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Archway - Tower Bank |
The 'Shute'In the days before domestic sanitation and waste collection, household waste and the contents of the dry closet had to be disposed of somehow. That somewhere was the sea. The Shute, the shoreline, more or less behind Coquet View, was the north side destination for the waste. Residents of the square accessed this via the path between the Jolly Fisherman and Coquet View. Residents of Church Street, via the path in the following photograph, which probably dates to the early 1900's. The path in the foreground of the picture went to a summer hut and later pigeon loft belong to Billy 'Pyeme' and a standing tap which filled a half barrel used as a trough for Jack Grey's (owner of the joiner's shop on the site of the art gallery) horses. There were also pig sties, belonging to Church Street residents, behind the current art gallery. Jack Browell remembers Mrs Smailes who lived in Little Adam's house having two sties and Billy Dawson, John Willie Dawson, Tommy Abbott, Eva Archbold, Jimmy Park and Billy Anderson all having one each; making eight sties altogether on this site.
North side residents had their own arrangements; a site just to the north of the north pier. When modern sanitation came to the village, it came to the north side first. South side residents had to continue using the shute. |
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