Photograph credit Philip Corlis
Fitted to a metal gate on the steps of York's city wall at Micklegate Bar is this roundel made in Fetter Lane by C Dearlove.
Dearloves were whitesmiths, a company who worked with white iron, that is tin, the workers at Dearloves would have
finished or polished the tin ready for it to be painted and decorated as you see with this fine emblem of York, the White Rose.
Fetter lane forms part of medieval York, it runs to the south of Micklegate Bar and joins Skeldergate which runs parallel to
the River Ouse. Incidentally, the word fetter refers to a chain or manacle, made out of iron that was used to restrain a
prisoner around the ankles.
I wonder if Richard Duke of York and his son Edmund were restrained with such manacles before their decapitated heads ended up on Micklegate Bar in 1460.
You needn't worry, Dearloves were not involved in such a barbaric practice, the company worked in York during the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Dearloves were whitesmiths, a company who worked with white iron, that is tin, the workers at Dearloves would have
finished or polished the tin ready for it to be painted and decorated as you see with this fine emblem of York, the White Rose.
Fetter lane forms part of medieval York, it runs to the south of Micklegate Bar and joins Skeldergate which runs parallel to
the River Ouse. Incidentally, the word fetter refers to a chain or manacle, made out of iron that was used to restrain a
prisoner around the ankles.
I wonder if Richard Duke of York and his son Edmund were restrained with such manacles before their decapitated heads ended up on Micklegate Bar in 1460.
You needn't worry, Dearloves were not involved in such a barbaric practice, the company worked in York during the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
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