Dated house in Sussex Street

Dated house in Sussex Street

LONG before the Norman Conquest the market of Nottingham was established on a parcel of land that we nowadays call Weekday Cross.

Here it was that our Saxon and Danish forefathers did their daily marketing, and conducted what passed for commerce in their day.

Most of the commodities for this market were brought by land, but some, and a very considerable bulk in all were brought by water and landed at the Town Wharf hard by Trent Bridge.

A pathway connected this wharf with the ancient market place, and of that pathway Trent Bridge Footway and Sussex street are portions.

Until 1784 Sussex-street was called "Calf Alley," which no doubt is a corruption of ‘‘Town Wharf Alley.’’

Number 36, Sussex-street, bears a curious date stone showing the lettering L.W.P. 1656. This was erected in the year that Cromwell refused the title of King, and shows that the property was then in the hands of William and Phoebe Lealand.

William Lealand was a dyer, and in 1655 he bought five acres of land from a certain Anthony Malin. This land was part of the estate which before the Dissolution of the monasteries, was in the hands of the Franciscans or Grey Friars of whose important house in Nottingham not a vestige remains above ground.

It is only by such odd finds as this date stone in Sussex-street that antiquarians are able to piece together little by little the past of our country, and this particular find is interesting as showing how extensive was the Franciscan Friary of Nottingham.