral Ferry.
Another Worcester delicacy was farmed near this point — lamperns.
These were caught in wicker, bottle-shaped putcher traps.
Lamperns are the migratory European lamprey — Lampetra fluviatilis — which, like the sturgeon, are a rare sight in British waters now due to water pollution and man-made obstacles such as weirs.
As these issues are reversed, lamprey numbers have seen an increase in some locations.
This ancient species, once abundant in the River Severn, was a significant part of the Worcester diet.
It is a vampiric specimen with rows of teeth on a sucker-like, jawless mouth that attaches itself to fish and feeds upon their blood as a parasite, much like a leech.
The species is more ancient than dinosaurs, evolving over 360 million years ago, and was considered a delicacy.
There is evidence of the Romans eating lamprey and that it was a potent meal for nobility.
In 1135 King Henry I is recorded as having gorged himself to death on the creatures.
His cause of death was recorded as ‘a surfeit of lampreys’, proving perhaps that you can have too much of a good thing.
Immerse yourself in the times when dinosaurs roamed the earth this summer at Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum.
Exhibition Dinosaurs on the Doorstep is free to visit and open to Sunday, September 8.
Plan your visit at museumsworcestershire.org.uk.
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